Geordie: Hope You Like It - 1973

The great city of Newcastle's answer to Slade, Geordie, fronted by soon to be AC-DC lead singer Brian Johnson were actually, for a while better than many at the time gave them credit for. 

I remember buying this album as a schoolboy at the time and being incredibly ridiculed for it. I recall a boy who I didn't have much to do with coming up to me and saying "is it true you've got a Geordie album?". He asked as if I had been seen snogging my mother. The Emerson, Lake & Palmer fan was horrified. Not me. Give me this any day. 

The opening track, Keep On Rockin', is far more like Nazareth than Slade, as indeed is Give You Till Monday. Both these tracks rock, big time. They are full of heavy riffs, thumping drums solid, muscular bass and Johnson's Ian Gillan meets Dan McCafferty whisky-soaked bluesy rock voice. Upon listening to these, at the time, I considered them "too heavy" for my young taste and stuck to my Mott The Hoople, Slade, T. Rex and David Bowie. Quite why boys who were into Deep Purple didn't like this is beyond me. It is actually quality rock. 

Hope You Like It is supremely muscular slow-paced, slightly menacing rock. Once more, the Deep Purple comparisons are simple too great to avoid, aren't they? Go on, just take a listen. Hear what I mean? Of course you do. 

Don't Do That has the group sounding almost punky on a breakneck rocker of a track. The riffs and vocals are delivered at 100 mph. 

If All Because Of You isn't one hell of a glam rock track then I wasn't fourteen in 1973. It has great glam riffs and, of course a pounding drum sound and "hey hey hey" in the chorus. What more could you want? It's a great hidden gem of a glam single.

The lads go slightly country rock meets rockabilly on the catchy and enjoyable Old Time Rocker. Throwbacks to the late fifties/early sixties were quite popular with rock bands in the early seventies. Brian Johnson sounds quite a bit like Robert Plant in places on this. 

It was the thing to do to include a maudlin ballad in amongst all that rffing and we get Oh Lord in this vein, with guitarist Vic Malcolm singing on an acoustic tale of his previous hard times. The sleeve notes said he wrote it when he was at absolute rock bottom. I have to respect the song for that. Half way through, the band break out into some powerful rock backing, raising the song up. Good one.

Natural Born Loser returns to boogie rock in a very Nazareth style. Strange Man starts with some Ian Gillan shrieks and we duly get another heavy chugger. This is proper heavy rock and should have given due credit for being so. Even more Purple-esque is Ain't It Just Like A Woman, with its titular Strange Kind Of Woman paraphrase. Johnson's vocal is most Plant-like on this one, though, in its high pitch. You know, I've changed my mind - the song sounds more like Zeppelin than Purple.

Geordie's Lost His Liggy is a throwaway piece of country-influenced singalong fun, it is a traditional Newcastle folk song. Using one or two of the non-album singles at this point - such as Electric Lady and Can You Do It - would have been better inclusions, though. 

You know, apart from the afore-mentioned All Because Of You and possibly Don't Do That (in parts) there is no glam on this album. It is all heavy rock with a poppy edge. 

It is not a bad album at all, though. Much like The Sweet's Sweet Fanny Adams album, this was a great heavy but poppy album. Sure, it is not an essential part of anyone's collection, but I am so pleased to have revisited it after all these years, pleasantly surprised.