Faster Pussycat: Babylon – The Elektra Years 1987-1992

On July 7, 1987, 2 weeks before Guns N Roses would release the album that would change the hard rock scene forever, Hollywood’s Faster Pussycat released their self-titled debut.  At this point in time there were hard rock/metal bands coming out of the woodworks and while a lot of them came and went without a blip, Faster Pussycat managed to stand out from the crowd with their own brand of hard rock meshed with glam and sleaze.   Babylon – The Elektra Years 1987-1992 is a great new four CD box set that brings together their three releases from that time period along with the EP’s Live and Rare and Belted, Buckled And Booted.

To me there is no better example of Faster Pussycat than their eponymous debut.  A little rawer and less produced, almost every cut here drips with sleaze, swagger and glam and at times are as much New York Dolls and to a lesser degree the Stones as they are Aerosmith, Motley Crue and Guns, with songs like “Don’t Change That Song”, “Bathroom Wall”, “Smash Alley” and “Bottle In Front Of Me” as perfect examples.  They also mix things up on bluesier cuts like the slower “No Room For Emotion” and “Cathouse”, which adds some great honky tonk piano.  One notable misstep is “Babylon” which sounds like Licensed To Ill era Beastie Boys and just doesn’t work here.  

While it became their biggest success, album number two, Wake Me When It’s Over, found them leaving behind a lot of the swagger and glam of the debut.  Having said that there is still a lot of really great music here.  Quite a few of the tracks do stick close to the original sound of the band including “Little Dove”, which throws in a little talk box at one point, “Ain’t No Way Around It” with some nice harmonica, “Poison Ivy” and “Tattoo”.  Some of the other highlights include a couple of more straight ahead rock tunes in “Where There’s A Whip There’s A Way”, an almost seven minute long tune with some great guitar, and “Gonna Walk”, which interestingly has a bit of a ZZ Top vibe in the guitar work and even has a little “La Grange” “haw haw haw” in the vocals.  The album also includes a couple of ballads in “Please Dear”, a slow Stones-y track and “House of Pain”, a generic, very Poison-like power ballad that screams “cash grab” and ended up being the biggest song of their career.  One other track worth mentioning is “Arizona Indian Doll”, an interesting cut with it's jazzy vibe and a bit of a Stray Cats beat.  Following Wake Me… the band put out the EP Live and Rare, which is found on disc three, and is comprised of three live cuts, edited versions of two album cuts and a remix of “Bathroom Wall”.  While the edits and remix don’t really add much to what you already have with the album versions, the live cuts do a great job of showing what they could do onstage.  

By the time the band entered the studio for album three, the music industry was moving towards grunge, and Faster Pussycat was moving even further from where they started.  Once again they open with an almost seven minute song in “Nonstop To Nowhere”, an interesting mix of hard rock with some working class rock and a touch of psychedelia.  The first traces of the experimentation on the album can be found on the next cut, “The Body Thief”, a very catchy hard driving tune with a funk beat and industrial-esque vocals in the chorus.  “Jack The Bastard” harkens back to the sleaze and swagger of their debut, but with a harder edge (a route they take again later on with “Maid In Wonderland”).  They revisit the funk side of things on the next two tracks with “Big Dictionary”, a tune that is dumbed down with the juvenile lyrics, but is helped out with some nice harmonica and a horn section, and “Madame Ruby’s Love Boutique”, a track that is strongly reminiscent of Aerosmith with a bit of funk thrown in.  Shifting gears again they slow things down with “Friends”, a laid-back bluesy/roots track that sounds a bit like Faces and even has some mandolin and features the legendary Nicky Hopkins on piano.  “Cat Bash” is more of a minute and forty-two second long interlude, but it’s a dark, industrial tinged piece that is a precursor to the direction the band headed when they reunited in 2001. Like “Babylon” on the debut, “Loose Booty” is another complete misstep sounding like a leftover track from an early Red Hot Chili Peppers album.  While completely different from anything else they ever recorded, “Mr Lovedog” is a slow and moody tune, with a hint of psychedelia.  It is a beautiful tribute to the late Mother Love Bone frontman Andrew Wood and finds them doing a great job at inhabiting the spirit of that band.  “Out With A Bang” is another solid straight ahead rocker with some hints of their older stuff and closes out the album strongly.  Although stylewise it’s a bit scattered with the band moving in a lot of different directions, Whipped is a solid album that shows the band experimenting and moving forward with the shifting musical tides.  Also included on disc four are four bonus cuts that were originally released on the Belted, Buckled and Booted EP.  Along with an alternate, shorter version of “Nonstop to Nowhere” are “Too Tight” and “Charge Me Up”, which were recorded during the sessions for Whipped and harken back to the sounds of their debut with the former being a little more of a straight-ahead rock tune and the latter a little bluesier and funkier with horns. The final track is a cover of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” that’s been given the Faster Pussycat treatment, and while it’s passable, it’s definitely not one of their stronger tracks.  Babylon: The Elektra Years 1987-1992 does a great job of covering this first era of Faster Pussycat, and while they had their share of lesser tracks, overall is an outstanding collection showcasing just how good this band was.  

(HNE Recordings)