Search - Warrant :: Cherry Pie (Exp)

One of the best hair metal records.

RedPower | Kansas City, KS | 05/15/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Okay, so the title track was a little overplayed in its day, but the rest of this album should have put Warrant on top of the world. These songs are well-written, well-produced, and loud as hell. They even flow together almost seamlessly, as great albums tend to. The sound quality of the original is fine, but I'd suggest going for the remastered release. It has a couple of extra (forgettable, mostly) tracks, but it sounds even better still.

There seems to have been some venom directed at "Cherry Pie", maybe because of the brashness of the video, or maybe because it made hair metal just a little too popular. Don't let that put you off; most bands of the day would dream of making such a creative, listenable record. I wouldn't give just anything five stars, but this one still stands out as a classic of its genre, as good today as it was fifteen years ago. Don't hesitate to pick up this gem. Just skip the first track from time to time; you've probably heard it enough!"

A pop-metal classic

Daniel Maltzman | Arlington, MA, USA | 12/28/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"After becoming one of pop-metal's biggest acts with their debut album "Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich" (1989) Warrant returned the following year with their sophomore album "Cherry Pie" (1990). Released in the spring of 1990, "Cherry Pie" is one of the last hair-metal albums to go multi-platinum and receive massive airplay on MTV. The not so thinly veiled sexualy innuendo titled album enjoyed a healthy reign on the charts, several hit singles, and mass sales. 1990 sure was a good year if you were all about spandex, hair spray and lipstick, with bands like Warrant, Poison, Motley Crue, Skid Row, and Cinderella all enjoying huge success. While the entire rock and pop-culture landscape was about to change forever, overnight, for the time being, the 90s had not yet begun. 1990 was the dinosaurs' last romp through the jungle before the comet, known as "Nevermind" would render them extinct.



"Cherry Pie" more or less follows the typical hair-metal album formula: a couple catchy anthem rockers, a few power ballads, and a bunch of filler. But "Cherry Pie," is definitely a cut-above most hair-metal albums from the era. For here the arena-rockers are ultra catchy, the ballads are far less generic, and even the filler between the obvious singles sounds good. If you only knew Warrant from their infamous "Cherry Pie" video, it may be hard to believe, but "Cherry Pie" sees Warrant grow musically and lyrically from their debut. While "Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich" is no doubt a fun album, it lacks substance and is untimely a fluff piece. By contrast, while "Cherry Pie" is done in the same style of its predecessor, it is more ambitious and has more bite.



Singer Jani Lane proves to be a first-rate songwriter with this batch of finely crafted songs. Lane's songwriting abilities and knack for writing well crafted songs are often overlooked, as Warrant is seen an being mostly a band of style over substance. Guitarist Joey Allen, while not Eddie Van Halen, is another underrated musician, churning out catchy riffs and killer solos, song after song. Compared to some of his peers, Allen is easily a cut or two above C.C. Deville of Poison, (who guests on the album's title track) and is just as good as Motley Crue's Mick Mars.



The album's title track "Cherry Pie" proved to be both a curse and a blessing for the band. While it's no doubt a catchy song, it's probably the cheesiest video of the pop-metal era, if not of all-time. While it may have seemed cool back in 1990, by the time grunge and alternative rock hit the mainstream, the video was deemed an embarrassment and passé. Still, the title track is a classic from the era, a relic it may be. The band tackles racism with the blistering "Uncle Tom's Cabin," a tale of murder in a southern town. A song of betrayal, "I Saw Red" sees Warrant get as despondent as just about any band that came out of Seattle. "Bed of Roses" comes straight out of the Bon Jovi song book, only is less nauseating. The downbeat but hopeful "Mr. Rainmaker" is probably one of the catchiest songs Lane ever penned. "Sure Feels Good to Me, " "Love in Stereo," "Song and Dance Man," You're the Only Hell Your Mamma Ever Raised," and "Train Train" are fun, better than average filler. They're mostly there as buffer between the big singles. Still, they're good enough and keep up the album's momentum. "And Ode to Tipper Gore" is a hilarious, albeit juvenile 30 seconds of profanity.



"Cherry Pie" isn't "Dark Side of the Moon" or "Sgt Pepper," but it doesn't try to be anything it isn't. It's an 80s style party album. But that said, it's a damn fine well-written one, and irrelevant as most of the album is, the band do manage to show some depth with "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which is a greater accomplishment than most of Warrant's peers. Among the hundreds of pop-metal albums from the 1980s and early 90s, "Cherry Pie" remains one of the most rocking and well written. If you are a fan 80/early 90s melodic hard rock, "Cherry Pie" is a must have.



The 2004 remastered edition comes with two bonus songs "Game of War," from the movie "Gladiator" (1991) and a demo of "The Power," which should be of interest to fans of the band.

"

Lots of Fun

Some Gravity | Indiana, USA | 10/31/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Cherry Pie", Warrant's sophomore album, is lots of fun. All of the songs are good, and the best tracks on this album are "Cherry Pie", "I Saw Red", "Bed of Roses", "Love in Stereo", and especially Warrant's "Ode To Tipper Gore"! That was hillarious, someone out there should play it for her. "Cherry Pie" was first released in 1990, but if you bought the version that was re-issued and re-released in 2004, you will get to hear the bonus tracks on this album: "Game of War" and "The Power". "Cherry Pie" is a very good album, and hopefully Warrant will now record a new album with new lead singer Jaime St. James( the lead singer for the 80's group Black 'n Blue, a great singer and a good guy."