I can easily count at least a half-dozen reasons why I can’t stand Whitesnake, but let me tell you two of them as they originate from the band’s U.S. breakthrough album. Slide It In. The album has been given the “Deluxe Edition” treatment, complete with an alternate U.K. version that’s available stateside for the first time, and the packaging would prompt novices in thinking that Slide It In is indeed an album worthy enough for such attention to detail.Thankfully, I’m old enough to remember the album when it was originally release, and that perspective provides me with enough experience to tell you that no, Slide It In is nowhere near the level of quality that’s usually designated for this kind of re-issue.
My stories will enable you to see where my criticism begins.
It starts with an ex-girlfriend. She was a young tennis player that was very impressionable with music, and I obligated her with what I’d like to believe were good album choices. Aside from a lame Aztec Camera album, she initiated her own passion for music, one that has permanently changed my perception of U2’s The Unforgettable Fire.
Her quest for music didn’t end with me. She had a girlfriend who really attached herself to everything pop-metal and this young floozy would often throw out such recommendations like Motley Crue’s Theatre of Pain or Ozzy’s Bark At The Moon. Her most passionate recommendation though, came with Whitesnake’s Slide It In.
She bought my girlfriend a cassette copy of it, and I commented on this new addition one night on her waterbed, looking for appropriate mood music.
The irony, of course, is that Slide It In is a record that screams misogyny, sexism, and every other Smell The Glove entendre that you could gather just by reading the album title. When I asked her opinion of it, she came across as a little pissed that someone she considered a friend would actually recommend this kind of music to her. We listened to the cassette a bit, laughed at all of the juvenile references to penises, vaginas and intercourse, and the entire experience left me with a bit of a soft spot for “Love Ain’t No Stranger.”
“Do you want it?” she asked after side one.
Whitesnake was big at this point, but not Tawny Kitaen big. It would take a couple of years for their irritatingly huge success based in large part to those eye-candy videos that featured some star-fucker who shacked up with one of the world’s finest Robert Plant impersonators, David Coverdale.
This is where the second example of my dismissal comes in.
One summer at the swimming pool where I worked at, a fellow lifeguard brought in a tape of a band he just discovered. He demanded that we play a sample over the loudspeakers, and in doing so, declared the band to be “the next Led Zeppelin.” The statement alone made me angry, but what really made my blood boil was the opening notes of “Gambler.”
“So, you’re comparing Whitesnake’s Slide It In with Led Zeppelin? Have you even heard a Led Zeppelin album, dude?”
Combine all of this back-story, the embarrassing cover art, and over 40 minutes of over-dramatic readings of 8th grade misogyny, you’d probably surmise that my review would be swift and brutal.
It isn’t, because Slide It In never pretends to be anything more than a farm league Led Zeppelin album to begin with. One could definitely complain that a man of David Coverdale’s lineage should have enough experience to come up come up with a line better than “I’m gonna slide it in, right to the top!” but then you’ll recall how Deep Purple’s lyrics never got confused with the Bard either.
You then begin to wonder how bright Coverdale actually is, not only in terms of stupid lyrics, but also in the manner in which he latched on to only one dimension of Robert Plant’s persona when scrounging together the musicians that became Whitesnake. He focused on Plant’s open-shirt “I’m gonna give you every inch of my love” phase, replacing it with his own “slide it in…right to the top, bay-buh” and a bunch of grunts, gasps, and other guttural enunciations.
If you’re into that Led Zeppelin-the one where they begin and end with “Whole Lotta Love” and where lemon juice serves as a fine metaphor for male ejaculate, then Whitesnake may indeed be “the new Led Zeppelin” like my dim-witted co-worker exclaimed.
But the Zeppelin plagiarism isn’t prevalent on Slide It In, which ultimately is why I can’t completely pan it and why I can’t be too worked up about its obvious shortcomings. In fact, it resembles Coverdale’s old band Deep Purple than it does Led Zeppelin. And when you’ve got all of that baggage removed from Whitesnake’s blueprint, it makes them nearly tolerable.
So what about the entire US/UK version debate? The difference in the mix is completely noticeable, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “rough” or “rawer.” It’s still a very mainstream album, and for anyone who thought there exists a very rough and raw edit of Slide It In, you will undoubtedly face the same level of disappointment that I found.
As much as I hate to admit it, the U.S. version turns out to be the superior mix. It’s richer, more dynamic-creating a wider sound that makes the band larger than what they really were. The band needed a break in the states, and the U.K. mix simply captured the band as what they were: a project that Coverdale cobbled together after Deep Purple imploded. The trick may have worked a bit when there wasn’t a Deep Purple filling that void, but when the classic Purple line-up ended up reuniting for Perfect Strangers, that left Whitesnake as just another also-ran.
The U.S. version corrected this, placing Slide It In alongside Deep Purple in terms of quality and scope, while packing a bit more aggression than anything on Perfect Strangers.
But before we start inflating Coverdale’s head more than it actually is, keep in mind that Perfect Strangers was a lame offering from Purple to begin with. And while Slide It In may indeed trump Coverdale’s old band reunion effort, it certainly doesn’t mean it’s good enough to justify the fancy reissue and the inclusion of the discarded, original UK mix certainly doesn’t mean that Whitesnake’s best offering deserves a second glance from those wondering what they might have missed the first time.
