White Lion - Wait

White Lion are one of the odder entries into the hair/glam metal sphere at face value, aren’t they? Having one of your most popular hits being an anti-war anthem – and a good selection of your tracks being focused on social issues, rather than women on tour buses focused -  goes quite a long way towards setting them apart from, well, every single other hair metal band in existence. Unless Mötley Crüe did a cover of Blowin’ In The Wind I’m not familiar with (and if they did, it was absolutely not an anti-war anthem). This is not to say in any way that the New York outfit isn’t worth the time to check out, though. Far from it. You’ve got your pioneers and your populisers, and hair metal’s short shelf life was defined by the era of who wore it best. Or who wore enough to cover them completely, in some cases. 
White Lion hardly arrived on the scene like they’d been shot out of a gun in 1983. But after signing for a major label in the late 80s and a brief pause, suddenly the band were the cat’s pyjamas, rubbing against so many hairspray-covered shoulders that a discarded cigarette might have ended the genre in its tracks. Of course, this was only fair and more than a little overdue, thanks to the extremely talented line-up they had put together; singer Mike Tramp and guitarist Vito Bratta played off each other with power and precision mostly unheard of in the scene. Songs that might have seemed too saccharine for even the sweetest tooth took on a measure of maturity when piped out through talented players. Your mileage may vary, but White Lion were severely underrated before their insane push into the limelight and are a little on the forgotten side now despite it. Which is strange, because a lion never forgets. Or maybe that was a rhino; I can’t remember.

The band are still knocking about in some form, with singer Mike Tramp the last remaining member of the “new White Lion,” as they have dubbed themselves. But for this Rock Song of the Week entry, we are jumping way back with Wait, a killer track with quite possibly the jauntiest guitar solo ever put to plastic (it still absolutely rips, fear not). As an additional point, if you’ve never seen the album art for 1989’s less well-received but still popular Big Game from these guys, I urge you to for matters of hilarity. Yes, the political statement is hardly subtle, but what on earth could make that lion look so sad? Unless he’s going through a particularly tough divorce and is giving up half of all his carcasses. A matter of pride, I suppose.