Escape: “An act of breaking free from confinement or control”

(from Oxford Languages)

How many people did fantasize about escaping from the difficult reality during this Convid-19? Many. Many people wanted to break free from the sudden unexperienced situation and go back to where we were. Many people didn’t have a chance to prepare for this. On the other hand, there were also many people who wanted to escape to paradise from the endless job as essential workers. Life isn’t always easy. Though a longing to escape is typical in our adult life including the controlled corporate life, it gets more significant in this pandemic but it’s still hard to get away because of travel restrictions. The pandemic is still turbulent in many parts of the world, please keep taking care of yourself.

There was an unknown hard rock album released in 1991 including good refreshing songs that would motivate us to abandon all the struggles we had and escape to another world. That album was Don’t Come Easy by New York City-based Tyketto.

This Tyketto’s debut album is still one of my top favorites, I listen a lot. Each song’s title and lyric matches with the melodies. Most notable songs are definitely “Wings” and “Sail Away”. From the intro of ‘Wings”, dynamic guitar melodies are taken off to high above Manhattan skyscrapers like birds. Melodies and vocal are flying free while looking down the crowded Manhattan streets and busy offices. I dream of having wings to fly and go somewhere while listening to this second single from the album. Unlike “Wings”, “Sail Away”, the last song of the album, is not a love song. This is a positive escape song with friends after leaving everything behind in the dry land named the big city. The modern and adult version of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Break free=nobody will catch anymore. Stress-free, worry-free. So long, farewell, whatever. Like the lyric, “no regret, no longing”. This unknown masterpiece is the best to listen when you don’t want to deal with anything anymore. Melodies and vocals are strongly sailing away in the middle of nowhere under the blue sky like a small white yacht. A perfect song to finish an album.

The attractions of Don’t Come Easy aren’t only those two escape songs. This album is filled with many good melodious songs. “Forever Young”, the opening song and the first single of the album, is a passionate heavy metal song about the struggling young couple’s life that keeps making ends meet. Though the theme resembles Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ On A Prayer”, “Forever Young” is occupied with the dark and heavy melodies like tough New York’s city life. “Burning Down Inside” with impressive foggy intro expresses the burning love well with passionate vocal, solid guitar riffs, and thick keyboard sound. “Walk On Fire” is an uptempo love song full of catchy good ol’ American hard rock melodies.”Seasons” is the acoustic/hard rock song that would like to listen with looking at beautiful summer sunset. Both “Lay Your Body Down” and “Strip Me Down” are sex songs with sleazy and naughty guitar melodies. Brooke St. James’ dynamic guitar performance with his colorful melodies took a very important role in Tyketto’s impressionism. The emotional vocal performance of Danny Vaugh, the only member who had previous professional experience as a vocalist of Waysted, successfully expressed each song’s theme over the beautiful hard rock melodies. Ritchie Zito’s amazing production skill made this album everlasting without fade and pulled up the best of this new band. The sound is still dynamic and vivid after 29 years (Ritchie Zito, one of the most popular hard rock/heavy metal producers in the 80-90s, was among my favorite producers besides Rick Rubin).

Tyketto’s music was often described as “between White Snake and Bon Jovi” like Wikipedia, but my personal opinion is rather between Journey and Boston. The mainstream American hard rock sound in the late 80’s-the early ’90s like Slaughter, Damn Yankees, or Nelson, but the hidden darkness in their melodies was definitely a New York band like White Lion, not West Coast. Tyketto would have a great start. The top quality debut album including a lot of hit-potential songs with a popular producer. Good techniques and songwriting skills. Singed the contract with a major record company, The David Geffen Company (DGC), the subsidiary of skyrocketing Geffen. Their success seemed like a promise.

Unfortunately, just like the album title, their success didn’t come easy.

Geffen Records, including DGC, was on the high roll between the late 1980s and early 1990s, especially after the huge success of Guns N’ Roses.

That record company had contracts with many talented artists overflooding their originalities. First, Guns N’ Roses which sold 30 million copies of their debut album Appetite for Destruction worldwide in 1987 and instantly ruled the world with their sensationally impressive sleazy hard rock and eccentric charisma. Aerosmith which got a second life and nine lives with Permanent Vacation also in 1987. Cher who didn’t satisfied with her great come back to the screen by Oscar-winning “Moonstruck” in 1987 but also came back to the microphone at the same time and struck many rock hits to the moon. Sonic Youth, the icon of radical rock. White Zombie, the frontline of groove metal. Nirvana, the pioneer of grunge rock and the enemy of heavy metal. They were just a few examples. Geffen was unstoppable at the height of hard rock/heavy metal boom. That period of Geffen’s attitude, as well as the company’s powerful A&R, John Kalodner, to respect the creativity and originality of its recording artists, succeeded many of them to create culture and history. Geffen kept working hard to be unique and original in the hard rock/heavy metal market by signing with bright new hopes and one of them was Tyketto, which name came from a graffiti in Brooklyn’s ghetto where they used to work. They celebrated their debut with Don’t Come Easy in 1991.

1991, however, was also the year that made a dramatic change in the music market. The rise of grunge rock after the success of Nirvana, and the recession of hard rock and heavy metal scene. The smash-hit of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” initially seemed like just a success of the three-piece band from Seattle, but that speedily painted gray on the hit chart with many other followers including Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains. Grunge rock that represented a lot of anger and frustration by youth perfectly matched with the era’s dark atmosphere caused by a long economic depression in the U.S. Ironically, the company caused the new movement was also Geffen, that signed the contract with Nirvana through DGC.

Gone was the heavy metal bands that enjoyed their glamorous success just until a year ago. That might be the time of generation replacement. It was the fact that the heavy metal scene reached saturation with many similar musicians (and that was also the reason of grunge rock’s downturns). The confusion of the heavy metal scene caused much chaos in that era. Motley Crue fired Vince Neil and created their grunge metal album with a new vocalist that was disappointing in both quality and sales. The metal god Rob Halford left Judas Priest to form his band, Fight, and created a grunge-inspired metal album which was not bad. Bruce Dickinson left Iron Maiden, and Poison fired C.C. DeVille, both to pursue a different musical direction. But most notably, the record companies didn’t sign with new heavy metal artists anymore and kicked out most of the existing bands from their contracts. The record companies didn’t have money and energy to retain the falling former successful musicians during the economic recession. It was an immediate task for labels to chase instant cash.

Tyketto was one of the victims. Grunge boom started soon after their debut. They failed commercial success without promotional support from DGC. Even Tyletto completed their second Strength In Numbers album, DGC spun the band out from the contract without selling the new album.

Tyketto’s mild image didn’t have a strong presence like Guns N’ Roses or Motley Crue but they could compete with their talented songwriting skills. Strength In Numbers, finally released from indie labels in 1994, was another wonderful melodic album with many impressive songs. Tyketto is still active, only remaining original members are Danny Vaughn and drummer Michael Clayton Arbeeny.

OVERALL POINTS: 92/100

• Eternal dopeness: ★★★★
• Overall integrity: ★★★★★
• Songs: ★★★★+1/2
• Originality: ★★★+1/2
• Song orders: ★★★★★
• Vocal: ★★★★+3/4
• Background: ★★★★+3/4
• Sound: ★★★★★
• Production: ★★★★★
• Strong songs: “Forever Young”, “Wings”, “Burning Down Inside”, “Walk On Fire”, “Sail Away”

EXTRA (NOT COUNTED TOWARD THE OVERALL POINTS)

• Title: B
• Album cover: B

RELEASED DATE (U.S.): Date unknown, 1991