Band:	Pat Boone
Album:	In A Metal Mood - No More Mr. Nice Guy
Style:	Gospel, Rock and Roll
Release date:	1997

01. You've Got Another Thing Coming [Judas Priest cover]
02. Smoke On The Water [Deep Purple cover]
03. It's A Long Way To The Top [AC/DC cover]
04. Panama [Van Halen cover]
05. No More Mr. Nice Guy [Alice Cooper cover]
06. Love Hurts [Nazareth cover]
07. Enter Sandman [Metallica cover]
08. Holy Diver [Dio cover]
09. Paradise City [Guns N' Roses cover]
10. The Wind Cries Mary [Jimi Hendrix cover]
11. Crazy Train [Ozzy Osbourne cover]
12. Stairway To Heaven [Led Zeppelin cover]

It kicks off with a horn section, some attitude, a bit of bombast, and some female singers proclaiming, "you've got another thing coming!" before Pat Boone, complete with leather duds and a motorcycle*, takes over the vocal duties.

Wait?

What?

Pat Boone? Doing Judas Priest? Big Band style?

Yes. And Pat works over plenty of other classic rock and metal legends as well - AC/DC, Metallica, Dio, Hendrix, and the self-proclaimed "Prince Of Darkness" himself, Ozzy Osbourne as well in 1997's In A Metal Mood - No More Mister Nice Guy.

I'm sure at this point many of the too tr00 crowd that take metal far too seriously are frothing at their keyboard, steam shooting out their ears, and spiked black panties in a wad. If you are one of them, just hit the "back" button on your browser now, lest you get your poor feelings hurt.

So back to the album - Pat takes 12 classic rock/metal anthems and ballads, giving them a retro-fitting big band and jazz style. The concept might leave a lot of people scratching their heads and wondering, "why?" Truth be told, it's not really that far fetched, it's almost as if Boone's career went full circle. He started out by performing "safe" covers of black R&B artists who were too "dangerous" for the white section of the audience. (What? Blacks on the radio? Won't somebody think of the children?! Think of the children!)

So decades later, he went full circle, providing some "safer" interpretations of "dangerous" metal artists, that the likes of the PMRC (resume "Think of the children!" ranting) had targeted. And now, as with then, he still managed to offend the puritans - both the religious types (he was dismissed from the Gospel America TV show after showing up at the American Music Awards in the aforementioned leather duds to promote the album) and the metal types? see, metal and religion have something in common - sanctimonious asshats who take themselves so seriously they just cannot take a joke.

Pat did this album with a smile on his face. You can tell just listening to it.

The first couple runs through, those who get the joke are likely to really enjoy this album. It's a lot of fun given the novelty factor? just what will "Crazy Train" sound like? What will he do with "Paradise City?"

Pat is a good crooning vocalist well suited for this style. Duh, he hasn't sold 35,000,000+ albums for nothing, and he delivers. There is attitude on his delivery of "You've Got Another Thing Coming", and he comes across as quite sympathetic and understanding in his rendition of Nazareth's sappy ballad "Love Hurts." His honest delivery is utterly fantastic in "No More Mister Nice Guy", particularly with the opening lines: "I've got a bad reputation/And I don't know why/I brush my teeth/I comb my hair/I go to church/I'm a really nice guy" - it's simply perfect because, well, that sums the real Pat up in a nutshell.

The biggest issue is after several listens the novelty has worn thin, leaving some of the tracks as just "meh"? however, even after repeated listens, some of the tracks still do stand up and are really enjoyable. "You've Got Another Thing Coming" is still an anthem, even with the axes exchanged for horns, "Paradise City" is still a good time, and "Holy Diver" is awesome, particularly with the brass managing to capture the urgency of that great guitar line. For a fun juxtaposition, you can check out the Pat Boone musical version synched up beautifully with the original video by Dio, who did make a cameo appearance providing backing vocals to Boone's take at his own classic.

So if you've got a sense of humor, think metal covers of pop songs are amusing and are intrigued by that concept in reverse, give this one a listen. You'll find yourself tapping your toes and snapping along.

* ok, you don't actually hear the chopper, but he is pictured on one.