John Sykes’ official website reports:
“It is hard to believe that 25 years has passed since John’s mighty debut album Blue Murder hit the stores. We remember the days when the songs we’re being demo recorded back in the UK before John head off to L.A to record with mighty rock producer Bob Rock. The Blue Murder debut album featured the powerhouse of Carmine Appice on drums and the fretless monster himself Tony Franklin on bass and was released on Geffen Records in 1989.
With this trio in place Blue Murder had a strong presence and left its mark as one of the best hard rock albums of the eighties. We constantly have fans online praising this album every day having a rollover effect on the younger generation of hard rock fans.
Fans may or may not know that this mighty album has been remastered with 24-bit remastering from the source tapes, a 3,500 word essay about the making of the album, a new interview with John Sykes, enhanced artwork and photos spread out over a 12 page full color booklet,and is available from rockcandyrecords.com.
Listen to the entire remastered album, plus a few official videos, below.
11 Responses
Carmine’s kit was so big touring that thing, it should have called Blue Carmine.
In my humble opinion, this is one of the best rock albums of all time. Am I biased? You bet I am and quite proud of it.
John Sykes rules!
Dana from EddieTrunk.com 🙂
I actually remember purchasing this cassette at TOWER RECORDS on 72nd street along with BRAIN DRAIN by THE RAMONES. BRAIN DRAIN didn’t stand the test of time, but VALLEY OF THE KINGS (maybe borrows a bit from STARGAZER, a little maybe), PTOLEMY, and JELLY ROLL are in my IPOD to this day. RIOT and BILLY are good too but it only holds 800 songs and KISS takes up 75, so I gotta be conservative.
Watching some of the video footage, I forgot how good a head of hair Sykes has. A lot of superstar guitarists have terrible hair (Vai, Satrianni when he had hair, Hammet, Mustaine, Vincent, Brata etc.). Sykes has it all. Phenom player with phenom hair to boot. Its like if Mike Tramp and Jimmy Page had a baby, it would’ve been John Sykes. You can’t overlook these things when your talking about the near mythical presence that is one Mr. John Sykes. And btw, his work on the ’87 Whitesnake album to this day is still overlooked and some of his best work.
LOL, DR 🙂
I always said that Sykes looked like he could have been a bandmember in Europe. I agree he has it all: looks, great musician, very good vocalist and an excellent song writer. I always thought he had all the specifications to be as big as Jon Bon Jovi, but that never happened. Talk about underrated. He is one person that I truly feel lives up to that label.
D 🙂
Unfortunately Dana, I think Sykes had too much talent to be as big as JBJ. I like your comment about Europe though. I appreciate anyone who can take the conversation up a notch.
DR,
You make an excellent point, but maybe it was also a case of not having the right people around him? Great PR machines can make the most mediocre musicians stars, ie: Justin Beiber, Miley Cyrus, Jennifer Lopez, and the list goes on and on….It’s sad, but true, unfortunately.
D 🙂
Great songs on this cd. Can’t wait for john to release something new.
Glad to see this has been remastered as I always felt the original mix sounded muddy.. will need to check it out,…