After a pretty disastrous tour of the US with very little interest in their new album, Girlschool lost new member Jackie Bodimead, who had taken over vocal duties and also introduced keyboards as a regular part of the band's new sound. With her departure and on the back of the poor album sales (despite the fact that they themselves were responsible for not promoting "Running wild") Mercury dropped Girlschool, who then made the decision, bad in retrospect, to team up with glam rock idol and later convicted paedophile Gary Glitter on a cover of "Leader of the gang"! Oops! Still, they were rescued by Motorhead, who got them signed to their own label, and they released an album called "Nightmare at Maple Cross" in 1986. The girls had reverted to a four-piece, with Kim again taking the vocals, and also back to their hard rock sound and away from the glam and fluff of their last two albums. Their attempt to break the US market by changing their image, style and their music had ended in abject failure, and AOR was an acronym they never wanted to hear again!
Their last attempt for the eighties was the album "Take a bite", released in 1988, but it did badly again and GWR, Motorhead's label, dropped them from its register. Also they did themselves no favours by hitting the road with Glitter, although of course they couldn't know and it's easy to be wise after the event. Nevertheless, when the dust had settled and in the wake of the accusations, trial and imprisonment of the ex-star in the late nineties through to the early twenty-first century, this choice to ally themselves to Glitter must have kept the girls awake at night. It certainly didn't help their later legacy. In 1990 Enid Williams returned to the band, and two years later they released the first album on their own label, self-titled to perhaps assure their fans that their abortive flirtation with AOR and the American soft rock sound was over.
The album however was received poorly, and the next year Kelly Johnson returned, but left before the recording of their next album, which would in fact not surface until 2004. "Believe" was actually given great reviews, and it's the last album I'm going to look at here, though it wasn't their last to date. Mind you, it should be noted that between 1992 and 2004 the girls weren't exactly sitting around on their leather-clad behinds: they released a live album, contributed to a celebration of the NWOBHM era with the Tygers and Saxon, put out an anniversary album and replaced Kelly Johnson with Jackie Chambers. They also, needless to say, toured with every band they could and in every territory they could reach.
Believe --- Girlschool --- 2004 (Communique)
"Come on up" opens with a heavy but more glam rock style, a softer vocal approach though the guitars are more in evidence than the recent keyboards. Driven on a nice bassline from Enid Williams and featuring her on vocals again, it's a clean, almost sparse song, different from the usual we've come to expect from them, and to be honest, "Let's get hard", despite its risque title, doesn't improve things much, even with Kim on vocals. Just missing something, I feel: almost like they're trying too hard, and yet not trying. If that makes any kind of sense. "Crazy" at least changes things around, starting with a gentle, almost post-rock guitar and moving slowly along on Enid's sublime bass allied to Denise Dufort's gentle percussion. It breaks out into a harder, almost old-school chorus with some tough guitar, and still not a keyboard in sight. I'd have to say, although it's early in the album, this is far and away my favourite, and restores my faith in this band. The other tracks are going to have to be something special to even hold a candle to this monumental anthem!
Fast rocker then for "We all love (to rock 'n' roll)"; great rolling drumbeat, but again it smacks of being something the girls think they should be writing rather than something they just wrote: it's too contrived, too generic and way, way too cliched. They even namecheck their old buddies Motorhead and run off a quick riff from "Ace of spades". Pass. Trying too hard again. "Secret" has a nice bitter nasty vibe about it, as the singer declares
"My tongue is tied/ If I'm wined and dined", the intimation being that if you want your secret kept you had better make it worth my while! Kim's voice really suits this track, and "new" girl Jackie rips off a finely-crafted solo, then "A new beginning" rocks along with purpose and a nice message, though by now it's coming a little late perhaps.
Swaggering along with a real "look-at-me" rhythm, "C'mon" is decent enough, good chanted chorus harking back to the days of "Hit and run", and "Never say never" keeps that impression going with another good rocker with a powerful chorus and some grinding guitar work from Jackie Chambers. But "You say" is again more a constructed song than a true one, something they feel they should include on the album, while "Feel good" is okay I suppose, but all through this album, with the exception of "Crazy" I feel the girls are desperately trying to recreate the success they had with and the feel they had on their first two albums, not realising that those days are long gone. Their forays into AOR and basic desertion of their fans has taken all that away, and it's not something they'll ever get back, no matter how much they try to force it.
And so it goes. Which is not to say that there aren't decent tracks. "Hold on tight" is good fun, has a nice growling guitar and a good hook, while "Yes means yes" is a faster track but verging more back towards the AOR idea they're supposed to be pulling away from, though it is enjoyable. The album then closes on the gritty "We all have to choose", which could maybe be seen as a description of Girlschool's journey from metal to AOR and back through hard rock to mostly metal again. Good vocal harmonies, and again it's got AOR elements with a mixture of metal and straightahead rock going through it. Not a bad closer, though it ends really abruptly, which is a little unsettling.
TRACKLISTING
1. Come on up
2. Let's get hard
3. Crazy
4. We all love (to rock 'n' roll)
5. Secret
6. New beginning
7. C'mon
8. Never say never
9. You say
10. Feel good
11. Hold on tight
12. Yes means yes
13. We all have to choose
Having battled spinal cancer for several years, Kelly finally succumbed and passed away in 2007. This quite obviously and naturally hit her bandmates hard, and they played a tribute gig to her, the proceeds from which went to cancer research, as well as remembering her on their, so far, final album, 2008's appropriately-titled "Legacy". As of the time of writing, the remaining members of Girlschool are still recording, gigging and of course playing, over thirty years later, making them the oldest female rock band in history.
Like many bands before them, Girlschool began as a barebones, rough-and-ready metal band with simple songs and a simple message, just wanting to rock out and have fun, and prove they were as good at it as their male counterparts, who dominated the entire sphere of hard rock and heavy metal at the time. They foolishly listened to the cheque-book and cigar who assured them they would "break the States" if they could just change their music to fit that less raw market, and consequently not only failed to win over the Americans but lost many of their hardcore fans in the process (remember Praying Mantis, from the very first part of this series?). Luckily, they worked hard to get those fans back and mostly succeeded, but Girlschool, though always popular, never managed to make the big break forward to international stardom, and though they remained an important part of the NWOBHM scene, they will pretty much forever be known, unfortunately and perhaps unfairly, as both Motorhead's mates and the main all-female heavy metal band of that era.
Maybe that's not so bad a legacy, come to think of it.