Review Summary: Rocks quite a bit more than the artwork suggests
Back in the 70's, mainstream female musicians were pretty much singing cheesy boring soft rock ballads about love. However, some women came to the reasonable conclusion that soft rock sucked and decided to make something that actually resembled a "rock" band. And thus came the existence of the band Heart, who recorded their debut: Dreamboat Annie. While some songs end up succeeding as hard rock jams, for the most part is just feels too soft to register as a hard rock band along the likes of popular acts of the time like Deep Purple, or AC/DC. Like with its cover, I keep getting this feeling that this album could've benefitted a lot had these girls rocked with at least a
bit more aggression than they displayed here.
The album cover does far from justice to the album, and instead looks like if Barbara Streisand and Carole King recorded some sh*tty duet album and released it on Valentines Day. The music on the other hand, is actually pretty good, the opening track
Magic Man has a nice beat coupled with an impressive guitar solo at the end.
Crazy On You is undoubtably the catchiest track off this album, with a rhythmic acoustic guitar melody in the background while the two vocalists sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson show off their rather impressive vocal ranges in the chorus, to the extent where you want to join in when they say:"LET ME GO CRAAAAZY ONNN YOUUU". But then there's the folkier like
Soul of The Sea or even the title track, which are interesting on their own right, and worth listening to since the Wilson singers are so good at their jobs.
White Lightning is another gem in this album, which shows the aggression this band is capable of, leading to a rather bouncy song that shows just what Heart is capable of.
'Dreamboat Annie', is a pretty good album, one that strays quite a bit from the abyss of quality that is soft-rock. However, probably due to the folkier aspects, still rocks a bit more soft than I personally would've liked. That being said, if you happen to enjoy folk music, hard rock, or female vocals, there is no reason for you not to check this out.
