STAGE DOLLS – Good Times – The Essential

I bet most of our readers live outside of Norway, where this website is based. Therefore, most of you have no clue that this big hair-band, which once toured with Fish, Mr. Big and Blue Murder, is still alive and kicking. The big hair is gone, but Stage Dolls was never about image anyway. To their credit, I believe the guys were victims of the time back in the late eighties and early nineties. Stage Dolls was always about rock ’n roll, often being described as a more ballsy version of Bryan Adams. True, Torstein Flakne always wrote songs that could have been hits from the Canadian’s “Reckless”-album. (Remember The Kids, anyone?)

“Good Times – The Essential” is a double disk with remastered killer rock songs spanning the Dolls’ entire career as well as three new songs and stuff from Torstein’s solo record. Not all the material deserves a spot on a best-of release, then again; this is not necessarily a best-of. It’s the essentials, for jamming the guitar out loud. And what is essential Stage Dolls? “Soldier’s Gun” of course, along with “Commandos”, “Heart To Heart”, all the hits from the self-titled release back in 1988, but also live favorites like “Left Foot Boogie” and “Ten Tons Of R&R”, and more serious songs like “Ammunition” and “Goodbye To Amy”.

Stage Dolls deserves a new coming, music like this is timeless and will always go across the changes and trends. However, back in this land of ice and snow we are witnessing the power of TV commercials. Music fans, although I am not sure if they deserve that description, need to have the facts shoved into their own living-rooms before they wake up. It seems like most people don’t actively keep themselves up to date on music. Stage Dolls played live in an Oslo club a few years ago for less than hundred people, the next thing you know is that they sell out Rockefeller. (See the section for live reviews). Frankly, I dig it. TNT is next up.

The music scene needs bands like Stage Dolls. Pure rock ’n roll energy mixed with catchiness and honest deliverance, that’s Stage Dolls for you. Always was, always will be. Now can we please have a new album soon? And can you please release the 1983 demo as a bonus disc?