Jimmy Page Outrider (1988): Why Critics Dismissed Page’s Solo Effort (2021)

From cheatsheet.com

When Jimmy Page released Outrider (1988), his first proper solo album, the former Led Zeppelin titan couldn’t have expected great reviews. After all, he’d barely seen a positive notice in his 12 years with the most dominant force in ’70s rock. (Rolling Stone’s reviews were especially/absurdly bad.)

That’s basically how it went with Outrider, too. “Failed alchemy of Jimmy Page” was the L.A. Times headline. In Rolling Stone, David Fricke politely gave it two stars. Though Page didn’t get negative reviews across the board, you couldn’t help noticing the collective disappointment over his solo debut.

Listening to Outrider 30+ years later, you can see how it might have underwhelmed listeners after so many electric Zep records. And you can see why reviewers went so frequently to the same criticisms.

Critics dumped on the weak vocalists of Jimmy Page’s ‘Outrider’

In Led Zeppelin, Page did almost did it all. After founding the band, he produced Zep’s records; wrote the music for most of its songs; and played guitar with the best of his generation. But he could never be a band’s lead vocalist.

Fortunately, he found the perfect man for the job in Robert Plant. But in the post-Zeppelin years, Page never matched up with someone on Plant’s (admittedly high) level. And that came into play on Outrider, which featured a few rough vocal outings by lead singers.

In his Rolling Stone review, Fricke homed in on Chris Farlowe, who sang on three of side 2’s four tracks, including a cover of Leon Russell’s “Hummingbird.” “Instead of torching ‘Hummingbird,’ Farlowe practically incinerates it,” Fricke wrote.

Over at Spin, Thor Chirstensen couldn’t agree more. “Farlowe’s overblown vocals turn the songs into blues parodies,” he wrote. And everyone who reviewed the record called out the weak lyrics from Farlowe and John Miles. (Plant checked in for one track, side 1’s “The Only One.”)

‘Prison Blues’ featured a bit of the best and worst of ‘Outrider’

While critics roughed up the vocalists and generally unpolished feel of Outrider, nearly all acknowledged Page’s strong guitar work. Page really dug in on a few tracks, serving up some layered guitar work that recalled his epic ’70s material. And on “Prison Blues,” he gave the people what they wanted: classic blues shredding.

Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to savor Page’s monster licks when Farlowe keeps getting in the way. In that respect, “Prison Blues” was simultaneously the best and worst song on the album. But when it was good (see 1:15), it was really good.

Given the way the vocals worked out, many Zeppelin fans might find themselves Page did more instrumentals like “Writes of Winter” (which earned Page a Grammy nomination) and “Emerald Eyes,” the side 2 stunner.

Lest anyone forget, Page originally wrote “The Song Remains the Same” and “Ten Years Gone” as instrumentals. The real tragedy of Outrider — and thus Page’s solo career — has been that we never got a full album’s worth of his guitar armies in attack-mode.

Jimmy Page Outrider (1988)

From classicrockreview.com

Although Jimmy Page had a pretty rich post-Led Zeppelin career, he only released one solo studio album, Outrider, in 1988. Originally intended to be a double album, the project was pared back when Page’s demo tapes were stolen, leaving him with no pre-production material. As a result, the single LP finished product has a bit of a hurried and unpolished sound, which Page himself referred to as “demo quality”. However, there is a certain charm to many of the pieces on the album which are more sound-oriented than composition-oriented, as Page heavily returns to the rock-infused blues which launched Led Zeppelin nearly two decades earlier. The album was recorded at a time when Page had moved on from his mid-eighties “super group” The Firm but was yet to form the various hyphenated collaborations of the nineties, including a reunion with Zeppelin band mate Robert Plant.

Six years before that eventual reunion, at the time of this album’s release, there were several positive signs including Page, Plant, and Jones reuniting during Atlantic’s 40^th reunion, Page showing up on stage a some of Plant’s solo concerts, and Plant co-writing and performing a song on this Outrider album for Page. In fact, “The Only One” featured three of the four Led Zeppelin members who would reunite on December 10, 2007, as the late John Bonham’s son, Jason Bonham, plays drums behind Plant and Page on the track. on the downside, even though this upbeat rocker reached the Top 20 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, the song itself seems a bit underdeveloped with a convoluted chorus, making it an opportunity lost for a great musical oasis.

Then 22 years old, Jason Bonham ended up playing on most of the album’s tracks. His former band, Virginia Wolf, had released two albums and toured the U.S. in support the of Page’s former band, The Firm. Listening to the album, there is no doubt that Bonzo’s son was a perfect match for this album.
  
There is a definite divide between the two sides of the original album. The first side is dominated by blues/rock riffs, including two instrumentals along with the Page/Plant track and two songs Page composed and recorded with vocalist John Miles. The second side contains selections with a lighter touch and features vocalist Chris Farlowe on three of its four tracks.

“Wanna Make Love” is the real gem of the first side with well-defined guitar riffs and blended slide guitars along with a good rock vocal melody by Miles. Although there is a “lead” area, it is not really a proper guitar solo, just a way for Page to reiterate the great effects chorus of bottleneck sounds and growling wah-wah. “Wasting My Time” starts the album with Page’s band mate in The Firm Tony Franklin on bass guitar. The first of two composed by Page and Miles, the song seamlessly alternates between the quasi-riff chorus and verse sections, all held together only by the steady drumming of Bonham along with some slight bluesy riff overdubs and a pretty decent guitar lead.

“Writes of Winter” is the first, riff-driven instrumental with a driving rhythm which echoes Joe Perry from Aerosmith who ironically cut his teeth by mimicking Page’s version of “Train Kept a Rolling”, the first song Zeppelin ever performed together. “Liquid Mercury” is another heavy, riff-driven piece which sounds like it should be the foundation for a proper rock song. Barriemore Barlow plays drums on this one as well as the final instrumental “Emerald Eyes”, a gently strummed acoustic piece with interesting overdubbed tremolo effects.

The rest of the album features Farlowe on vocals. Leon Russell’s “Hummingbird” is a moderate blues song which differs vastly from anything on the first side, both musically and vocally. “Prison Blues” contains sexual innuendo lyrically, shredding guitar by Page, and a solid bass by Felix Krish. “Blues Anthem (If I Cannot Have Your Love…)” wraps up the album with a true ballad which sounds like it provided inspiration for the Black Crowes (another group which Page would team up with in the future) a few years down the line. It is short and sweet acoustic lament to end a short and frantic album.

Outrider fared moderately on the charts, reaching the Top 40 in several countries. Unfortunately, the album hasn’t sustained much popularity through the years and Jimmy Page hasn’t attempted any kind of similar follow-up in the past 25 years.

Jimmy Page Outrider (1988)

From sputnikmusic.com

After leaving The Firm, Jimmy decides to do his first “real” solo album, “Outrider”. For the drums, he calls Jason Bonham, son of John, who’s playing would make his father proud. Being a guitarist solo album, it has numerous instrumentals, one third of the songs, plus variety of vocalists, including Chris Farlowe that also sang in Death Wish II soundtrack, and also bassists, like Tony Franklin also an ex-member of The Firm.

Instrumentals “Writers of Winter” and “Liquid Mercury” both have the same characteristic of heaving heavy riffs and good guitar solos. Sure, some people will feel like they were wasted as just instrumentals, and think that they should have vocals, but when hearing “Wanna Make Love” or “Wasting My Time”, both sang by so-so singer John Miles, it may make people doubt it would be really that better.

“Emerald Eyes” is still the best instrumental here. In fact, there is no reason to believe that any of his older ones, like “White Summer” or – “Bron-Yr-Aur” are technically better than this. Truly amazing melody played also with electric guitar, unlike most of the Led Zeppelin’s ones, this instrumental will sure please the ears of any fan.

An almost Led Zeppelin song, “The Only One” is the best track in “Outrider”. Robert Plant’s guest appearance is the only example of what this album could actually be if handled only with great singers. The killer chorus and amazing guitar riff in this hard rocking number really feels like something that could’ve been in LZ II

“Prison Blues” was Jimmy’s noble attempt to make a bluesy epic such as “Since I Been Loving You”, “In My Time of Dying” and “Tea for One”. And, it musical sense, he does it pretty well. Chris Farlowe’s voice also sounds good with the song. But, when he (Chris) finally have a chance to do it right, he also have to ruin it somehow. In this song, he presents us with perhaps the worst lyrics in the whole record. While the beginning already sounds generic “I’ve been a bad boy all night long…” the further comparisons and metaphors are just laughable. Yet, it’s still his best performance in the album.

The cover of “Hummingbird” and “Blues Anthem” don’t really get any better than this. The first one seems uninspired and the second doesn’t match with his grave voice, making the fine guitar work by Page the only real reason to hear this fine ballad.

To sum up, this album has a great guitar work by page and a lot of potential, but, the lack of a good singer in it, only 2-3 tracks fulfill it. Yet, it’s still shows improvement of his writing compared to The Firm’s albums, that later would be used to create the best album is his career sans Led Zeppelin, “Coverdale Page”.

Jimmy Page Outrider (1988)

From Rolling Stone

He couldn’t have timed it better. The high priest of heavy metal, the pontiff of power riffing and probably the most digitally sampled artist in pop today after James Brown, guitar shaman Jimmy Page returns to the rock wars with his debut solo album — not counting the so-so ’82 soundtrack of Death Wish II — just as the Eighties Led Zeppelin renaissance goes into overdrive. What better opportunity to reascend to Big Rock supremacy while giving impudent pups like Kingdom Come and the Cult a taste of the lash?

Too bad timing isn’t everything. Because Outrider, to be painfully honest, is a whole lotta muddle, a bewildering amalgam of trademark Pagey rifferama, utter lyric banality, thundering instrumental tracks topped off by hammy vocals, tantalizing hints of steaming futurist Zeppelin and sudden U-turns back to the Seventies.

The album reiterates familiar gifts and well-documented strengths yet lacks any clear-cut direction or sense of aesthetic mission. Too often Page echoes his past without transcending or building on it.

The opening numbers, “Wasting My Time” and “Wanna Make Love,” summarize everything that’s right, and wrong, with Outrider. Working from the old “Black Dog”-“Dancing Days” schematic of muscular, choppy riffs layered with greasy slide guitar over jolting rhythm changes, Page kicks up a quintessential Zeppelin storm, abetted by drummer Jason Bonham, who does his old man proud throughout the record. The three-way collision of skidding bottleneck sounds, growling wah-wah and stabbing lead work over Bonham’s angry whack in “Wanna Make Love” is classic Page guitarchitecture.

John Miles’s lemon-squeezer wail, though, has nothing on Robert Plant, and his generic lyrics edge dangerously close to parody. More satisfying are the instrumentals “Writes of Winter” and “Liquid Mercury,” which concentrate on riff alchemy and the glorious sound of Page’s guitars dogfighting with each other in overdub.

Side two, which features the veteran English white-soul howler Chris Farlowe, is just as problematic. Instead of torching Leon Russell’s “Hummingbird,” Farlowe practically incinerates it, and his idea of sexual innuendo on “Prison Blues” (“I got my weasel in my pocket…. I’m gonna stick it right down that little hole”) makes David Coverdale sound like the Byron of barroom erotica. Fortunately, Page uses “Prison Blues” to just go ape crazy on guitar. It may sound like Seventies old hat, but it’s great old hat.

Were it only matched more often by the shock of the new. What distinguishes “The Only One” from the rest of the album, besides Robert Plant’s guest vocal appearance, is the element of risk. Maybe it was just too much to expect a Zoso for the Nineties on Page’s first solo excursion.

But Outrider is as much a victim of underachievement as of overexpectation. As a guitar record, Outrider proves Page is still the sultan of slash, the kaiser of krunch. But where he once held the hammer of the gods, he now sounds a bit dazed and confused.