Mark Baker - The Future Ain't What it Used to Be

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I consider “Demons down” from HOUSE OF LORDS one of the best AOR and hard rock album ever, release in 1992 when I was in my teenager epoch. Then, what does MARK BAKER have to do with this fact? Actually MARK BAKER co-wrote almost the entire album (a few exception, like the magnificent ballad “Inside You” and “Spirit of Love”), and this has made him one of my teenager heroes.  “The future Ain’t What it Used to Be” is a collection of the tracks contained in demos dated back in the eighties and nineties (coming from a DAT tape) and remastered by JK Northrup, featuring singer like James Christian (HOUSE OF LORDS), Marcie Free a.k.a Mark Free (KING COBRA, SIGNAL) and Bill Champlin (CHICAGO). I have not mentioned it, but MARK BAKER is also the main co-writer of the Signal album “Loud & clear” dated back in 1989, with hits like “Does it feel like love” and many others.

The production, being still demo material, is surprisingly clean. But the album still remains a compilation of old material and I would recommend it only to die-hard MARK BAKER fans, but, even if you are not into him, in my opinion it has a great merit: for “differently young” rocker like me, it reminds of old and great albums and emotions, and for “correctly young” rockers it is a great opportunity to discover songs and albums from the past that they may have missed (see the bands and album above).

So, as a conclusion: great buy, as said, if you a die-hard fan. But, do not miss the opportunity of listening to the origins of MARK BAKER, listen to House of Lords, listen to Signal, those are true hard rock masterpieces, and MARK BAKER was (one of) the person(s) who made that possible (“O Father” and “What’s Forever For” are still one of the best hard rock songs ever!). This was hard rock in the nineties and in my opinion that music will always be amazing and deserves not to be forgotten.

Songwriting: 10
Originality: 8
Memorability: 10
Production: 7