FEATURE:
Vinyl Corner
Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak
__________
MANY people will know…
the classic song, The Boys Are Back in Town, but they may not be away of the album it comes from. The mighty Jailbreak is the sixth studio album from Thin Lizzy. Released on 26th March, 1976, it was the biggest U.S. success for the Irish band. The album that broke them there. It is small wonder when you hear songs like The Boys Are Back in Town and Jailbreak! Classics from a band finding new spark and commercial endeavour, their lead, Phil Lynott, was in inspired form. I would recommend people seek out a copy of Jailbreak on vinyl. It is one of those albums where you might recognise some of the songs, but you may not have heard them all. Even if you are not too familiar with Thin Lizzy, go and check out the amazing Jailbreak. It is a true classic. I will come to a couple of positive reviews for an album that not only marked a breakthrough for the band; it also stands as one of the best albums of the ‘70s. Ultimate Classic Rock published a feature in 2016 that told the story of the superb Jailbreak:
“It was make or break time for Thin Lizzy when they entered London's Ramport Studios in December 1975 to make their next album. Five previous records didn't really sell, and none of them managed to even crack Billboard's Top 200 albums chart.
Understandably, the Irish band's label was getting antsy for some kind of hit.
Up until this point, they hadn't made much of a dent anywhere. Only the previous album, Fighting, slipped onto the U.K. charts, and was somewhat of a reinvention for Thin Lizzy, who'd lost a couple of guitarists and their record company since their self-titled 1971 debut. But no one was expecting something like Jailbreak from the band. Not even the members of Thin Lizzy.
The album marked a turning point. The quartet – led by singer, songwriter and bassist Phil Lynott – focused its approach, and, with producer John Alcock guiding them, sharpened both their playing and the way the songs were structured. Sessions were completed in early 1976, and by the middle of March, Jailbreak was ready for release.
And from the very first song, the title track, Thin Lizzy sound like a new and revitalized band. The stuttering guitars dance and duel in the background as Lynott struts in as a confident storyteller for the first time. His singing is more focused too, deliberate in its phrasing and casually forceful all at the same time.
Critics and fans at the time noted the influence of Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run from the previous year as an influence on the group's new direction on Jailbreak. And it's not hard to hear the similarities between the two albums, especially the sweeping narratives in cuts like the fatal-lovers tale "Romeo and the Lonely Girl" and "Cowboy Song," which comes with its own lonesome antihero.
But it's "The Boys Are Back in Town" that truly sealed Jailbreak's legacy as Thin Lizzy's best album. Like the rest of the LP, the twin-guitar harmony leads power the song, which became the band's first and biggest hit in the States, just missing the Top 10. But there's so much more to it, including one of Lynott's most soulful vocals, his greatest hook and guitarists Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson's most complementary work together.
Jailbreak finally broke Thin Lizzy. The album reached No. 18 in the U.S., their all-time biggest seller. Seven months later, they followed it up with Johnny the Fox, but the band slowly began falling part by then. Lynott came down with hepatitis during the tour in support of Jailbreak and had to cancel part of the tour”.
I am going to continue with a review from Pitchfork. Jailbreak is an album that has gained praise and celebration from both sides of the Atlantic. Although Thin Lizzy released other brilliant albums, I think they were at their peak here. It still sounds utterly irresistible today:
“Primed by the experience of Fighting and ready to record again, Lynott honed in on the core of what he was experiencing on stage, where he found himself in command of huge crowds of teenage boys who were ready to rumble at his command. He had always composed songs about dashing loners scheming on the outskirts of society, but he was now making a conscious effort to dress his characters in black leather and chains. “When you reach the age of 14 or 18, you suddenly find strength that you’ve never had before,” he explained to an interviewer. The lifelong devotee of Van Morrison and Jimi Hendrix was now in search of something to do with the power he received on stage, something greasier than his idols, something less transcendent and more connected to the crusty highway life Steppenwolf touted in “Born to Be Wild.”
Despite his efforts and the atomic thrust of Gorham and Robertson, Lynott never quite gets there on Jailbreak, to the album’s tremendous benefit. The band is simply too happy, too taken by how much they enjoy what they’re doing—both the music they were making and the way it allowed them to see themselves—for the power and aggression of these songs to come across as truly dangerous or liberating. When the band added Gorham and Robertson and changed their direction, Thomson writes, “[there] was a tenderness, a starry-eyed innocence and adventurism that did not wholly survive.” This is true, but what did survive of that original sweetness makes Jailbreak a hard rock album like no other. In effect, it turned the band into something like professional wrestlers working the circuit—the muscles they flex are real, the fights themselves aren’t, and they can still feel the humming in their bodies for days afterward.
They knew how to use this to their artistic advantage. On its surface, the title track serves as a warning shot, the cry before the battle: “Tonight there’s gonna be trouble,” Lynott promises. It’s tough-guy shit, but it’s impossible to believe. All four of them are strutting, making a show of how easily they can control their power. This swagger—the knowingness of it, how plainly they telegraph their pleasure—is absurd; escaping prison has never sounded less risky. The original Thin Lizzy played with David Bowie and Slade, and Lynott’s experience observing expert showmen up close, as well as the band’s own connection with their audience, let them embrace the absurdity of living one’s life as a rock star. It’s a trait they shared with ZZ Top, and it’s what makes Lynott as irresistible on “Jailbreak” as Billy Gibbons is on “La Grange.” He’s clearly having a ball, savoring the posture of the chorus as he leans deep into the words “Don’t you be around,” practically cooing for the listener in a way that is anything but threatening. He obviously wants you to be around”.
I will finish off with a review from AllMusic. Even though 1975’s Fighting gained strong reviews, it was not a chart success. Jailbreak definitely rectified things! With brilliant dual-leads guitars and so much energy and fun throughout, Jailbreak is an album that will be played and loved for decades more. It is superb. Even if the vinyl copy does cost a little bit, this is an album you can pass through the generations:
“Thin Lizzy found their trademark twin-guitar sound on 1975's Fighting, but it was on its 1976 successor, Jailbreak, where the band truly took flight. Unlike the leap between Night Life and Fighting, there is not a great distance between Jailbreak and its predecessor. If anything, the album was more of a culmination of everything that came before, as Phil Lynott hit a peak as a songwriter just as guitarists Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson pioneered an intertwined, dual-lead guitar interplay that was one of the most distinctive sounds of '70s rock, and one of the most influential. Lynott no longer let Gorham and Robertson contribute individual songs -- they co-wrote, but had no individual credits -- which helps tighten up the album, giving it a cohesive personality, namely Lynott's rough rebel with a heart of a poet. Lynott loves turning the commonplace into legend -- or bringing myth into the modern world, as he does on "Cowboy Song" or, to a lesser extent, "Romeo and the Lonely Girl" -- and this myth-making is married to an exceptional eye for details; when the boys are back in town, they don't just come back to a local bar, they're down at Dino's, picking up girls and driving the old men crazy. This gives his lovingly florid songs, crammed with specifics and overflowing with life, a universality that's hammered home by the vicious, primal, and precise attack of the band. Thin Lizzy is tough as rhino skin and as brutal as bandits, but it's leavened by Lynott's light touch as a singer, which is almost seductive in its croon. This gives Jailbreak a dimension of richness that sustains, but there's such kinetic energy to the band that it still sounds immediate no matter how many times it's played. Either one would make it a classic, but both qualities in one record makes it a truly exceptional album”.
Go and get a copy of the sublime Jailbreak on vinyl. I heard songs like The Boys Are Back in Town as a child, and I was transfixed by it. Thin Lizzy are a great band that do not get talked about as much as they should. Even though Phil Lynott died in 1986, there have been reincarnations and reformations since the band split. As I said, I feel Jailbreak is their glorious peak. Go and get the album and you will…
FIND out for yourself.