Metal Sludge Gossip Board

And $800,000 to have Desmond Child write the songs and produce the album. I’m currently re-reading the 2023 book “World Infestation: The RATT story.” Man, this band was in shambles by this juncture and had no lyrics written ad thought the money would never run dry. The realist was, the band should have taken a longer break after “Reach” was released.

How is that book? I've read Blobs and Pearcy's books.

ParaDime77 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 11, 2025 11:08 am And $800,000 to have Desmond Child write the songs and produce the album. I’m currently re-reading the 2023 book “World Infestation: The RATT story.” Man, this band was in shambles by this juncture and had no lyrics written ad thought the money would never run dry. The realist was, the band should have taken a longer break after “Reach” was released.

Please explain further.

Releasing Detonator later would not have helped sales.

pieceofme wrote: ↑Wed Jun 11, 2025 12:51 pm

ParaDime77 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 11, 2025 11:08 am And $800,000 to have Desmond Child write the songs and produce the album. I’m currently re-reading the 2023 book “World Infestation: The RATT story.” Man, this band was in shambles by this juncture and had no lyrics written ad thought the money would never run dry. The realist was, the band should have taken a longer break after “Reach” was released.

Please explain further.

Releasing Detonator later would not have helped sales.

Maybe not in sales as the genre was headed to collapse, but in overall terms of quality. Having Beau Hill on as producer would have added to that as the band felt the songs didn’t quite sound like previous RATT songs.

Overall, the book is a decent read, a lot of clips cropped from old interviews.

Yeah this is a moronic take. Time was not on any hair band's side in 1990.

8 months to make ?
$800,000 the cost ?
And the sales were originally 800,000 ,

though honestly I've also read 900,000 ,
probably platinum by now and may have shipped platinum at the time even though the RIAA shows it only at gold,
bands sometimes complain that the labels don't update that and it's a hassle to audit,
Trunk said this about Ace Frehley's 1st Megaforce/Atlantic album which was over 400,000 in its original run,
and ironically one of the members of Testament complained about the same thing with 2 of their Megaforce/Atlantic albums, and I think he said one of those albums was at 480,000 ,
Danger Danger thinks the same about their debut,

And while I'm going off topic
I wonder if "8191" could also be platinum by now ,
it went gold in 1999 and I think Stevie did a SludgeScan on that , or somebody else posted it's Soundscan sales,
and it was like 682,000 around 2001,
the EP would also be interesting, the original 1983 version had no barcode on it , I don't know if the RIAA needed a barcode like Soundscan did .
EP's only had to sell/ship 250,000 for gold,
500,000 would get them another platinum album

ParaDime77 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 11, 2025 1:11 pm

pieceofme wrote: ↑Wed Jun 11, 2025 12:51 pm

ParaDime77 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 11, 2025 11:08 am And $800,000 to have Desmond Child write the songs and produce the album. I’m currently re-reading the 2023 book “World Infestation: The RATT story.” Man, this band was in shambles by this juncture and had no lyrics written ad thought the money would never run dry. The realist was, the band should have taken a longer break after “Reach” was released.

Please explain further.

Releasing Detonator later would not have helped sales.

Maybe not in sales as the genre was headed to collapse, but in overall terms of quality. Having Beau Hill on as producer would have added to that as the band felt the songs didn’t quite sound like previous RATT songs.

Overall, the book is a decent read, a lot of clips cropped from old interviews.

By 1990, Ratt's singles weren't even getting significant rock radio traction. And their album sales were stagnant.
Getting Desmond Child in 1990 pretty much guaranteed attention. "Hey... it worked for Bon Jovi.... it's working for Aerosmith... let's see if we can get another "Round And Round" with this gay guy!"

In 1990 two rap albums and a country album went over 10x platinum...popular music was already splitting away into different genres before Nirvana.