Customer Reviews

The Best of Kingdom Come: 20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This compilation, released in 2003, is made up of 11 songs that are taken from Kingdom Come's first three albums. The track listing is in chronological order. "Living Out of Touch," "What Love Can Be," "Get It On," and "Pushin' Hard" come from their self-titled debut album from 1988. "Do You Like It," "Who Do You Love," "Gotta Go (Can't Wage a War)," and "Overrated" are taken from 1989's In Your Face. "I've Been Trying," "Should I," and "You're Not the Only...I Know" come from Hands of Time (1991). I find all of the compositions to be satisfying. The material is in a straight-ahead hard rock musical direction. Altogether, the songwriting is good, the musicianship is tight, and the sound quality is gratifying. I like Lenny Wolf's vocals. I also enjoy the guitar work throughout--there are some catchy riffs (this is manifest on "Living Out of Touch" and "Do You Like It," for example). My favorite cuts are "What Love Can Be," "Get It On," "Who Do You Love," "Gotta Go (Can't Wage a War)," and "Should I." The nice, memorable power ballad "What Love Can Be" exhibits pleasing, industrious singing from Wolf. The unforgettable "Get It On" sports a cool drum intro and infectious rhythm guitar playing. "Who Do You Love" displays pleasing guitar and keyboard work. "Gotta Go (Can't Wage a War)" has an attractive chorus, and "Should I" features engaging rhythm guitar playing, a taut, driving bass guitar line, a pleasant refrain, and smooth keyboard playing. The disc is just over 50 minutes. Even though the song lyrics are not included in the CD packaging, there is an informative essay of the band. This is a satisfying compilation.

Lenny Wolf has to be the best Robert Plant voice-style clone singer that I have ever heard (Randy Jackson of the great Zebra comes very close) and with that gift has driven Kingdom Come to pound out some decent metal to sound like the mighty Zep. Why not? With a formula geared towards Zeppelin, the greatest metal band of all time, you can't go wrong.

The problem is for one, that you will never in all probability be even in the same league as the Zep, and secondly, because you will not be, you will be labeled a Zep rip off band. True to a degree with Kingdom Come. Yes, Wolf is superb as a Plant-Zep influenced singer and pulls off some talented, energizing interest in songs such as "Living Out Of Touch", "Pushin Hard", "Get It On" (I like the clever "Kashmir" rhythm in this one) and the excellent, "Since I've Been Loving You"-like, power ballad "What Love Can Be" superbly showcasing Wolf's Plant-style versatility. However, the overall songwriting is made up of mainly unsustaining, contriving, formula commercial-friendly tracks that may sound good a few times but then fades in interest and freshness as it lacks that special creativity for successful staying power. Secondly, Wolf's vocals drives this group nicely but that's it really. For one, there is an overall lack of identity in that special interplay of the guitar with the vocal that was the main ingredient that made the mighty Zep rule.

Now, it is unfair to compare any band to Zeppelin. They had it all from songwriting, musicianship, creativity, showmanship and that special heavy metal charisma. The fact that Kingdom Come assimilated their given talents and love in combining a heavy Zep influence is a feat in itself for any band to make it with the huge shadow of the great Zep always lurking. Unfortunately, most times any success in going against the "real" thing, and Kingdom Come did have some measureable success in the late 80's, is short lived.

Still some good music and talent here - worth a listen or two, maybe three..........

This album is a good introduction to Kingdom Come. I think there should have been more songs on this one. Examples are "Loving You"(this was also released as a single/video),"Shout It Out", "Highway 6" "Perfect O" "You'll Never Know" "Both Of Us" and "Stay". Maybe throw in some live tracks,b-sides and a few demos and you would have a double album that fans would buy. The record company should know that fans are the ones buying this album and not anyone new wanting to check it out(sad but true) so why not go ahead and make it right the first time.

The bottom line is this is a good introduction to Kingdom Come. It features all the band's hits and most of their singles including "Get It On" and "What Love Can Be," two of the band's essential songs. I just wanted it to be longer and at least put on their other single "Loving You" and maybe "Highway 6" as they would have fit on this cd.

Just listened to the Eddie Trunk hard rock/heavy metal radio show and the finale was "What Love Can Be" by Kingdom Come...well it's the best ballad of this genre, ever! Buying my copy now and I suggest you do the same. Can't wait to hear the rest!

This CD has all their best songs, but their missing 17 from their debut album. 20th Century Masters has add another great artist to their collection of thousand of bands. All the songs sound great and sound a little remastered to me. The second songs sound a whole more like Led Zeppelin then other songs on here. The linear notes include: nice band's photography, track listing, credits and a brief story of the band. I would definitely recommend this.

As the title for my review states, this band got my excited with it's 80's rock sound that I grew up with. I was listening to XM's Hair Nation and this was this first time I heard them, I almost thought it was Led Zeppelin at first and had to look twice, lead singer has similar sound and vocal range as Robert Plant.
This band has a really good straight up rock sound, I got home and ordered the MP3 album right off the bat. Good to see there is some fine rock still out there.
FYI: Black Eyed Peas, worst superbowl show ever, LOL, had to put that in there.

Sure, they take a little (ok maybe a lot) from a few bands, most notably Plant and Zep. Still, this band could sure deliver. Good stuff!

If you were around during the '80s when metal ruled the music scene then you surely remember Kingdom Come, and all the criticism they received concerning their sound. Many people wrote them off as nothing more than a cheap imitation, and total "rip off" of Led Zeppelin. The problem with those who did is those individuals who thought Lenny Wolf sounded just like Robert Plant must be tone deaf. Although KIngdom Come was not the most original band to emerge in the '80s, they did deliver a nice collection of blues-based hard rock songs and power ballads. Get It On was very "Zep sounding", but Kingdom Come did try to develop its own sound as the band progressed. This particular disc does deliver the best songs, and if you enjoy blues-based hard rock tunes then you should pick this up. And you can make up your own mind about the band, and the comparisons to Zeppelin. If a singer is going to sound similar to an already established great then he can't go wrong sounding like one of rock's greatest lead vocalists.

Along with the Scorpions and Accept, Kingdom Come was a hard rock band from Germany. They sounded similar to Whitesnake in that they were very Led Zeppelin influnced. Although they didn't rip off Zeppelin so much as the aforementioned band. The songs are hard, catchy and a little commercial, but still they were great rock 'n' roll. And although their success was short-lived, Kingdom Come made a large impact on the face of commercial hard rock. This is similar to the Scorpions and Whitesnake. If you like either of those bands, you will like this.

I was a teenager when this album came out. I bought it. I liked it. I was
ignorant. So blatant and disrespectful of zep, it is. It's like they didn't even bother to hide it. Rot in hell, posers.
sincerely,
Johne