On September 27, 1984, Autograph released Sign In Please, their debut on RCA Records: the record of a Los Angeles band that cracked the Top 30 with “Turn Up the Radio” and deserved far more.
1984 was a year of trenches in hard rock. On one side, the thrash of Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax roared through underground clubs with Ride the Lightning and company, the road that would later lead to …And Justice for All. On the other, Sunset Strip glam metal was taking over radio and MTV. Caught in the middle, five guys from Los Angeles decided you could be heavy and catchy at the same time.
What can we hear?
Sign In Please sounds like Los Angeles in 1984: bright guitars, driving keyboards, huge backing vocals and Neil Kernon at the controls, with a radio-ready polish that never dulls the edge. Autograph were Steve Plunkett (vocals and guitar), Steve Lynch (guitar), Steven Isham (keyboards), Randy Rand (bass) and Keni Richards (drums).
The context helps explain the record. It was the Reagan era: in November the president would be re-elected by a landslide, the Cold War still chilled the air, and the Los Angeles Olympics, with the Soviet boycott, turned the city into a showcase of American optimism. Rock offered two answers: the rage of thrash or the party of glam. Autograph chose the party, in the vein of what Kiss had hinted at with Creatures of the Night, and with the same radio ambition MTV rewarded in ZZ Top with Eliminator. That same year they opened dozens of shows for Van Halen, the best possible school for a debut band. And the name, as the story goes, came from Def Leppard’s “Photograph.”
The songs you cannot miss
“Turn Up the Radio” is the heart of the album. It grew out of a demo called “Turn Up the Tape Machine,” has a chorus that sticks, and came with a memorable video in which the band signs in with a mechanical pencil at a robot receptionist’s desk. The wordplay between the band name and the album title was their manager’s idea, who saw a promotional opportunity with a pen and pencil company. Music and promotion built for MTV.
“Send Her to Me” proves it was no fluke: melodic hooks, guitars up front and a Steve Lynch showing off the tapping technique so fashionable in those years. These are songs made to be played loud in the car with the windows down.
Sign In Please, a legacy that still sounds alive
Autograph did not change the history of metal, but they did not deserve to end up as a footnote either. They had the songs, the look, the producer and Van Halen’s blessing. They arrived when the industry had room for only a few glam bands and the audience was about to turn toward other sounds. More than forty years later, Sign In Please sounds fresh, unashamed and well crafted, much closer to the melodic heritage that Ozzy Osbourne already showed on Blizzard of Ozz than its passing-fad label suggests. This band deserved more. If you want to keep discovering the albums that built the genre, keep exploring The Rock Review.
More information: Sign In Please on Wikipedia and Autograph on Wikipedia.
