Part Two of Five
RATT – Invasion of Your Privacy (Originally 1985, 2020 reissue — The Atlantic Years 1984-1990 box set)
Going triple platinum on their debut album, Ratt had a lot of expectations going into a followup. They resumed working with producer Beau Hill and didn’t change up much in their formula. The result was a double platinum second record, another sales success. But what about the tunes?
Lead track “You’re In Love” was chosen as a speedy, sleek, metallic and melodic single. A step up in songwriting, “You’re In Love” packs power and horny Stephen Pearcy passion. Wicked solo by Warren DeMartini. The simple riff/melody combo was all the rodents needed to score a hit and a career highlight. As an album opener, it revs the engine but it is also the fastest track you’ll get on Invasion of Your Privacy.
A tasty heavy riff opens up “Never Use Love”, a nice chugging album track. Nothing here in terms of a memorable chorus, so strictly album filler. Not road tape worthy without a decent chorus. Great Robbin Crosby solo though. Fortunately the slick first single, “Lay It Down” comes in for the save. Take “You’re In Love” and slow it down to a sexy locked groove, and you get “Lay It Down”. Pearcy was not one for subtlety. “I know you really want to lay it down,” he beckons, and no points for guessing what “it” is.
Track four, “Give It All”, is a decent album cut, with the hooks and chugging Ratt N’ Roll style riffs that people expected. A track with single potential, had they released another. Another pretty good album track, “Closer To My Heart”, slows it down but not quite into ballad territory. More like a slow dirge to close side one.
The second side opens on “Between the Eyes”, a disjointed tune that needs some tightening up. Some cool hooks but nothing to tie them together into a song. “What You Give Is What You Get” boasts a cool, tough little chorus and some quality guitar. Great tune other than a misfitting pre-chorus. It has a dark, foreboding vibe that Ratt rarely nail this well. “Got Me on the Line” is a pretty solid deep cut, typical uptempo Ratt N’ Roll. The solo in particular smokes. “You Should Know by Now” is a bit clunky, but you can hear what they were going for. They were trying for a big pop rock chorus, but they welded it to the wrong song.
Closing on “Dangerous But Worth the Risk”, the album comes to a strong ending. It chugs along with that Ratt N’ Roll groove that embodies the sound of Motley Crue assimilating all of Hollywood California in a single night. Though Ratt’s sound is not something as unique as they used to sell it as, it does have a niche. It rarely squirms out of that niche. Invasion of Your Privacy does not stray far from the debut, and doesn’t add any new wrinkles. It’s the next batch of songs and all but equal in strength to the first batch.
Each CD in this box set comes with bonus material from singles, and this time it’s a single edit for “What You Give Is What You Get”. The guitar solo is sadly trimmed by 20 seconds for the radio, but no problem hearing this cool song twice.
3.5/5 stars
mikeladano.com 
I was listening ro rhis recently, I am part way through Pearcy’s autobiography at the moment
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My fav of the RATT bunch. Little too low of a score there my friend. lol but fair enough your blog your rules..
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Man scoring these was hard. You’ll see what I mean when we get further. Part of it is that all of these albums are new to me except Cellar.
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Some new music discoveries this year like Coney and RATT
WHAT COMES AROUND GOES AROUND!
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About a quarter star lower than the debut for me (though I would have given that one 4 stars). Solid follow up. Lay It Down is a top 3 Ratt song for me.
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I found all of these really hard to rate, star-wise. Either that or Ratt are relatively consistent.
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This is not my favorite of theirs. I thought the songs were okay, but nothing as great as the first. I forget my score but may be close to this one. It was too safe and they didn’t push themselves forward at all with this one.
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There’s a lot of good cuts on this album. I still reckon that Closer To The Heart is an underrated gem.
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I just have a Hits set from these guys, but I do endorse the cover art.
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My favorite Ratt album. Have this on vinyl. Have a memory of just keeping on turning the side. Loved this one.
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The first side was definitely better than the second in my view. I think they tried too hard to copy their debut album and fell short. The album was good but there was no progression. I say so here: https://80smetalman.wordpress.com/2019/06/06/great-metal-albums-of-1985-ratt-invasion-of-your-privacy/
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Read your review. See what u mean. I like What u give and U should know by now.
U saw Ratt with BJ? I saw Ratt with Poison opening. Got both t-shirts. Poison shirt seemed to get a lot more notice. It had that Talk dirty to me line on the back. Got send back home from school while wearing that one.
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No wait, it was BJ shirt that got me sent home. This one:
https://poshmark.com/listing/Vintage-80s-BON-JOVI-Concert-Tour-T-Shirt-5af880636f8f592ec42655c6
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Ah I see, because it says “ass” on the back?
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Considering my love of his Arcade releases was weird RATT never did much for these ears but reading through these inspired a revisit and gotta say finding quite a lot to like certainly need delve in some more \m/
Still reading and enjoying Mike thanks ;)
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WARDY! Am I ever glad you’re back. I was worried about ya!
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HA nah I’m around, well busy and online much less of late but still reading and enjoying whenever I can mate
Cheers ;)
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Awesome! Do you ever manage to catch the live show? 7 am in your neck of the woods….
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What live show? I have no idea what you’re talking about sorry LOL!?
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Oh man you’ve been missing out! Ever since the start of the pandemic I’ve been taking the talk live every week. Last week was Sean Kelly from Helix, Lee Aaron and Coney Hatch. Amazing show! I do this every week now.
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You’re In Love is genius, I struggle after that tbh.
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The struggle is real.
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