Golden Earring...

[Denis]

Lately people have been uploading full Golden Earring albums to YouTube. Their albums are rather difficult to find in the States so this is really good news for us fans.

I'm only downloading those I don't already have on CD. So far I've found and downloaded:
Cut - 1982
Prisoner of the Night - 1980
Together - 1972
Eight Miles High - 1968
To The Hilt - 1976
Golden Earring - 1970

[Highlander]

Obviously, for copyright issues, none of us have read any of the preceding information ...

Never really understood why the name changed from Earrings to Earring...

[Hörnisse]

I remember buying Cut when it came out.  I also had the 12 inch of Twilight Zone. Love that bass line.

[Chris P.]

I just read a book which is a research on the succes of Golden Earring abroad and especially in the US. At the moment it's in Dutch only. Very interesting and a great look inside a band and troubles abroad which can appear.

Nowadays bands go abroad, they tell us the've landed on twitter and the same night the first crappy phone vid appear on youtube. In that time there wasn't anything of that and some US tours were very succesful, without any press covering in Holland, and the other way around. The outcome is quite simple: Yes, GE had quite some succes, several times and the played very big venues, headlining and as support act. Because of some changes in style, some bad management (spending too much money) and the fact they didn't want to live in the US for a longer time, also meant they never went really big, like The Who (same label, ...).

[uwe]

I have a career-spanning Dutch 4 CD boxed set of them - their music changed quite a bit over the time, but they were never heavy metal or even heavy rock, hard rock at the most I'd say. The new album is outright sixties, kind of back to the roots, they were originally a beat band.

For whatever reason I always thought that "(The) Golden Earrings" sounded sixties as a name, while deleting that plural s in "Golden Earring" gave them a cool seventies name.

To many Dutchies they are a bit like the Scorpions are to us Krauts: On the one hand, they both continue to be the bands in their respective countries that broke biggest internationally (the Scorpions might have Rammstein approaching their status as a live circuit draw internationally, but given this day and age, Rammstein can impossibly have the record and CD sales the Scorpions had which range around the 100 million, that's how far you can get even wiff bät Eeeenglisch!!!) on the other hand you feel a bit embarrassed about them because they lack any cult coolness (personally I think Golden Earring are cooler and less spinal tappish than ze Scörps, but people from the Netherlands might think different). But both bands deserve at least grudiging respect for breaking out of their national markets in a music culture dominated by Anglo-American acts and for their longevity.

[Denis]

GE hasn't toured the US since 1984, sadly. I doubt I'll ever get a chance to see them.

I always thought they had a different take on music than many other bands. There's just something distinctive about their music.

[Hörnisse]

I always liked their original cover for Moontan.  The back of the LP wasn't bad either.

[gweimer]

The back cover was singer, Barry Hay.

[Hörnisse]

The back cover was singer, Barry Hay.

Well, he's got a fine looking ass. 

[Chris P.]

A Dutch singer once said that it's almost impossible to be a rock star in Holland. Only Herman Brood was. Still, Dutch people tend to love GE. Of course nowadays they're seen as an 'oldies band' by lots of people, but they have a lot of younger and older fans. They still make albums, they are always improving their gear, they were one of the first rock bands hitting the theatre and by that saving their carreer, mone wise. So they are quite cool to most people.   

[uwe]

I've always had a soft spot for them. Back Home, Buddy Joe and Radar Love are all classics to me probably due to a budget Greatest Hits Polydor music tape (for our younger readers: an extinct media from the last millenium) I had and heard to death until it wore through.

[Denis]

All in all, I think "Moontan" was their best album (certainly my favorite so far) and in my opinion one of the best rock albums ever produced.

[westen44]

"

All in all, I think "Moontan" was their best album (certainly my favorite so far) and in my opinion one of the best rock albums ever produced.

I agree that "Moontan" may be their best one.  But they've had so many albums, so many songs.  This may just be my subjectivity speaking, but I feel some of their best songs have been some of their most obscure ones.  I don't quite like some of their 80s albums as much as the others, but other than that, their discography is fine.  As time has shown, not many bands have been able to accomplish what GE has done. 

[leftybass]

OK, I admit to not knowing much about GE, I bought a live album back in the 70s 'cause it had a Longhorn bass on the back cover(I remember liking a song called Candy's Goin Bad), and I know Radar Love and that hit from the 80s, question is, what CD should I buy to "get into" GE?

[copacetic]

I got into GE in the summer of '67 after moving to Holland during the ' Sound of the Screaming Day' time. Interestimg time in those days. Got to see the last incarnations of the Yardbirds and Beginnings of Zep, Mayalls Blues breakers and Jimi Hendrix at a car show auditorium? Also another great Dutch band ..The Outsiders.