CoronaVinyl Day 136 (Abbreviated Name): Mean Streak by Y&T

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is abbreviated name, and by that, I mean a band whose name maybe started out as something fully spelled out, but then, for whatever reason, the band started going by the abbreviation of the name.  To be clear, I'm not talking about bands that are colloquially known by abbreviations but still released music under their full names, like Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR), Bachman-Turner Overdrive (BTO), or Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), or groups whose names have always been abbreviations and have never gone by an unabbreviated name, like R.E.M., UFO, ABBA, or TLC.  I'm talking about bands that released music under their abbreviated name.  Some examples of groups that would fall into that category are T. Rex (which started out as Tyrannosaurus Rex), O.A.R. (which started out as Of A Revolution, but dropped the full name on albums starting in 2001), and LFO (of "Summer Girls" fame, who started off as Lyte Funkie Ones).

Another such band is '70s and '80s Bay Area hard rock band Y&T.  They started off as Yesterday and Today, and released their first two studio albums under that name, before switching to the abbreviated Y&T for their third studio album, 1981's Earthshaker.  The band was kind of lumped in with hair bands during the '80s, although they are more of the late '70s/early '80s hard rock mold of AC/DC, early Whitesnake (lead singer and lead guitarist Dave Meniketti's voice has always reminded me of David Coverdale's voice), or even the New Wave of British Heavy Metal sound.  I have their greatest hits on CD and some other random songs here and there, and they were a really good, straightforward hard rock band.

The album I have is 1983's Mean Streak, which was produced by the vererable Chris Tsangarides, who produced and/or engineered albums or songs for a bunch of hard rock and metal bands over the years, Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy, Anvil (he appeared in the band's 2009 documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil), Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, Exodus, King Diamond, Overkill, Yngwie Malmsteen, Helloween, and Tygers of Pan Tang, as well as many non-metal artists, including Depeche Mode, Tom Jones, Joan Armatrading, Concrete Blonde, Jan Hammer, and The Tragically Hip.

Mean Streak peaked at #103 on the Billboard album chart, and the title track reached #25 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.  But don't let it's lack of commercial success taint your view of the album.  Top to bottom, it's a pretty damn good hard rock album.  The band had been together for about a decade at this point, and it shows, as they are tight and aggressive.

For whatever reason -- perhaps because they didn't quite fit the "hair band" mold or because they didn't have many music videos in the burgeoning MTV era -- the band didn't have a lot of success on the charts, although hard rock and metal fans and musicians know and appreciate Y&T.  Only one of their songs charted, 1985's "Summertime Girls," and that definitely has more of a hair band sound (and a video with lots of girls in bikinis).  It was also featured in one of my favorite '80s movies, Real Genius.

The Spotify version of the album has a bonus track, "I'm Sorry," that isn't on the vinyl version of the album.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Mean Streak"

The title track kicks off the album with a punch.  The riff is fantastic, and it's a fast-paced hard rock song, with Meniketti providing a wicked guitar solo about 2/3 of the way through the song.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Down and Dirty"
This song is all about partying on a Friday night, and it's the song I most associate with Y&T for some reason.  I especially like the line "roll me in the mud, baby," right before the guitar solo.  It seems like a song that could have been a hit in the early '80s.