Kip Winger. Just stare at the photo for a minute because doing that will likely drag you back in time. I stumbled onto an interview with the rocker in a (GASP) 25-year-old issue of Sassy magazine and was kind of sucked in. I was 17 when he and his band, Winger, first broke through and even then he struck me as smarter than the average bear. I'm not sure what drives this interview more, his intelligence or the reporter's love for him. I think you had to be there to be sure.
But he is smart and back then he had a clear direction of what the bands' second album would be. It was pieced together in a pretty painstaking way, which I appreciate. I've loved their catalog of music over the years, but Winger's self-titled debut remains my favorite. It was one of those albums that I played almost all the way through and it followed me everywhere. It was in my Walkman, in my stereo, playing on the bus to school and then one of the things that we listened to at the end of the night at work.
Winger was everywhere. That first album spawned four singles and spent well over a year on Billboard's Hot 200 album chart. It also recently was named one of Rolling Stone's Top 50 metal albums of all time, kind of proving that this band still stands out from the mountain of hair bands that came and went over the years.
Winger has released several albums over the years and they are still together and touring as I type. I could have chosen several videos to feature but I need to take you guys back to "Headed for a Heartbreak" but done with the Colorado Symphony. It's still gorgeous, don't you think?