In the late '80s and early '90s, MCA Records wasn't as commercially successful in rock as it was in urban contemporary, and sought to remedy that by signing an abundance of hard rock bands. While a few had potential (including
Sweet FA), most were formula-driven and painfully generic. One embarrassing example is Paramus, NJ's
Trixter, whose songs were along the lines of another Jersey band,
Bon Jovi, but not nearly as memorable. The fact that this self-titled debut did enjoy some airplay on album-rock stations certainly wasn't due to originality. Forgettable and pedestrian, songs like "Bad Girl," "Play Rough" and "One in a Million" exemplify MCA's formulaic, assembly-line approach to "corporate" hard rock at the dawn of the '90s. With the rise of alternative rock a few years later,
Trixter would be all but forgotten. ~ Alex Henderson