I took prefer Heart’s harder material. Interestingly, the issue that caused Barracuda to be written is also the reason that Magazine and Little Queen were released separately instead of on the same album. Magazine was supposed to be Heart’s second album, and the record company tried to release it in demo form without the band’s consent when Heart signed with Portrait records. Heart sued, and a judge allowed them to go back into the studio to finish the Magazine tracks to their liking before Mushroom Records would be allowed to re-release it, fulfilling Heart’s contract.

Magazine is basically an EP with some filler live tracks added to make it a full length album. But had the record company not pulled the lesbian stunt it would have been a combination of the best tracks from Little Queen and Magazine as a full concept album. So, if you want to imagine what that album would have been like, including an overall harder vibe, this is a track list you should put on your iPod and listen to. It creates an amazing album that would have likely been one of the best of the 1970s. Little Queen had filler at the end (Go on Cry is a cool jam, but it’s there to make the album full length. I love it, but many critics who knew the story caught on quickly that the band was padding the album).

I’ll include Barracuda in this track listing because I think it would have been written anyway since Roger Fisher and Mike DeRosier had come up with the rif and jammed to it before it became Barracuda. So here is a track list that would have been the Magazine album had the record company drama not happened:

Barracuda
Heartless
Love Alive
Sylvan Song/Dream of the Archer
Kick it Out
Devil Delight
Treat Me Well
Little Queen
Magazine

This “what if” version of Magazine is my favorite Heart album. I did get some input from the original band members in what this track list would have looked like.

Finally, if you love the heavy material from this band I’d check out some of the heavy material from the 80s/90s “hair metal” and post-grunge era of the band, a period where the record company focused way too much on power ballads and ignored the better album cuts: “Bad Animals” (title cut from the album), “The Wolf” (both from the late 1980s), “Wild Child”, “The Night”, “Tall Dark Handsome Stranger”, “Black on Black”. (all from 1990 to 1993 on the albums Brigade and Desire Walks On). These could all form the nucleus for a strong hard rock album as well.