#80's classic heavy metal

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Dio - Holy Diver (1983)

[possible-streetwear]

OZZY

[bayareabadboy]

David Bowie and Joan Jett, 1989.

[metalcultbrigade]

Monsters Of Rock 18/08/1984

[myvinylplaylist]

KIϟϟ: The Very Best Of Kiss (2002)

Mercury Records

[jarofalicesgrunge]

Mike Starr - >>>

[davemurrayy]

Lads!!!

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Monsters of Rock 1998 Hair Metal / Hard Rock / Arena Rock /Heavy Metal / Pop-Metal

Good lord, this had to have been one of the most heavily advertised albums of all time, man. I don't know how much ad money the Razor & Tie label shelled out for all of their 'As Seen on TV' comps back in the day, but the commercials for Monsters of Rock and Monster Ballads were fucking inescapable throughout the late 90s and early 2000s, especially. Like, you'd be watching something on cable, and the commercial for this album would come on, so then you'd change the channel, and the same commercial would be playing on there too! And then you'd just force yourself to sit through it, and eventually, through repetition, the entire sequence of little song snippets that gets played throughout the ad would become a permanently etched medley inside of your goddamn mind, destined to haunt your soul for the rest of eternity:

🎶Cum on feel the noize, girls rock ya boys…my, my, my, I'm once bitten, twice shy, babe…poison!…*synths from Europe's "The Final Countdown"*…round and round, what comes around goes around, I'll tell you why…she's my cherry pie, cool drink of water, such a sweet surprise…we're not gonna take it, no! we ain't gonna take it…she's only seventeen, seventeen…here I go again on my own…I'm no fool, nobody's fool, nobody's fool…so hold on loosely…🎶

Now, the hair metal era may have been the dumbest and most ridiculous period of mainstream rock that we've ever borne witness to—and it's very difficult for me to think of another commercially successful subgenre in which rank stupidity has been such an inherently defining trait—but thanks to a combination of my own nostalgia for these damn Razor & Tie ads and my sometimes weird and ironic affinity for bad shit, after listening to this album, there is really nothing more that I want to do than hitch a ride back to 1990 so I can live out a super corny fantasy as a badass suburban high school senior who cruises through town in a boxy, red sedan with the windows down as these silly songs blare out of my speakers 😎.

But like I said, I am also under no illusion here; I'm fully cognizant of just how patently absurd so much of this music was. And when it comes to the pinnacle of pure trash, I really don't think anything ever quite managed to top Warrant's signature 1990 anthem, "Cherry Pie," which is obviously on this album. Like, have you heard or thought about this tune recently? It really might be the single-dumbest song that's ever been recorded in human history. And as the single-dumbest song that's ever been recorded in human history, it has thankfully and, I guess quite fittingly, been memorialized in some way, since…*checks notes*…you can currently go see the pizza box that its lyrics were originally transcribed on at the Hard Rock Cafe in Destin, Florida… 😭.

🎶I scream, you scream, we all scream for her Don't even try, 'cuz you can't ignore her!🎶

Also, Winger's "Seventeen." Yikes; you can probably guess what that one's about! Talk about songs that haven't aged well at all 😩:

🎶She's only seventeen (seventeen) Daddy says she's too young, but she's old enough for me🎶

Yeah… This one's catchy and all, but, um…no. 👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎👎 Really glad we've finally realized as a society that, at the very least, fully-grown adults singing lustily about minors is a very unacceptable thing to do. I mean, it took way too long for us to get here, but at least we've finally made it to this point, right? And I think "Cherry Pie" is probably about a minor too, by the way, but that's also up for debate 😑.

To be clear, though, not every song on this album is embarrassingly dumb and/or skeevy hair metal. I happen to think Living Colour's alt metal classic, "Cult of Personality," is a genuinely great banger. And I also dig the southern rock smoothness of a song like .38 Special's "Hold On Loosely" too; but most of the rest of these are just pure dunderheaded hair metal classics, and a key, overarching feature of this stuff was just how fucking maximally mindless it all was. It's hard to put a finger on what exactly allowed this madness to spread so widely and flourish for nearly a whole-ass decade in the first place, but thank goodness grunge came along when it did and dethroned this stuff from its perch as rock music's top subgenre in the early 90s, because, seriously, this shit was so excessive and outrageous.

All that being said though, and as good and necessary as grunge was back then, I can't help but imagine what a kick-ass time it would probably be to have almost any one of these Monsters of Rock songs come on at the bar while you and everyone else around you are in a highly intoxicated stupor; like, "Black Hole Sun," "Man in the Box," "Interstate Love Song," "Even Flow," etc., might be total jams in and of themselves, but songs like those are probably not gonna do the same trick as something like Alice Cooper's "Poison" can in that type of situation. I mean, when you're fully committed to annihilating some brain cells, it's good to have music that's way ahead of you in order to accompany your experience, right? 😅

Highlights:

Quiet Riot - "Cum On Feel the Noize" Great White - "Once Bitten Twice Shy" Alice Cooper - "Poison" Europe - "The Final Countdown" Ratt - "Round and Round" Warrant - "Cherry Pie" Whitesnake - "Here I Go Again" Winger - "Seventeen" Living Colour - "Cult of Personality" Twisted Sister - "We're Not Gonna Take It" Judas Priest - "You've Got Another Thing Coming" Cinderella - "Nobody's Fool" .38 Special - "Hold On Loosely" Autograph - "Turn Up the Radio"

[andrewckeeper]

LIDMF AI "Fr-Eddie Krueger"

[2charmides2furious]

HHHAPPYY BIRTHDAY DIAMOND DAVEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[dodinaslesavage]

Triumph - I Can Survive (1980)

[possible-streetwear]

OZZY

[bayareabadboy]

This week in 1981, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers refused to hand over the tapes to his fourth album (Hard Promises) until MCA agreed to abandon their plans to jack up the list price from $8.98 to $9.98. And yes, we realize that Tom Petty is neither hard rock nor heavy metal, but he stuck it to "the man" for the sake of his fans...and that, my friends, is very metal. 🤘🎶

[metalcultbrigade]

Ozzy Osbourne - Bark at The Moon. 15/11/1983 in North America

[myvinylplaylist]

Guns N' Roses: Use Your Illusion II (1991)

Clear tape shells and jewel case and multi-panel J-Card.

Parental Advisory sticker on front of jewel case.

Jewel case has a 'uni' logo embossed on back.

Geffen Records

[idiotcoward]

Helloween - Keeper of the Seven Keys Part II

God damn the solos on this thing 😭 holy shit guys I’m so glad I got over my weird thing about power metal because this album absolutely fucks. The vocals, now that I can appreciate them, are so rad and perfectly performed. He’s just singing his ass off about all of these absolutely epic fantasy situations. The whole thing feels like an 80’s fantasy adventure but with absolutely insane heavy metal composition just dialed up to 1000. Cannot recommend enough!