My 14 year old son has developed a taste for 80’s hard rock/metal from all the long hours playing GTA: Vice City with me, his loving mother. For those not familiar, one radio station on the game is VROCK and they play Ozzy, Tesla, Autograph, The Cult, Quiet Riot and Judas Priest. Kiddo liked the tunes so much that I made him a cd of them and he plays it constantly.
And just the other day he was singing ‘Ballroom Blitz’ under his breath while taking the garbage out. Makes a mom so proud… <sniff>
Anyway, I could really use a few suggestions for a hard rock/ metal mix that wouldn’t reveal the whole hair-band-y truth just yet but give him a good sampling of what the 80’s have to offer. What I’ve compiled so far is:
Tommy Tutone - 867-5309/Jenny (cause he likes it)
The Tubes - She’s A Beauty
J. Geils Band - Centerfold
Sweet - Ballroom Blitz
Knack - My Sharona
Cinderella - Shake Me
Cinderella - Somebody Save Me
Cinderella - Push, push
(yes, I have a Tom Keifer fixation - stop laughing…)
I don’t think there’s any metal there, but maybe you could steer gently in that direction with some Dokken, Ratt, and Bon Jovi. For me, the first time I heard “Still Life” by Iron Maiden, I knew I wanted to hear more! It sounds like you’ve done a fabulous job with that boy, congratulations!
Iron Maiden “Two Minutes to midnight”. or “Infinite dreams”, “Clairvoyant” or… gawd, just about anything from Powerslave, Piece of Mind, or Seventh Son :B (stay away from the song “Quest for fire” it might make you doubt in heavymetal songwriting altogether)
Aerosmith “The Other Side”, “Sweet emotion”, for example.
KISS ‘God Gave Rock’nRoll to You’… ‘I Wanna Rock’n’Roll all Night’
Alice Cooper … for the eighties feel, something off of “Raise Your Fist and Yell” or “Trash”. (Prince of Darkness, Step on you… or if you can get your hands on “It Rained All Night”, it’s got a great feel to it)
AC/DC anything off of Back In Black
Queen “Give Me The Prize (Kurgan’s Theme)” - probably one of the best hard rock songs I know.
Dio, a little into the nineties, but old-school enough “Strange Highways”, great song.
Ozzy. Pick one.
Megadeth “Countdown to Extinction” or “Symphony of Destruction”
You said 80s, but then threw in “Ballroom Blitz” and “My Sharona”. I remember them as being 70s songs, but maybe I’m wrong.
Staying with the 80s concept, and shying away from the few radio-played songs (“Back in Black” and “You Shook Me All Night Long”) and the overly-suggestive for a 14 year old (although I came out ok, I wouldn’t want to have to be the one explaining “Givin’ the Dog a Bone”), I’d suggest “Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution” and “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)”.
Aww heck, just go out and buy him all the recently released reissues.
I agree the bands listed in the OP aren’t metal, some of them barely qualify as hard rock, and some of them aren’t 80s. But I would think anything by Def Leppard would fit in nicely somewhere between Tesla and the Tubes. Oh, and did anyone mention the Scorpions?
I agree some of the bands listed in the OP aren’t metal, some of them barely qualify as hard rock, and some of them aren’t 80s. But I would think anything by Def Leppard would fit in nicely somewhere between Tesla and the Tubes. Oh, and did anyone mention the Scorpions?
Well, I think by the 80’s, most metal bands were poseurs, except for a few like AC/DC and Aerosmith.
I would also recommend going back a few years to the 80’s and considering tracks from bands like Led Zeppelin (not Stairway to Heaven, please – try Physical Graffiti or Kashmir), AC/DC (Shook Me All Night Long or Dirty Deeds), Styx, Yes, Rush, Jethro Tull, Heart… even some Beatles… stuff recorded back when all the poseurs were making disco.
Ooh, and don’t forget old ZZ Top, either.
Those bands invented “metal” and by the 80’s were being copied by bands that were all production and no talent.
In fact, put on a Clear Channel “classic rock” FM station to find examples of what not to include.
Hair metal not music? Hair metal was certainly music. And it was great music in the same way that horror movies can be great films. It’s all about adherence to a form and doing it well. And bands like Poison, Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, Cinderella- these bands made not only great examples of theire genre, but damn good music as well.
All production and no talent? Look What the Cat Dragged In had less production than Appetite For Destruction and was just as good a rock-n-roll album. Slippery When Wet and New Jersey were amazing rock records, and Heartbreak Station had more than enough of a bluesy feel to make it worth listening to even today. I have seen all these bands (and many who were, in fact, subpar) in concert both in their heyday and as recently as this past summer, and they played well then and they play great now.
It’s not the music that’ll save the world. But it’s not supposed to be.
