This is a strange hotch-potch of a video featuring warehouses, deserts and endless trips down Michael Kiske’s throat. The emphasis is on humour combined with kick-ass guitar solos but it’s hard to ignore those ridiculously tight jeans. That and Kiske’s lovely flicked hair.
German band Helloween formed in the mid 80s and are considered to be one of the pioneers of power metal. I Want Out was a successful single from 1988’sKeeper of the Seven Keys Part II and did well commercially thanks to heavy rotation of the video on MTV. It marks the high point of Helloween’s success. Writer and guitarist Kai Hansen has said in an interview that “I Want Out” was indicative of his personal position at that time; he left the band not long after.
This whole video is an adolescent boy’s dream. Lita is a sex goddess in a boob tube held up by magic. She’s lap dancing to a guitar and she’s singing into the wind, her crown of huge blonde hair blowing perfectly into the breeze.
Women were fairly scarce in 80s heavy metal but Lita Ford is a glowing exception. After the demise the all-female band The Runaways in 1979, Lita launched her solo career. She reached a peak in 1988 when, managed by Sharon Osbourne, she produced the album Lita. Kiss Me Deadly did well on the charts (#40 in the US) and helped propel the album to platinum sales.
Kiss Me Deadly was named the 76th best hard rock song of all time by VH1.
Yep. An awful lot of politicians and famous people are heavy metal fans:
Barack Obama
George Bush
Bill Clinton
Hilary Clinton
Dan Quayle
Sarah Palin
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi
French President Nicolas Sarkozy
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat
Prince William
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
US right wing preacher Pat Robertson
The Pope
Meryl Streep
It has been pointed out that our beloved sign of the devil does closely resemble the deaf sign for “I love you.” But rest assured, metal fans, Helen Keller was apparently a satanist. At least, that’s according to the religious nutbags who see these photos as indicative of a secret satanic plot amongst government officials.
I think we’ll see it as a secret government plot to bring back the glory days of 80s heavy metal.
George Bush seemed particularly fond of the gesture; there are numerous photos of him making the sign, including an official portrait with the Queen. Apparently the symbol is used to indicate support for Texas.
Ronnie James Dio is often credited as popularizing the devil’s sign at Black Sabbath concerts. He has said his grandmother used to do it to ward off the evil eye.
Hit play, adjust the tracking… I said adjust the tracking! Ah well, this will have to do.
Enjoy W.A.S.P. as they vamp it up big time, the black leather pants matched only by Blackie Lawless’s bent-kneed stance. It’s as if the sheer weight of his awesomeness is pressing him down. That or his guitar. Note also at 1:17 that drummer Steve Riley is looking positively possessed and may well be about to spontaneously combust, as is often the case with drummers.
I Wanna Be Somebody is the first track from W.A.S.P.’s eponymous 1984 album, replacing the original first track Animal (Fuck Like A Beast) which was removed due to concerns over US chain store sales. W.A.S.P. were one of the main targets for the Parents Music Resource Center and the latter song was included in their “Filthy Fifteen” list, used to lobby for “Parental Advisory” stickers. I Wanna Be Somebody ranked #84 on VH1’s list of the top 100 hard rock songs.
The band won’t be drawn on whether the acronym W.A.S.P. means anything. Wikipedia reports that it is sometimes read as “We Are Sexual Perverts” or “We Are Satan’s Preachers.” Blackie Lawless has said it really stands for “We Ain’t Sure, Pal.”
Replete in top hat, scary black eyeliner and Dracula cape, Alice Cooper welcomes us to his nightmare. And what a freaky dreamscape it is. Never mind that this heavy metal classic sounds a little like lounge music to today’s sensibilities, scarier things are afoot. For a start there’s a bunch of weird masked dancers gyrating around his bed, including a woman wearing a phallic snake hat. Then Vincent Price sneaks up from nowhere and tries to grab Alice from behind. Finally, our hero’s head explodes like shattered glass. I don’t know about you, but the little 1975 kid in me is hiding behind the couch at this point.
Welcome To My Nightmare was the first track on Alice Cooper’s 1975 concept album of the same name. It charts a journey through the nightmares of a child called Steven and features narration by horror film star Vincent Price. The album was the first solo effort from Alice Cooper after the breakup of the Alice Cooper band.
The song only reached #45 on the US charts but the album went on to become a best seller.
Don’t these pretty boys have the shiniest long hair? And they know how to wear a pair of denim jeans.
Youth Gone Wild was Skid Row’s debut single from their first eponymous album in 1989. While the single itself didn’t chart well, the song was played heavily on MTV and contributed to the overall success of the album. Wikipedia reports that the band’s sucess was sullied by the fact that a large percentage of song royalties were actually paid to Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, in payment for their “leg up” from the better-known band.
From the second that bass line starts, you can’t help but love this song. Sure, it was written by Paul Stanley to prove how easy it was to write a disco hit, but forget that “d” word. This is a kickass heavy metal song, man. It’s just so over the top.
The video has much to offer: the platform shoes, a hairy-chested Paul Stanley, Ace’s glittering holographic guitar. But the best part by far is Gene’s bass solo when he looks down the barrel of the camera like he’s gonna kill just by thinking about the A string. And then he licks it. Oh yeah.
The song was #1 in Australia in 1979 but only got to #11 on the US chart.
This is acoustic guitarist Steven Dillon during his heavy metal days. He taught himself to play all of Eddie Van Halen’s guitar parts using a two-speed tape deck.
Heavy metal has long been the bane of rabid Christian groups who fear that metal music leads kids into satanism and suicide. How could they not? The genre has been built on the idea of the devil since Black Sabbath decided to play “horror music” as a change from jazz.
It turns out that a lot of metal music has made use of what’s known as the Devil’s Interval or the Devil’s Tritone. This is a combination of two notes that give a “spooky” effect. If you want to know what it sounds like, think of the first bit of the Simpsons theme tune (the “Simp” part of “The Simp..sons”). According to the BBC:
On the surface there might appear to be no link between Black Sabbath, Wagner’s Gotterdammerung, West Side Story and the theme tune to the Simpsons.
But all of them rely heavily on tritones, a musical interval that spans three whole tones, like the diminished fifth or augmented fourth. This interval, the gap between two notes played in succession or simultaneously, was branded Diabolus in Musica or the Devil’s Interval by medieval musicians.
A rich mythology has grown up around it. Many believe that the Church wanted to eradicate the sounds from its music because it invoked sexual feelings, or that it was genuinely the work of the Devil.
The tritone is used extensively in Black Sabbath’s eponymous song:
Guitarist Tommy Iommi says: “When I started writing Sabbath stuff it was just something that sounded right. I didn’t think I was going to make it Devil music.”
Other examples of the Devil’s Interval include Purple Haze and Foxy Lady by Jimi Hendrix and Maria from West Side Story.
This site is a celebration of classic heavy metal, hair metal and rock from the 60s, 70s and 80s. Pretty much up until 1991 when Nirvana ruined our fun and turned heavy music into a humorless mire of depression. We're bringing back the fun of metal - the spandex, the hair, the studs, the leather, the shredding, the screaming.
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Heavy metal has long been the bane of rabid Christian groups who fear that metal music leads kids into satanism and suicide. How could they not? The genre has been built on the idea of the devil since Black Sabbath decided to play “horror music” as a change from jazz.