Jinnistan wrote:

What was that, Rock?

I see we don't appreciate the contributions of Bob Seger to the action comedy soundtrack genre. Smdh

Rock wrote:

Jinnistan wrote:

What was that, Rock?

I see we don't appreciate the contributions of Bob Seger to the action comedy soundtrack genre. Smdh

It says "This video is unavailable" here.  Has Canada kidnapped Bob Segar and hoarding his youtube clips?

Jinnistan wrote:

Rock wrote:

Jinnistan wrote:

What was that, Rock?

I see we don't appreciate the contributions of Bob Seger to the action comedy soundtrack genre. Smdh

It says "This video is unavailable" here.  Has Canada kidnapped Bob Segar and hoarding his youtube clips?

lol didn't realize it was region locked.

So clearly yes.

In the right hands, the narrative behind this horror story concept album could make a pretty fun movie. I'm not certain why that hasn't been attempted, but probably it's because nobody with the power to do so has yet to take such an idea seriously. Still, it would at least make for a much better ride than greenlighted shite like Thirteen Ghosts. Maybe with the current wave of 80s metal nostalgia, the time could be right. 

So, my sister texts me about three weeks ago, saying my fifteen year–old niece is seeking recommendations for 1980's heavy metal.

My heart sings the Stimpy Song of "Joyyyyyy!"

Being in a hurry at that moment, I tell my sister I'll get back to her asap, and in the meantime suggest beginning with the Master of Puppets album and reporting her reactions back to me, so I can get some sense of direction going forward.

My sister replies that my niece is making a playlist in honor of Eddie from Stranger Things. 

So I head over to Google to learn what music Eddie was into.

The answer: Master of Puppets. BOO–YAHHH!!! Good girl. 

Apparently Stranger Things is responsible for putting Master of Puppets back on the map for a fresh young generation (thanks to a kid character who I guess hypnotizes vampire bats with the title track or something; I dunno).

I also learn that she's become fascinated with the 80's in general, and therefore wants to limit the playlist to the '80s. 

So I get straight to work, while also making it clear to her the importance of 1970s Black Sabbath, and refraining from the temptation to stretch the list beyond this limited palate, upon which there is still plenty with which to work.

("This [prohibition on dangling prepositions] is the sort of thing up with which I shall not put!") 

Naturally, before I know it I have a 3.5–hour playlist, and have still barely scraped the surface. Knowing that mix–making involves the inherent risk of overwhelming the recipient with a veritable data–dump, I roll up my sleeves for the excruciating process of paring it down, a torture not unlike compiling a cinematic "best of" list. This results in an arguably still too–long 1.75 hour list that strains to ensure a sampling of various genres, barely scratching the surface of a scratch on the surface. 

Finally I raise the knife again for another bloody cull, leaving only the barest bones of essentials, for a mere 80–minute CD. Yes, she still listens to CDs (there is hope for humanity; FUCK Spotify). 

By now the list has become something of a predictable "Greatest Hits" of 80's metal, but hey, she's fifteen, her other favorite artist is Taylor Swift, she had never heard of Metallica before this, and we've gotta start somewhere. Still, in the spirit of variety, I managed to squeeze in a couple of lesser–known but beloved hits somewhat off the overly–beaten path, and the title track "Welcome Home" from King Diamond's 1988 horror story concept album "Them" retains a spot on the list. 

Thus, the wild hair (or is it wild hare?) in my ass inspires me to listen back to the full album in its entirety, which I haven't done since I had it on cassette not long after its release. 

Does it hold up? Eh, about as much as it did when it was first released, following up a pretty awesome opening track (if/when one gets accustomed to King's weird personal brand of falsetto) with less–memorable but still musically decent fare. The rest of the album still has its moments, but it leans more heavily in the direction of explicit narrative storytelling than on the catchy, albeit decidedly proggy, musical structuring of the opening track, the music video for which became a staple in Headbangers' Ball broadcasts of the late '80s. A lot of the fun in the listening comes in the interludes, with radio theater–style segments featuring King Diamond's voice–acting for "Them," the various evil spirits inhabiting a home depicted on the album cover as a classic Victorian–style haunted house, with some help from a seemingly uncredited voice actress in the part of Missy, King's older sister, who angers "Them" and is subsequently torn to shreds. 

Do I recommend this album from start to finish? Not really, but I don't disrecommend it, either. King Diamond is undeniably a matter of taste.

Is it a fun and imaginative excursion down Memory Lane that could also make a decent horror movie, without being a boringly predictable paint–by numbers rehash?

Yes.

...and that's why I'm bothering telling you this. 

It's good to see everybody here. I've not been logging in much lately due to health issues, but have still been checking in often, from the shadows.


"Can you feel their eyes?"
 

Last edited by Rampop II (8/05/2022 5:43 pm)

I'm not an expert on King Diamond's solo career (for whatever reason I've listened to "Black Hill Sanitarium" a lot, but haven't delved much further), but I do love Melissa and especially Don't Break the Oath. The latter could find itself into a favourite albums of the '80s list, if I could be arsed to make one.

crumbsroom wrote:

And make this list (immediately ) health permitting, of course.

I concur.  And also (you tease) list the actual list as well.

Jinnistan wrote:

crumbsroom wrote:

And make this list (immediately ) health permitting, of course.

I concur.  And also (you tease) list the actual list as well.

Oh goody! 




This is going to be fun.

Howz'bout a little "you show me yours and I'll show you mine" with this one?

crumbsroom wrote:

what were the top ten songs that you discarded from your mixtape play list. The one's that almost made it, but just seemed too much to ask of a newbie.

This is an awesome question. Would that it'were so simple, however. 
The top discards were mostly sacrificed for the sake of shortening the list. It's a very hurty collection.
The ones that seemed too much to ask of a newbie is a different set. There's some overlap, but not much, and I don't know if I have ten of those. I'd have to pad it with stuff that was never in the running to make ten. This is one of the many reasons I have trouble with "top [insert number]" lists. Sometimes there are fewer than the designated number, and sometimes I just wanna say screw the rules, this list goes to eleven!

I had to pare down from 3.5 hours to 1.75 hours, and then down to a paltry 80 minutes. 80 minutes is freakin' nothing for an entire decade's worth of various types of metal. I mean, since I was using Master of Puppets as my central starting point, I had it in mind to begin with 3–4 songs from each of "The Big Four of Thrash" (Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax), plus some Testament for good measure, who are the Big Fifth in my personal opinion. Then I’d branch out into representing what I could (which isn't much) of some essential NWOBHM like Iron Maiden and Motörhead (whether Motörhead count as NWOBHM apparently depends on whom you ask), I'd make sure Black Sabbath gets represented albeit indirectly through an 80s lens (a little Ozzy, a little Dio), mix in some essential hard rock influences like Van Halen, Scorpions and AC/DC, deliberately eschew the glam rock out of personal bias, scour the Earth for the precious few female metal artists of the 80s, throw in some lesser–known but colorful characters for added flavor, and finish off with some late–80s genre–benders like Primus and Living Colour. 

That's how I wound up with the bloated 3.5 hour list. 

In the brutal elimination process that followed, I eventually accepted I would have to restrict myself to one song per band. How do you pick only one Metallica song? Only one Iron Maiden song? It’s gonna hurt no matter what, but of course the bright side of such cruelty is that whichever of the dozen(s) from which you ultimately choose, you can’t go wrong. In such cases I tried to choose one that best represented as much as possible of what the particular artist had to offer. Plus, in Metallica's case I had the extra benefit of having already recommended the entire Master of Puppets album, so that took some of the pressure off; I only had four albums' worth of material to agonize over (if one includes Garage Days Re–Revisited/Garage Inc, and excludes 1990's "Black Album").

One of the most painful and bloody episodes in the final cull was the decision to amputate the segment dedicated to the beloved "genre–benders," as I like to call them. I averted my eyes and wept as Primus, Faith No More, Fishbone, Living Color, and Suicidal Tendencies were all given their dismissals, with the emphatic promise that they would be granted the first seats on the next boat. I rationalized that these could be considered less exemplary of what we think of as 80s metal, and more like the next stylistic wave of trailblazers heralding things to come in the following decade. Of course Suicidal Tendencies are a special case, consistently defying any genre pigeonholes from their start in 1980, and evolving through several stylistic incarnations, all the while continuing to categorically elude categorization.

The Suicidal Tendencies song that got dropped was easily the #1 most painful cut of them all.
The song was problematic from the beginning, because even though Lights, Camera, Revolution was released in 1990, the band began recording it in December of 1989, which was all the justification I needed for "You Can't Bring Me Down" to squeak past the bouncers and become the only track in my list that strained the strict 80's–only age requirement. Alas, it wasn't meant to be. "You Can't Bring Me Down" went down. Down like Icarus, too young and too suicidally close to the sun. And like Daedalus, I bitterly wept to see it fall. 

With Primus, I had originally chosen "John the Fisherman" (who beat "Harold of the Rocks" by a nose hair), then wavered with the second guess that my niece really needed to know "Jerry Was a Racecar Driver." Alas, all that was for naught. Primus went winding down.

Living Color? Gotta be "Cult of Personality," right? Goddamn right, let's face it, what else would it be? "Elvis is Dead?" No matter. Grouuund! 

Faith No More's only 80s album was The Real Thing, and I had chosen "From out of Nowhere" because I felt it best represented Mike Patton's staggering singing ability. But back to nowhere it went. This album will come up again a little later down the line as well.

Fishbone? Are they metal? Sometimes yes, I would answer, though clearly not always, and in the 80s maybe not so much, but their cover of "Freddie's Dead" is pretty goddamn metal in my opinion. But his hope was a rope and I shoulda known. [choonk] "Dead!"

Five down just by chopping off that whole segment of my attempt at variety. And I had already resolved that Industrial and Hardcore punk would be left out of consideration, so Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Leibach, Minor Threat, Misfits, these guys never even had a chance. Not because they weren't worthy, but because I had to set the boundaries somewhere. 

Hold it, Rampop. That's all very interesting, but it's not entirely what we asked for. So far very little of what you've described necessarily meets the strict criteria for Metal, and none of it was cut for being too much to ask of a noob. Gonna keep us waiting all day?

I'm getting there. It's just that the question is really two questions in one. Before I move to the "too much for a noob" stuff, I do have to say that it still hurts to have chopped off the two Black Sabbath songs in the running, "Heaven and Hell" and "Die Young." Remember this is 80's Sabbath, with Ronnie James Dio on vocals instead of Ozzy, who was barking at the moon by the time Reagan was inaugurated (and who wouldn't be). Sabbath in the 80's can never be what Sabbath was in the 70's, but those two songs are definitely worth standing by, and not including "Die Young" still hurts deeply. 

This just about brings us to the "too much to ask of a noob" portion of the carnage. First up: 

Metallica's cover of "Last Caress/Green Hell." I was chafing on the fence over this one. Would my niece laugh her ass off, as anyone should? Or would those lyrics be just a little too much to ask of a noob, specifically a fifteen year–old noob whose favorite artist is Taylor Swift, and who has just discovered Metallica through a seeming crush on a character from Stranger Things? Furthermore, would her parents let me anywhere near my niece, ever again, after learning that I had exposed her to music singing blithely about killing babies and raping mothers, no matter how darkly humorous the intent?
Even if she is Trapped Under Ice Shiksa? 
Verdict: too much to ask.


Back to The Real Thing: "Surprise! You're Dead!" is such a fun and awesome song, but... is it too much, friends? Maybe, maybe not, but... maybe. And I did want to showcase Mike Patton's singing, which is not evident on this song. Also I was already including enough scary music...

I couldn't not include Slayer, I just couldn't. But I wanted to see how she would take a little Slayer before totally raining blood all over my dear fifteen year–old niece's innocent world. So she did get one Slayer track, and I was careful to place it perfectly: "Angel of Death" crashes in just after Testament's "Apocalyptic City," and is followed by "What's that Noise" by the Stormtroopers of Death. Great sequence when you hear it, lemme tell ya. "Angel of Death" originally preceded "Apocalyptic City" on an earlier incarnation of that list, but that didn't work as well. Any Thrash/speed metal that tries to follow "Angel of Death" (except mayyybe the rest of the Raining Blood album) is just gonna sound like pale overkill. But follow "Apocalyptic City" with "Angel of Death," now you've got some working momentum, and what better direction to go after having your hair burned off by "Angel of Death" than to lighten up the mood in the way that only S.O.D. can?

But anything from Hell Awaits would have been too much to ask. I need to see how she takes "Angel of Death" first.

In tandem with that, "Kill Yourself" by Stormtroopers of Death needs context to be fully appreciated (the whole historical background with the whole Ozzy/John Daniel McCollum suicide lawsuit thing). As much as I love that song, it didn't make the list. 

"Soul Craft" by Bad Brains. The whole homophobia thing. She's pretty adamant and modern about social justice, and this clusterfuck would have been too much to unpack, no pun intended. Too much to ask.

"Fight to be Free" by Nuclear Assault. There's nothing particularly damning about this track, or about this band. In fact their lyrics are by far more positive than most, but somehow Nuclear Assault probably belongs in Level Two of the School of Metal, not Level One. 

If I were to pad the "Too Much for a Noob" section with stuff that didn't even make it onto the list in the first place, I'd include "Killing Technology" by Voivod (because Voivod), Refuse/Resist by Sepultura and "Serial Killer" by Vio–Lence, but these were already firmly in the "Too Much" bin even before tryouts began, and never even got consideration. 

Interesting set of rejects. Not as diverse as what ultimately made the cut, probably because there were only so many brands of extreme metal at the time.

As usual, I've stayed up way too late typing all this out. I've had fun doing it and I regret nothing. But I still haven't disclosed most of what did make the cut. I've disclosed some of them. And you know I have ONE Anthrax song, ONE Megadeth song, ONE Iron Maiden song, and ONE Metallica song, with the added clue that it's not one from Master of Puppets. 

Eighty goddamn minutes. Brutal. 

I'll say this, I don't know shit about way too much. Like I don't know much about Venom's music, and they were a pretty big deal. And I don't give a shit about Def Leppard's music. Anyway, it's getting late and I need to hang this on a cliff for now. Big day tomorrow. I hope we're having fun. 

Good stuff. 👍

If you're looking to get into Venom, Black Metal is mandatory listening. Its influence is evident in a large chunk of "extreme" metal, although as "black metal" goes, it's less intricate and polished than Mercyful Fate from the same decade, but also less intimidating than, say, the scary Norwegian stuff that followed. It's got that not fully formed, lightning in a bottle quality that I think makes it a joy to listen to. It is a bit dopey, but I think the lack of polish helps offset that.

If that does the trick for you, I'd also make time for Welcome to Hell and At War With Satan. The former has much rougher production than Black Metal, but has that same unformed quality. The latter is divided between the twenty minute title track, which is clearly beyond their abilities as musicians but I still like for its ambition (I like to justify it by thinking they were messing with satanic forces they were clearly not equipped to tame), and the latter half has a number of bangers on par with the preceding two albums.


From Black Metal:











From Welcome to Hell:











From At War With Satan:









 

Last edited by Rock (8/07/2022 10:39 pm)

Rock wrote:

If you're looking to get into Venom…

 

I’m having a ball with these! I had no idea how much fun these guys were going to be. It really is party music, isn’t it! I’m not sure I see the connection between this and the Norwegian “black metal“ of later years? This definitely does not feel like “serious” music for a metal–faced meanie. Maybe I didn't understand that the church–burning Norwegians were only having a good time, because Venom feels like true hedonistic metal levity for revelers sweatily celebrating the death of disco.