Heavy Metal

     Maybe it's the cold medicine or sleep deprivation talking, but I find myself feeling nostalgic about heavy metal. I've spent the past week, up all night, watching Metal Mania and Iron Maiden in concert on VH-1 Classic. This got me thinking about my music collection. Back in the 80's, my collection was almost entirely heavy metal or hard rock. Iron Maiden. Judas Priest. Queensryche. Ozzy. Black Sabbath. Dio. Motley Crue. Def Leppard. Ratt. Rush. Triumph. Quiet Riot. Randy Rhoads was my favorite guitarist. I grew my hair long and kicked around the campus of CMU  wearing a Quiet Riot t-shirt and ripped jeans. I was all about it. Then in 1987, I graduated, got married and metal began to suck. The power ballad ruled the airwaves. Tawny Kitaen was rolling around on cars like a human sham wow. Axel Rose was taking douche baggery to new heights. Metallica was beginning to blow. And the decade ended with "Cherry Pie". Damn you Jani Lane!
     Unfortunately, the 80's was the decade of the cassette tape, so most of my metal collection was on that horrible format. The thing with cassettes was the sound quality was terrible and many of mine were "eaten" by my tape player. Then I lost the few cassettes I still had this summer when our basement backed up and flooded. Therefore, I hardly have any metal remaining in my collection. I wasn't particularly concerned about that until this past week. VH-1 Classic reminded me how important that music had been to me when I was a teen. Then I began to wonder what kind of music my son will have to turn to when he's a teenager. The state of metal is abysmal now. The vocalists can't sing, the guitarists can't play a melody line or solo and the drummers just play the kit drum as fast as they can. There is no Ronnie James Dio or Randy Rhoads or Steve Harris anymore. Well, Steve Harris is still around, but you know what I mean:) Anyhow, I've decided to replace the best albums from that era, not only for myself, but for my son.
     I think subconsciously I had already begun this when I bought the reissues of Ozzy's Blizzard Of Ozz and Diary Of A Madman in 2011. Then I replaced a bunch of Sabbath and Iron Maiden's Piece Of Mind. When I was at Lucky Records, I had Def Leppard's On Through The Night in my hand, but I put it back. Now I wish I had bought it. So here's a list of heavy metal albums that I want to replace in my collection so I can expose my son to some great rock music. Peace.

* Iron Maiden- Powerslave, Number Of The Beast
* Judas Priest- British Steel, Screaming for Vengeance, Defenders Of The Faith
* Queensryche- Queensryche, The Warning, Operation Mindcrime, Empire
* Dio- Holy Diver
* Black Sabbath- Mob Rules, Live Evil
* Quiet Riot- Metal Health
* Motley Crue- Shout At The Devil
* Twisted Sister- Stay Hungry
* Triumph- all of them
* RATT- Out Of The Cellar
* Def Leppard- On Through The Night