Classic Metal Mania

Not trying to run an all-Ozzy blog here, but I thought this was pretty damned impressive.  A 9-year-old Japanese kid complete with Randy Rhoads-style polka-dot Flying V plays Crazy Train…and nails it.  And his singing doesn’t sound that far off from Ozzy, either.  ;-)

…and much hilarity ensues:

It was announced over at Ozzfest.com that there will be no summer Ozzfest for 2009, due to Ozzy taking the summer to work on his followup album to Black Rain.  From the website:

As most of you already know, Ozzfest will be taking the summer off as Ozzy works on his follow up to ‘Black Rain’, so there will not be an Ozzfest 2009. Ozzfest will return bigger and better the following summer for Ozzfest 2010. More info will be coming as we get closer to 2010.

And here’s more, straight from the horse’s mouth:

Scorpions lead guitarist Matthias Jabs, circa 1980. His Gibson Explorer is one of the signature guitars of 1980s heavy metal.

Let’s start off the Song Classic series with one everyone probably feels they’ve heard too many times already.  ”Rock You Like A Hurricane” (view video) was the first single off the Scorpions’ 1984 album, “Love At First Sting”, and it quickly became one of the Scorpions’ biggest hits, rising all the way to #25 on the USA Billboard Top 100, a pretty lofty spot for a heavy metal song.  It hit heavy rotation on MTV (back when they actually used to show music videos) and radio all across the United States, and I would not argue with anyone who said it was overplayed to death.  It was.

But so what?  If you can step back from the mainstream popularity of the tune, it’s easy to appreciate how it became so popular in the first place.  The fact is, it’s a flat-out great song, and held wide cross-genre appeal simply because it was so good to listen to.  The main riff is heavy but instantly accessible, and because it also happens to be easy to play, every budding guitarist has learned it.  The solos are not so easy – Matthias Jabs simply scorches, laying down one of the seminal heavy metal solos of the 1980s, a searing escapade in cascading sheets of notes with great melodic flair, further establishing himself as one of the best guitarists in all of heavy metal.  There are some nice change-ups, such as the alternating half-time verses, and provocative lyrics that never degenerate into juvenile immaturity, like so many other bands of the day.

It’s hard to fault a band for producing a momentous piece of work that gets them wide recognition.  ”Rock You Like A Hurricane” is a metal classic, deservedly so, and it remains one of my favorite metal songs from the early 1980s.

Hi all.  I thought I’d let you all know my plans for the format of this site.  Basically, I envision things being presented in a series of article types.  I’ve decided to break things down into the following categories:

• Band Biographies – these articles will be band histories, including full discographies.  Note that discographies will contain original albums only, and won’t include retrospectives or “greatest hits” collections.
• Artist Biographies – these articles will showcase individual artists, regardless of band affiliation.
• Album Reviews – album reviews will review albums from start to finish, from the purist point of view that this is the way an album is intended to be listened to.  Each song will be taken in turn, and the emphasis of the review will focus on the impact of the album overall.
• Concert Reviews – I went to a lot of concerts back in the day, and I’d like to go back and review them all.  My memory may not be perfect, especially for shows that are going on 25 years old, but I think it’s safe for me to say I remember the impressions most of them left on me.  Reviews will also include scans of the original concert ticket, all of which I kept – that should be kind of cool.
• Song Classics – these articles will highlight heavy metal classics from back in the day, basically a retrospective look at the song in question.
• Lost Classics – these articles will be about great heavy metal songs that have never really gotten the attention they deserve.
• Bomb Classics – these articles should be fun.  They will focus on songs that are “classics” in the sense that you still hear them played on the radio today, but that in my opinion don’t really deserve that status.  Because in reality, they suck.
• Metal in the Media – all about references in the media to classic heavy metal, such as songs used in movies or on TV.
• Seattle Metal Spotlight – I was born in raised in Seattle, and lived here throughout the classic heavy metal days.  There was a lot of good material that came from Seattle that you probably never heard of, so with these articles I plan to introduce you.

There will be more as well, including plenty of media, so I’m sure I’ll make up more categories as I go.  But these are the types of articles I plan to organize the website around, and I hope you enjoy them!