Questions for you?

Here are some simple questions for you about 80's metal/hard rock.

1-Who was the most underrated hard rock or metal band of the 1980's?


2-Who was the most overrated hard rock or metal band of the 1980's?

3-What 80's hard rock or metal album do you love that you think not many others have heard?

Underrated and overrated 70's albums

I think I did one of these lists for 80's album so now maybe I'll tackle the 70's. Here are five albums that I overrated at one time and five that I underrated.




Underrated

1-Led Zeppelin-3
This one didn't click with me for years just because it was way more mellow than I was used to. It has grown on me and I glad that it is an album with it's own personality.

2-Rush-Caress of steel
Not everyone's favorite Rush album for sure. Odd around the edges and perhaps that's why it stands out for me.

3-Aerosmith-Get your wings
This one often gets left in the shadows of album like Rocks and Toys in the attic. It's more subtle, but the grooves are solid.

4-TKO-Let it roll
Known more for their 80's output, but this 1979 release was a solid Boston inspired album that didn't work for me in the mid-80's. In recent years I came around.

5-KISS-Hotter than hell
I used to skip past this one for most of their other mid-70's albums. Now I think it's one of their 4-5 best of their long career.

Overrated
1-Deep Purple-Who do we think we are
I always put this in with their fine string of early 70's albums, but really it's a mixed bag.

2-AC/DC-High Voltage (US version)
All their other 70's efforts rock and this one has some fine songs, but some snoozers too.

3-KISS-S/T
I used to like this one just as much as the five albums after it. There is some potential there, but it's clunky too.

4-Alice Cooper-From the inside
I got really into this one for a while mainly just because I liked the concept. Then I realized the songs were not quite as good as the ideas behind them.

5-Judas Priest-Rocka Rolla
Once I saw this one a small step away from Sad wings of destiny and sin after sin. Time and repeated plays has made me realize that the distance is wider than I thought it once was. Their are some sparks here, but it's a long ways from where they would go with their other 1970's efforts.

Dream Death-Journey into mystery

I am pretty sure it was around Christmas of 1987 that I bought this one on cassette. Now keep in mind at this time I was living on a steady diet of thrash, hardcore and crossover so just mainly fast stuff. That was true for most of the time between about 1986 an 1989. That night I wanted to buy something I hadn't heard before and I settled on Pittsburgh's Dream Death just because they were on New Renaissance. They were home of thrash acts I liked then including Executioner, Blood Feast and At War. I got the cassette home, stuck into the player and plopped into my bed waiting for the speed to overpower me. Wait, this wasn't thrash, it was heavy but not fast enough. The vocals were rough, but not as harsh as what I was used to. My immediate response was that I had wasted my money on something that wasn't thrash and therefore I was not going to listen to it. Yes, my tasted really were even more limited back then and they have not opened up all that much over the years. I was living for stuff like Slayer, Kreator, Sodom, Death, Dark Angel and the like. Anyways over the next year or so I played it every once in a while and liked it some. Part of that was because my appreciation for doom was growing although that genre was really kind of small back then. Then maybe around late 88/early 89 my Dream Death tape snapped. Quite honestly I forgot all about this band until a few years ago when I stumbled upon a review of it referring to it as a classic. I searched around and discovered that others felt the same way. Another quick search showed that "Journey into mystery" had now come out on CD. Every once in a while I would take a look and see how much it was going for, but I never bought it. Then a few weeks ago I came upon and auction ending soon and picked it up for around $7. When I got it was actually different, but better than I remembered. A number of the songs were of a heaviness pace level comparable to early Celtic Frost. The vocals were cleaner than that though. The music did at times dip to a slower pace too, but they always held on to this heavy barrage of tight, chugging riffs. The production was also well above the normal New Renaissance records' standard. Normally many albums I heard and liked back in the 80's and then heard again in recent years after a long gap tended to sound not as heavy or fast as I remembered them. However I really missed out on this one. Classic? That's not a label I like to throw around easily. I will say that this is a darn good metal album for the time and it holds up well. They probably were slightly ahead of their time and I am sure that a number of doom bands who popped up over the last say twenty years have heard this one and been influenced by it.

Ten 1980's albums that I underrated

In no real order here they are.

Cinderella-Long cold winter
This came out when I was full swing into speed metal so it didn't click with me until a few years later. Then I came to see how great of an album it is.



Iron Maiden-Seventh son of a seventh son
Again I was into speed metal and when Maiden went slightly lighter I didn't take to it at first. Maybe two years later I came around.

KISS-Creatures of the night
I liked this one, but I think that because I didn't own it for a while that I never gave it all the credit that it deserved. Easily the best KISS album of the 1980's and a top ten album for 1982.

Cirith Ungol-King of the dead
Went in hoping for straight forward speed metal and I dismissed it because it wasn't that style. Actually it's a whole lot better than most of the speed metal releases of the time.

WASP-Inside the electric circus
I was into their first two releases, but this one seemed a little light to me when I first heard it. It's not as good as the two before it, but it's a better effort than I first gave it credit for.



Metal Church-s/t
The dark was my introduction to this band. Although I heard the debut it was a while before I actually bought it and got to hear it a lot. Probably at least five years until I figured out that this was the band's best effort and unfortunately the band never totally followed the style that they started here.

Sodom-In the sign of evil
It's an EP and not the best produced album of all time. Plus I was into heavier albums by the time I heard this early thrash release. Eventually I went back and relaized that Sodom were on the right track with this one.

Dio-Dream Evil
I saw the two videos and already had it in my mind that this was going to blow. It didn't make an impression on my in 1987. Like three years later while listening to it on headphones it came to me that although far from perfect, it still had a lot to offer.

Motorhead-Another perfect day
No Fast Eddie, no way! That was my reaction to this album for a long time. Eventually I heard it for the solid disc it was. It was an attempt at a slightly different direction and most of it works.

Overkill-Feel the fire

Like Metal Church, I heard the sophomore album first so I took to "Taking over" for a while. It was some time before I bought this one. When I heard it more I was overwhelmed by just how heavy it was for the time. Like Metal Church I don't think they quite followed up this sound like they should have.

Top Ten most underrated hard rock/metal bands of the 1980's

This is just my opinion, however I have wasted a great deal of my life listening to and reading about these bands so I think that I know something about them. So here they are with the countdown from ten to number one.

10)Medieval-They only made one LP and one EP, but they were fantastic. Unfortunately they were on a label that did very little to help them so one of the most original metal bands of the decade went largely unnoticed.

9)Lizzy Borden-Between 1984 and 1986 they cranked out a few really solid albums that easily blended hard rock and metal.

8)Cirith Ungol-LA band that drew on Sabbath, Pentagram, Budgie and Priest as major influences. The combined elements of doom, classic metal and more as well as adding their own ideas.

7)Raven-They did a few clunkers in the mid-1980's, but their first three LPs were huge influences on the speed metal scene. They also did one of the best live albums of the decade and returned to being a solid band again towards the end of the decade.

6)Accept-Now they sold some albums, but I they got overshadowed by other mid-paced metal acts of the day like Judas Priest and Dio. However, metal bands even today talk about the impact this band had on them. Udo was and is a one of a kind singer (I mean that in a good way) and in their prime (82-85) these guys just went at it.

5)Metal Church-These guys were cranking out killer heavy music from the word go. They were also just as good with second singer Mike Howe as they were with original vocalist David Wayne. I think they got a little lost and left behind due to the rise of speed metal and they were kind of between speed metal and classic metal.

4)Celtic Frost-Perhaps no one else in the 80's defined the heavy aspect of metal more than this band. They also were not afraid to expand and take changes, but "Cold Lake" was not a chance they needed to take. Still they created sounds that are still influencing bands, but they didn't quite get their due back then.

3)Mercyful Fate-These guys were creating so much as they went along and I don't think even they quite understood the immediate impact they would have on the metal scene. Just solid, well played, tight metal all the way around. I think that King Diamond's image and the lyrics caused people to forgot just how good this band was.

2)Armored Saint-Tremendous straight forward real metal band that kept pushing forward despite trends changing around them and lack of support from their record label.

1)Hanoi Rocks-Between 1981 and 1984 they did four studio albums, a live album and an album of b-sides. Every album was at least very good. They combined elements of 70's glam, hard rock, punk and pop with ease. Unfortunately they broke up by the middle of the decade and got overlooked due to the dominance of too many lame hair bands.