A Most Magnificent Mashup of Manely Metal
Current mood: METAL
Category: METAL Music

God help me, I do love it so.
[I'll give a medal to anyone who gets the movie quote]

A month or so ago I finished reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance".  It was a great read, a history of philosophy, and a personal philosophic quest, wrapped around the story of a cross-country motorcycle trip.  I was really starting to take heart what the author had to say, but then something hit me - there was no music.  This guy had spent weeks riding and hiking and camping, and didn't bring any music along or seek it out along the way!  From that instant on I discarded the author and anything he had to say.  What a nut!

I have a trip coming up, a long driving trip; probably 60 hours in the car plus many evenings in various towns.  This is going to require some tunes!

Helpfully, some other nut put together a 60 ALBUM COLLECTION of 80's rock, called it "Absolute Hair Metal", and put up a torrent on TPB.  That's 900 tracks!  Being, well, HVY MTL, and the unofficial archivist of Dee Snider's House of Hair, this sounds really cool.

The collection starts off like one might expect.  Here's the usual suspects, plus a few deeper cuts.  Oh yeah, remember how hot those Britny Fox posters were?  [little joke there, if you remember them...].  I know you've heard Ratt, Cinderella, and Warrant.  You'd probably remember the Vixen and Helix tracks, too.


But after the first few DOZEN albums, we're getting pretty obscure.  Some of these sound like crappy 4-track demo tapes, too.  Nice to see Kevin DuBrow and Savatage, but even I have never heard of the rest of these!  I can tell you that Lipstixx 'N' Bulletz sounds like what you think they do, and Skagarack does not.



Cranking through these, deciding what to keep for the car discs, I come across some that are really reaching.  By volume 60 our dear editor was losing it.  Kansas and Bad Company will have to wait for the "great not-quite-so-soft moments of soft rock" compilation.  And Jodi Bongiovi will have to wait for a Moxie show.  ;-)



Pardon me while I continue the banging of the head!

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