Search - Various Artists :: Heavy Metal

Minor flaws, but really rockin'

Barack Obama | Washington DC | 10/16/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Rhino's Heavy Metal box does a whole lot right and a few things wrong. Fortunately, the good far outweighs the bad here, and this box is a great listen overall. I'll break down the good and bad disc by disc here:



DISC 1



The Good: Just about everything. This disc contains classic tracks from Blue Cheer, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, Rush, Montrose, Iron Maiden, UFO, Ted Nugent and others. Uriah Heep's "Easy Livin'" is absolutely awesome.



The Bad: An edited version of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida." For shame!



DISC 2



The Good: Lots. Great rock from Motorhead, Diamond Head, Mercyful Fate, Y&T, Priest, and Queensryche. Plus, Blitzkrieg and Rose Tattoo...YES YES YES!!!



The Bad: MSG's "Attack Of The Mad Axeman" is just awful.



DISC 3



The Good: Some really rockin' tracks, like "Shake Me" by Cinderella (the best song AC/DC never made), "Wrecking Crew" by Overkill, and "Peace Sells" by Megadeth. Ratt's "Round And Round" has aged well, and tracks by Quiet Riot and Accept are wonderfully dumb.



The Bad: Dokken's "Into The Fire" is woefully tied to its time. Hanoi Rocks. And I could have done without Spinal Tap.



DISC 4



The Good: "Still Of The Night" by Whitesnake, which reaches almose Zeppelinesque heights. Great tracks by King Diamond, Great White, Living Colour, Pantera, Metallica, and "Talk Dirty To Me" still sounds pretty good. Plus, Faster Pussycat's "Bathroom Wall" is hilarious.



The Bad: I could have done without Savatage, and Manowar is ridiculous.



To sum up: If you like your music heavy and rockin', this is a good set of songs. A few duds, but plenty of great tracks that make it well worth the purchase."

Really good with few flaws

Graboidz | Westminster, Maryland | 02/08/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I've been listening to this box set all week, and it is a pretty comprehensive collection of classic metal. The focus of the box set is really from the 70's & 80's, though there are some songs from the 60's and 90's tacked on as well. If you don't see a particular band represented, the liner notes explain that some bands did not want to contribute to the box. The booklet included in the set is pretty cool, including a History of Heavy Metal by journalist Mick Wall. You also get a track by track summary which is pretty cool, as well as some interviews with Lita Ford and Ronnie James Dio. Here is the breakdown of what is on each of the four disks:

Disk 1:

1.In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida - Iron Butterfly - Great song, but be warned it is heavily edited down from the normal 17 minute running time to under 5 minutes.

2.Summertime Blues - Blue Cheer

3.Easy Livin' - Uriah Heep

4.Highway Star - Deep Purple (Younger listeners will recognize this song as the commercial for the video game "Rock Band")

5.Billion Dollar Babies - Alice Cooper

6.Lost Johnny - Hawkwind (featuring Motorheads Lemmy on vocals)

7.Bad Motor Scooter - Montrose (Sammy Hagar on vocals)

8.Working Man - Rush (Early heavier Rush before Neil Peart)

9.Man on the Silver Mountain - Rainbow

10.Detroit Rock City - Kiss (without the intro found on Destroyer)

11.The Ripper - Judas Priest

12.Cat Scratch Fever - Ted Nugent

13.Light Out - UFO

14.Godzilla - Blue Oyster Cult

15.Demolition Boys - Girlschool

16.White Witch - Angel Witch

17.The Phantom of the Opera - Iron Maiden

18.Neon Nights - Black Sabbath (the folks who compiled this box set must LOVE Ronnie James Dio as he is present on several tracks with various bands and is featured in an interview in the booklet!!)



Disc 2:

1. Ace of Spades - Motorhead

2. Am I Evil - Diamond Head (It's cool to hear the original, but I prefer Metallica's cover....same goes with Blitzkrieg below)

3. Nice Boys - Rose Tattoo

4.Attack of the Mad Axeman - The Michael Schenker Group

5. Denim and Leather - Saxon

6. Blitzkrieg - Blitzkrieg

7. Gangland - Tygers of Pan Tang (not the most accessible band name??)

8. Witching Hour - Venom

9. You've Got Another Thing Comin' - Judas Priest

10.The Number of the Beast - Iron Maiden (where is the spoken intro??)

11.Star War - Raven

12.Say What you Will - Fastway

13.Black Funeral - Mercyful Fate (the first of two tracks featuring the high falsetto of King Diamond??)

14.Animal (F**K Like A Beast) - W.A.S.P. (Tipper Gore's PMRC anthem)

15.Mean Streak - Y&T

16.Holy Diver - Dio (again)

17.Queen of the Reich - Queensryche

18.Whiplash -Metallica



Disk 3: (THE RISE OF THE HAIR BAND!!)

1. Rock You Like a Hurricane - Scorpions

2. Metal Health - Quiet Riot

3. Into the Fire - Dokken

4. Balls to the Wall - Accept

5. Round and Round - Ratt

6. I Wanna Rock - Twister Sister

7. The Boulevard of Broken Dreams - Hanoi Rocks

8. Big Bottom - Spinal Tap (yes...a parody metal band makes the set?)

9. Midnite Maniac - Krokus

10.I'll See the Light Tonight - Yngwie Malmsteen

11.Crazy Nights - Loudness

12.Shake Me - Cinderella

13.Watch the Children Pray - Metal Church

14.To Hell With the Devil - Stryper

15.A Little Time - Helloween

16.Wrecking Crew - Overkill

17.Caught in a Most - Anthrax

18.Peace Sell..But Who's Buying - Megadeth



Disk 4:

1. Still of the Night - Whitesnake

2. Rock Me - Great White

3. Talk Dirty to Me - Poison

4. Bathroom Wall - Faster Pussycat

5. Hall of the Mountain King - Savatage (a great metal band that went all holly jolly on us and became the Trans Siberian Orchestra know for their Christmas music?????)

6. Kiss Me Deadly - Lita Ford (in leather g-string naturally)

7. Hail and Kill - Manowar

8. Trial by Fire - Testament

9. Welcome Home - King Diamond

10.South of Heaven - Slayer

11.One - Metallica

12.Cult of Personality - Living Colour

13.Youth Gone Wild - Skid Row

14.Cowboys from Hell - Pantera

15.Beg to Differ - Prong

16.Dead Embryonic Cells - Sepultura (catchy song title there?!)



The only complaints I really have are duplicate tracks by a couple bands like Priest and Maiden. I would like to have seen them throw in a couple more bands like Y&T or Fastway, bands that didn't quite make it through to the next level. Also, and I know I'm gonna catch grief for this, but including bands like Pantera, Prong and Sepultura kind of ends the box set on a down note. Going from great bands like Uriah Heep and Alice Cooper featuring great musicianship and vocals to the 90's metal featuring a few chords played very fast over unintelligble lyrics really shows you how far Metal (and the music world in whole)has fallen."

An outstanding compilation of Heavy metal through the years

Wiseguy 945 | Cedar Rapids, IA | 10/16/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I was suprised when I saw this box set. You have to laugh right away when you see the volume nob on the box (a guitar amp) which goes to "11" in honor of Spinal Tap. But this album really does Capture heavy metal. Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Queensryche, Alice Cooper, Metalica, Megadeth and more. Unfortunately, not all can be capture, and Rhino made use of their archive of artists. Thing that were missing included any Ozzy era Sabbath, or Ozzy at that. Metal without Ozzy?. But it doesn't kill the set, the rest makes up for it (Dio Rocks as well). Must have for metal fans. Check this one out, great christmas gift for your favorite rattlehead."