The Best of 1984

This was a most metal moment in time, dare I say. "The Shredder Boom" might be even more accurately descriptive.

Van Halen: 1984
Deep Purple: Perfect Strangers
Scorpions: Love at First Sting
If you don't have these represented in your music collection, you can't claim to be a child of the 80s. This was the top of the heap, musically speaking. Do I have to even pick exemplary tunes from each? Fine: "Panama", title track, and "Big City Lights". I could probably do a backup list from each that's equally awesome.

Ratt: Out of the Cellar
Dio: Last in Line
Whitesnake: Slide it In
The second tier of the era - and a pretty solid second tier at that. Of the three, Dio's struck me as a slight letdown in terms of the number of songs palatable from the disc. Ratt was a clear up & comer and Whitesnake was but a mere hint of what was to come. My choices from these three are aren't the most predictable. Most of these were second or third radio release tunes: "Mystery" from Dio; "Lack of Communication" from Ratt; "Guilty of Love" from Whitesnake.

Yngwie J. Malmsteen: Rising Force
Alcatrazz: Live Sentence
Dokken: Tooth and Nail
Steve Vai: Flex-Able
TNT: Knights of the New Thunder
Autograph: Sign in Please
And for the practicing musician .... These were clearly the types of tunes that sent you straight to a 12-hour guitar practice session. Yngwie pretty much put his lasting stamp on 80s guitarists with his solo release following an obligatory cash-in of his work with Alcatrazz. Check any 80s rock band in the years that follow and you'll hear something similar in the guitar solo. If they weren't ripping off Eddie Van Halen, they were ripping off Yngwie. More often, they stole from both. Lord knows I did.

Best picks are as follows (and in accompanying order):
YJM: "As Above, So Below"
Alcatrazz: "Since You Been Gone" - Yngwie ripping off Richie Blackmore ... even more blatantly than normal.
Dokken: "Alone Again" ... cheesy, I know.
Vai: "Viv Woman", "Attitude Song", "Little Green Men" ... don't make me choose.
TNT: "Lost Without Your Love" ... cheesy again, but check the solo and reevaluate accordingly.
Autograph: "Friday Night" - Steve Lynch puts on a clinic of two-hand tapping on this one. I pretty much lost a summer trying to learn the solo.

Sammy Hagar: VOA
Stryper: Yellow & Black Attack
Lita Ford: Dancing on the Edge
Krokus: The Blitz
Triumph: Thunder Seven
My pop-metal highlights. Technically, Autograph should move down to this group, but the guitar work is notably superior. None of these albums made me want to go play along on guitar, but they went through a few sets of speakers and headphones. Stryper and Lita, I got to a year late. Stryper, I actually got into years before being born again. Lita required me to get over the fact that the music was really lame. Sure, the smoking hot album covers helped, but Lita was also one of the better people to meet if you ever had the pleasure. It's not that much of a surprise that she's one of the few folks who really made it past her music-producing years to live a comfy life. Granted, I had the opportunity to meet her after her coked-up Runaways years. But if she put out an album of nursery rhymes tomorrow, I'd be in line for it tonight.

Sammy & Krokus was actually my first arena concert to attend. For a nickel, my mom will regale anyone with the story of how I managed to get lost in what I would later find out was Denton - calling her for gas money that night/morning. Whatever, it was still worth it.

Prime cuts are as follows:
The Red Rocker: "Two Sides of Love" ... I cannot stand the more popularly acclaimed song from this disc.
The Y&B Attack: "Loving You"
The Spandexed One: "Gotta Let Go"
Krokus: "Ballroom Blitz"
Spinal Tap Inspiration: "Spellbound" ... predictable

The Honeydrippers: Volume One
Honeymoon Suite: Honeymoon Suite
38 Special: Tour de Force
Billy Idol: Rebel Yell
The even more commercial list, here. Of the bunch, Steve Stevens' guitar work for Idol as well as Derry Grehan's for Honeymoon Suite did actually keep me a bit rooted towards some commercial music as I learned to pluck away at my guitar. The challenge, for me, was always finding a guitar teacher who had heard of Honeymoon Suite. The appeal of the rest was pretty much a function of how seamless it wove in with my other preferred genres on the radio or the cassette player. The Honeydrippers may stand out like a sore thumb on this list, but it was Robert Plant on vocals, for crying out loud. Scandal's "The Warrior" should warrant an asterisk here. Yeah, I bought it. What can I say, I had a crush on Patty Smyth. I also savored the fact that the title track was written by one of my earliest favorites, Nick Gilder. But the full disc was a letdown to the 1982 EP they did. Maybe that's why they broke up after this one.

Top 40s for me would be:
HoneyD: "Rockin' At Midnight" ... a bit off the well-played path.
HoneyMS: "Heart on Fire" ... and I don't think this one made the radio
38S: "If I'd Been the One" ... sucker for a good melody that I am
Rebel Yeller: title track ... it did define a certain segment of us 80s kids, after all.

I'd be negligent to note that U2's "The Unforgettable Fire" does not make my list. Not for any failing of the album, mind you. Clearly my bad on this one. At the onset of Friday Night Videos and MTV, I was as enamored as anyone by the Red Rocks videos that U2 did. The tunes were good even for my own warped taste. And there was even some catchy guitar work that got my attention. Clearly, just not enough of my attention. That Krokus. Lita Ford, and 38 Special makes any favorites list of mine and U2 does not is clearly a cross I have to bear.

With that, what else to highlight via video?

The spandex, the leather, the wisely chosen camera angles aimed at boosting record sales among 14-18 yr old males ... oh my:

David Coverdale proving that you can still look cool wearing your own band's t-shirt; John Sykes proving that you can still look cool in a vest (a solid black Les Paul certainly helps).