Review of Metal Health by Quiet Riot

Dust it off ! As many of you know, I love the 80’s especially my hair bands. One in particular that I had the pleasure of seeing on two occasions back in the day was Quiet Riot. Who could forget their multi-million selling first album “Metal Health” which gave them a number one spot on the Billboard charts with the cover of Slade’s “Cum on Feel The Noise“. The other big one still played to this day was the title song “Metal Health” which even when played today will make your neck sore as you move your head up and down to the chorus words, “Bang Your Head, Metal Health Will Drive You Mad“. “Metal Health” was the first debut album by a metal band to achieve number one status with it’s US release.
Quiet Riot is not one of the big names you think of when it comes to the 80’s hair bands. Probably the reason is because they only had two hits and they were both on “Metal Health“. There are a couple of songs on the album that were average hits, “Slick Black Cadillac” a catchy tune obviously about a car, “Breathless” featuring cool drums in the beginning and good guitar playing, “Let’s Get Crazy” is a party anthem which has some funny lyrics but very basic musicianship, which seems to be a reoccurring theme of the album.
Probably my favorite on the album is a slow song entitled “Thunderbird“. It’s an inspirational song that finally showcases Kevin DuBrow’s voice. Yes he could sing! It’s a nice break from a lot of the pointless screaming in many of the previous tunes. Unfortunately, Kevin DuBrow passed away in November of 2007.

I actually enjoyed Dusting this CD case off and rocking out to it again. It’s not the best album of the era but there’s enough good stuff on it to keep your volume button on your CD player turned up.