Fargo Rock City (26 page)

If you experienced your first episode of finger-banging between August of 1989 and March of 1990, it probably happened while you were listening to “Heaven.” However, the true value of this record is the Poison-esque rockers like “Big Talk” and “Ridin' High.” You did not bang your head to Warrant; this was actually music you
danced
to (or at least shimmied). The bass sludge is almost non-existent, and the words are delivered with a pop earnesty typically reserved for people like Todd Rundgren.
Dirty Rotten
… was followed by the even more successful
Cherry Pie,
but this remains a better project overall, mostly because it's smarter (in that vapid, yummy kind of way). It also has one of the greatest liner notes of all time: “All concepts by WARRANT.” That's right—all
concepts
(by WARRANT). Hmm. Maybe this was actually supposed to sound like
Aqualung.
(Jack Factor: $258)

David Lee Roth,
Eat 'Em and Smile
(1986, Warner Bros.): Opening with Mr. Roth lying in a gutter and talking to a guitar about his “Yankee Rose,”
Eat 'Em and Smile
bumps and grinds like the whore Dave is, all the way down to a closing stab at being glam metal's Frank Sinatra. The lineup is pretty solid (Stevie Vai on the six-string, Billy Sheehan on the four), and it absolutely blows the doors off Van Hagar's
5150.
Though Dave never made a decent record after this one, he gets major props for expertly building a record around a specific personality type: the horny white gigolo who's easy and crazy and wants to shoot you with his elephant gun. No artist has ever
needed
to make a solo album more than Diamond Dave.

At every wedding dance, there is always one uncle who drinks too much, dances too much, and tells the most ridiculous stories over and over and over again. He's the hero or the goat of every story he tells, and you can never quite tell if he's the most boorish jackass in your family or the most charming fellow you've ever met. David Lee Roth is that uncle, and
Eat 'Em and Smile
is his master work.
(Jack Factor: $275)

Bon Jovi,
Cross Roads
(1994, Mercury): Purists always deride greatest hits records, usually claiming that the songs “lose something” when the order is changed. That's stupid, especially since nobody ever listens to a compact disc in its proper sequence anyway. I'll take the
Best of Blondie
over
Parallel Lines
eight days a week, and it certainly seems like everyone at the party has more drinks whenever we play
The Best of Van Morrison
instead of
Astral Weeks.
The same goes for this collection of Jonny B. Jovi's best stuff, and maybe even more so: It seems like the only good
Bon Jovi songs were the popular ones. This band has no forgotten gems whatsoever (except maybe “Love Is a Social Disease,” but even that's a major stretch).

What they do offer is happy, sunshine metal that made all the girls shriek and all the guys wear styling gel. I doubt if Jon ever figured out what day it was from what he was drinking (or if he ever even got drunk), but “Wanted Dead or Alive” is a classic road song, copied poorly by about four hundred other bands. “Lay Your Hands on Me” and “Bad Medicine,” the melodramatic opening tracks off
New Jersey,
still sound captivating. And in retrospect, “You Give Love a Bad Name” really isn't as horrible as I'd like to remember (if nothing else, it undoubtedly inspired Firehouse's “Don't Treat Me Bad,” which I sometimes think might be among the forty finest songs ever released in the U.S.).

Jon Bon Jovi is kind of the Robert Frost of heavy metal. The great thing about Frost was that his poems weren't always about metaphorical bullshit; sometimes a poem about chopping wood was actually about
chopping wood.
Bon Jovi was the same way; he wrote literal lyrics and dulcet melodies, and they didn't worry about credibility or attitude or the legacy of Tony Iommi. We may remember Bon Jovi as the safest of all these metal bands and certainly the most stereotypically commercial, but they were real songwriters who simply tugged at heartstrings instead of brainstrings. That fluffy aesthetic is all over the cowboy-saturated
Cross Roads.
In fact, I even like the inclusion of “Someday I'll Be Saturday Night,” despite the fact that Jon sounds a little like a bad Bruce Springsteen or a good Bryan Adams.
(Jack Factor: $288)

Metallica,
… And Justice for All
(1988, Elektra): This inclusion is something of a contradiction, because every Metallica record prior to this one contains better songs. But …
And Justice for All
is far and away the most interesting work the group ever produced; never before had speed metal been so freaky. Seven of the nine tracks are longer than six minutes (two are longer than nine), and Kirk Hammett often seemed to be playing riffs backward (and
sometimes sideways), but it never seems flashy or forced. Sometimes I think Hammett is the most underrated guitarist of his generation, even though he bores the piss out of me 80 percent of the time.

As is always the case with Metallica, the majority of the lyrics are apocalyptic hogwash, but this is still an incredibly smart LP that's legitimately experimental. Part of the sonic weirdness comes from a bizarre production decision: You can't hear Jason Newsted's bass lines at all on
… And Justice for All,
and that's intentional. Apparently, his musical exclusion was part of Newsted's “hazing” for having the gall to replace Cliff Burton, the original Metallica bassist who died when a bus fell on him in Europe.

To be honest, it's too bad that bass moratorium was eventually lifted. Ever since this LP came out in '88, Metallica has evolved into a remarkably average band who just happen to play really loud. Everything they've released in the past decade has been boring and weak, with the exception of one cool song about werewolves and a nice cover of Thin Lizzy's “Whiskey in the Jar.” But maybe that's what people like me said about Zeppelin in '78.
(Jack Factor: $294)

Van Halen,
Diver Down
(1982, Warner Bros.): Generally pooh-poohed by most devout Halenheads, I find this their most endearing effort. Though it doesn't have a singular killer tune (like, say, “Unchained” off
Fair Warning
) and even though it's not frenetic or bottomless (like
Women and Children First
), it's the only VH album that never gets boring, even when it tries to be (i.e., the six minutes and twenty-four seconds of “Cathedral,” “Secrets,” and “Intruder”). The Marvin Gaye–penned “Dancing in the Street” has been covered by about two hundred artists, but Roth's is the best; I also prefer Dave's take on Roy Orbison's “(Oh) Pretty Woman” and the Kinks' “Where Have All the Good Times Gone!” (though I've never understood why the title of that particular tune is punctuated with an explanation point instead of a question mark; is this not a question, or is it just an enthusiastic cliché?).

Though I can understand why some fans take umbrage with the amount of unoriginal material on this project, I think that's an asinine complaint. Van Halen used to be the greatest cover band in the world, and that means a lot. At its core, the beauty of Van Halen is not Eddie's virtuosity or the strength of its incredible rhythm section; the beauty of Van Halen is that they were
fun
. Along with side two of
Van Halen II,
this was as fun as it ever got.
(Jack Factor: $333)

Living Colour,
Vivid
(1988, CBS): Mick Jagger produced these rasta rockers, and he even loaned his bulbous lips to the backing vocals on “Glamour Boys,” still one of the funniest songs I've ever heard, especially when one tries to imagine little nancy boy Mick claiming he's fierce. But Jagger's influence doesn't go much beyond that chorus (although he did score them the opening slot on the '89 Stones tour).

Vivid
is not swaggering, jukebox metal; it's a well-lubricated record with lots of sheen and purpose. “Cult of Personality” is pretty much a thrash-o-rama that was whittled into a radio tune, but it always hits like a tsunami (I've actually seen it start mosh pits at wedding dances). I think Corey Glover's comparison of Gandhi with Stalin is supposed to make us think about the media (or something), but it really just reminds us that the guys in Living Colour aren't a bunch of morons, which should have been the least of their worries. The simple fact is that
Vivid
is fabulous when it rocks out, but it's pretty goddamn janky when it tries anything else. It's the same story with 1993's anachronistic
Stain,
a good album that always seems ashamed of itself. Living Colour is one of those hard rock groups who suffer from self-loathing; since all the members seem to think metal bands are stupid, they will ignore what they do best in order to be classified in a different category, even if that means singing a song titled “Open Letter (to a landlord).” When you consider how unintentionally rockin'
Vivid
turned out to be, it's frightening to think how awesome this band could have been had they actually tried.
(Jack Factor: $379)

Skid Row,
Skid Row
(1989, Atlantic): Like a grizzly that stumbled across a bunch of honey-covered hippies, this is straight-forward carnage: hair-wagging, Bud-guzzling, boot-kicking, no bullshit rock 'n' roll (or
all
bullshit rock 'n' roll, if you follow my meaning). When I went back and found this cassette in my closet, I was surprised to discover this album came out as late as it did; I tend to remember the Skids being a bigger part of the '80s than they actually were.

If nothing else, Skid Row deserves credit for being honest; lots of bands claimed their next album was going to be “a lot heavier,” and Skid Row is the only band who wasn't lying (1991's
Slave to the Grind
could swing with Megadeth). Still, this debut is the one that matters. The first four songs never relax; Sebastian Bach screams about mammary glands, somebody's sweet little sister (I'm guessing not his), and girls who smoke cigarettes when they cry. “18 and Life” was the pulp that made them famous, and it's one of the rare metal tunes that told a story (Rupert Holmes could probably cover it). “Youth Gone Wild” was their war anthem; it was actually the title of my high school yearbook when I was a senior (and I wasn't even on yearbook staff!). “I Remember You” might have been a bit too stereotypical as the obligatory power ballad, but Baz's range was better than most, and he was too damn anorexic (and too pretty) to ignore. To paraphrase the coolest fifth-grader I never interviewed, Skid Row rules ass.
(Jack Factor: $400)

Cinderella,
Long Cold Winter
(1988, PolyGram): Nobody in the world sounds like Cinderella vocalist Tom Keifer. In the eyes of many, that's probably good. But in the realm of glam, Keifer might have been the most compelling throat around. If there was ever a dude who really
did
sound like the proverbial “cat caught in the gears of a combine,” it was Tommy—and that's a compliment (at least when applied to
Long Cold Winter
).

Keifer actually had two voices: a baritone drawl (which he used in the introductions of ballads), and a maddening, nasal-injected screech (which he used for everything else). I realize I'm
probably making this music sound horrific, and part of me suspects it probably was, but MAN, was that screech perfect for the first three tracks on this icy rock opera. “Bad Seamstress Blues” is legitimately clever, “Fallin' Apart at the Seams” is simultaneously poofy and menacing, and “Gypsy Road” is just a good, good, good, good, good song.

The hidden gems on
Winter
are on the flip side, namely “Take Me Back,” which is a lot like the KISS hidden gem “Comin' Home” off
Hotter Than Hell
. What's weird is that Cinderella
also
has a song titled “Coming Home” (note the addition of the
g
), but it's a different vibe altogether. On “Coming Home,” Keifer asks his prospective princess if she's “tough enough” for his love, which is probably a legitimate question: It would be tough to love any guy who was born with Tom's voice. But like I said, it was killer for bluesy poodle rock.

1988 was Cindy's peak; this record went triple platinum, just like their debut (
Night Songs
). I honestly believe Cinderella was one of the bands who were underrated by almost everyone, except possibly fourteen-year-old girls. Maybe I don't give mall chicks enough credit; maybe it's time to admit that fourteen-year-old girls are the only people in America who truly understand what coolness is supposed to look like.
(Jack Factor: $455)

The Cult,
Electric
(1987, Sire): Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy have made a lot of records in their career (too many, frankly), but this was their best effort and certainly their most metal. The weird thing about the Cult is that they were a hard rock band that people who hated metal always seemed to dig; I'm constantly running into alt rockers who claim their favorite bands in high school were New Order, Erasure, and the Cult. Generally, these types sing the praises of 1985's
Love
(and for some reason, most old-school metal kids tend to align themselves with 1989's
Sonic Temple
), but
Electric
is the band's tastiest cream.

There is a surprisingly pleasant sameness to all eleven of these tunes, which spikes during “Lil' Devil” and “King Contrary Man” and dips into painful valleys during the hippy-dippy “Peace
Dog” and a godawful cover of “Born to Be Wild.” The most memorable track is “Love Removal Machine,” which is legitimately surreal; I've always wondered what a love removal machine would look like—probably something like an electric chair attached to a bottle of bourbon. Either way, Duffy's guitar licks sound more like Jimmy Page than Page's himself sounded on
Outrider,
and Astbury's coonskin cap is exactly like the one I wore for Halloween in 1979 and 1980, except I was probably a little cooler (but since I didn't know any fourteen-year-old girls at the time, I guess we'll never know).
(Jack Factor: $512)