Customer Reviews

Heavy Metal

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

This set isn't perfect and you can't please everybody, but for die hard metal fans this set is great because die hard fans already have Sabbath,Led Zep,Ac-Dc, Van Halen, Ozzy and others in their collection, so this fills in the missing classic tracks we might not have because there's alot of heavy metal out there and you can't have every band in your collection. Rock on!

I purchased this on a lightning deals offer back in December for the outrageous price of $18.97. I've been taking my time listening to the CD's and months later I have no complaints. This is a nice compilation of a wide range of artists. I remember listening to most of this music in my early teens and so it has been fun to relive some memories. This has also been a huge conversation piece at parties, both the music and the box are memorable.

first off i'm actually 17, i just don't want to screw up my friends account, the one im using. secondly this is a great box set.

i have no complaints about this product at all. the music is great, the amp styled box looks cool, and the book has over 75 pages of great pictures and biographies of the bands. also it speaks of the history of metal, interviews some great ions (like Ronnie James Dio, and Lita Ford) of the metal world who help augment the lifestyle, and it also has some great quotes by some of the bands/bandmates (like Alice Cooper, Geezer Butler, Lemmy Kilmister, Rob Halford, and Vinnie Paul, just to name a few). Also another bonus is that there is a great full page picture of Lita ford, a back shot, and D4NM does she have a great 4SS.

to sum it up i would give this a five stars, but the amazon priece is a bit too expensive even for this, so i gave it a four stars. i would recommend buy it from an independent seller for about $40 or less. i got mine brand new for $25, a great buy. good luck in your quest to find a cheap one.

JAWS
Jon A. Waverly

This box set was a great collection of music. There are some obvious ommisions like Zeppelin and Ozzy-era Sabbath, but the compilers own up to that in the booklet. The booklet itself contains a great history of metal, band bios and interesting interviews.

I've been a metal fan since I was 14 (28 years ago). While my tastes in music have expanded, this set reminded me of why I still love the loud stuff. Listening to this set reminded me of my first days going to concerts when you would see a headliner, a mid-level, and an up and comer on the bill. My first concert was Nugent with the Scorpions and Def Leppard in 1980. I lost track of how many openers wound up becoming favorites. As others have noted, there are definitely bands missing from the compilation (older- AC/DC- both Bon and Brian era, Roth era Van Halen, early Def Leppard, Ozzy- solo and with Sabbath; more recent- Motley Crue, Slipknot, older Godsmack) but these holes may be due to bands not wanting to participate or contractual issues. For younger listeners, this set is a great introduction to a musical genre that has never gotten the respect it deserves. For people my age, I think you'll be blown away by how these songs still sound relevant. I especially appreciated the inclusion of some of the mid-level groups that never broke it big in the states such as Saxon, Girlschool, and UFO. I would love to have seen something from Riot's "Fire Down Under" included as well, as well as music from the Cult's "Sonic Temple". My only other quibble is that they could have included more eclectic songs instead of hits. Instead of Scorpions' "Rock You Like a Hurricane", give us "Another Piece of Meat"; "Metal Gods" by Priest instead of "Another Thing Coming"; "Tooth and Nail" instead of Dokken's "Alone Again".

That said, this box set is well worth the money. Special mention should also be made of the booklet accompanying the set. There are great interviews and information on all of the bands. It is clear from the start that the folks who put this together love the music and, more importantly, respect the musicians and fans.

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.

An excellent collection of metal music covering Black Metal, Thrash, Hair etc... where is Exciter and Exodus though??? The box it comes in is really cool so I recommend you metalheads go out and get this soon because it is a limited edition.... HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!!

FIRST THE NEGATIVES:

I have to say something right off the bat because it really bugs me. How can you have a "HEAVY METAL" boxset and not include OZZY ERA SABBATH? It's like having a history of electric guitars and leaving out the Les Paul. The first few Black Sabbath records layed the ground work for countless metal bands that came after. It's really a major oversight in my opinion. That gets me thinking, where is Led Zepplin? Where is AC/DC? Also they left off the BIGGEST "metal" band in the 80's, Def Leppard. Now some of you will say Def Lep wasn't a Metal band to you I say neither is POISON (gag me). Listen to "On thru the Night" or "High and Dry" that's Metal baby.

Granted, I realize you can't please everyone but for the love of DIO this Boxset really leaves some gapping holes.

NOW THE POSITIVES:

On the plus side it's really a nice looking package the box is wicked cool and the booklet is really really nicely done.


Now I realize my review is not so much a review but a complaint but I really am disturbed that the original SABBATH was not repressented here.

"I AM IRON MAN!"
"WAR PIGS"

Anybody?