10. Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet (1986)
9. Giuffria - Giuffria (1984)
The debut album from Ex Angel keyboard player Greg Giuffria's new
band, an incredible blend of Symphonic Pomp Rock with Hard Rock and the result
is spectacular! Walls of Keyboards, excellent Vocals and great songs performed by exceptional players, one of the
best examples of arena style AOR you will ever here. With songs like "Line
Of Fire", "Lonely In Love" and "Don't Tear Me Down",
every home should have one.
8. Dokken - Under Lock & Key (1985)
Dokken were an absolute pillar in my musical world as a teen, melodic
vocals over exceptional guitar work, entwined in melodic anthems. This format
pretty much summed up all I looked for in a band and album. The thing with
Dokken's first two albums, "Breaking The Chains" and "Tooth And
Nail" was they were inconsistant, and had some album filler for sure, as
well as some dire lyrics such as "You've got a heartless heart, you've got
a heart of stone"....oh dear. Then along came their third album
"Under Lock and Key", an absolute gem in the hair band era, An album
filled with song after song of Don Dokken's AOR style lyrics and melodies, laid
over the top of hard rock crunching riffs and brilliant fretwork from George
Lynch. All time!!
7. Lion - Dangerous Attraction (1987)
When I was about 14, my younger brother and I were watching a
Sci-Fi/Action movie called "The Wraith" starring Charlie Sheen,
during one of it's action sequences, the soundtrack fires up with a song called
"Never Surrender" that just blew me and my brother away! As soon as
the film finished we scoured the credits for the song details to find the band
was called LION, from there i went to my local Metal import record store and
made them look up any releases by a band called "Lion" and they
ordered in the only title available to them at that time, this turned out to be
the "Dangerous Attraction" album and it featured the song from
"The Wrath" soundtrack! I was elated! Not only that, the album was
incredible, like a mix of Dokken and 80's Whitesnake, with a little Keel thrown
in. Superb vocals from Kal Swan (Ex-Tytan) and some excellent shredding from a
young Doug Aldrich, who of course would go on to play with House Of Lords,
Hurricane, Dio and eventually Whitesnake! An amazing record from a great
band.
6. Survivor - When Seconds Count (1986)
Most known for their smash number one song "Eye Of The
Tiger", Survivor continued and had a handful of top 40 US chart hits. In
86 they released their 6th album "When Seconds Count". I cam across
this album in 87 at a suburban flea market and thought I'd give it a shot. While
far more AOR than I had expected, with huge keyboards that dominated the whole
record, the vocals and songs were stunning. Songs heaped with emotion, anchored
to Jim Peterik's (keyboards) amazing song writing skills. From huge AOR anthems
such as "How Much Love" to the emotion soaked mid pace melodic bliss
of "Is This Love", "When Seconds Count" is one of the greatest
AOR albums of all time.
5. White Sister - White Sister (1984)
In 1986 I bought a copy of Hit Parader Magazine with Bon Jovi on
the cover, inside it featured an article called "White Hot" or
something equally as cheesy. It was a feature about bands in the hard
rock/metal scene using "White" in their title; White Wolf, White
Tiger, Whitesnake, White Lion, Great White and a band called White Sister.
Being unfamiliar with White Sister i was intrigued, so on my regular weekend
visit to the Metal Record store i dived in and bought the White Sister debut
without hearing a single song. Why you ask? well when I flipped t over to look
at the back I noticed it was produced by Greg Giuffria (Giuffria/House Of
Lords) so for me, that was as good a sign on as I needed! I was happily
rewarded with a more bombastic band than Giuffria, heavier in it's hard rock
approach, but with huge upfront stabs of keyboards and some enormous choruses.
This album has become a classic in the genre, and rightly so. I had the
pleasure of seeing them reunited twice live and they were simply excellent. I
couldn't recommend it highly enough. 80's Melodic Rock perfection.
4. Icon - Night Of The Crime
(1985)
I actually picked up this album around 1987, a couple of years
after it's initial release. I already had the self titled debut from 84, which
is a very good album but is more hard edged and less melodic than it's 1985
predecessor. "Night Of The Crime" is truly an album for those that
love mid 80's Melodic Hard Rock, and that's what this is, Hard Rock, not AOR.
Great songs, great performances and some excellent guitar work from Dan
Whexler. While some of the 80's metal community and press was unimpressed
by the more melodic direction Icon took with "Night Of The Crime",
myself and years later I would realise, many others thought the album was far
superior to the debut. Featuring a crisp production from Bob Halligan Jnr ,
this album is filled with some absolute amazing songs such as "Danger
Calling", Take Another Shot" and "Missing". This is a must
have for any hard rock fan!
3. Black N Blue - In Heat
(1988)
A band that was heralded as America’s answer to Def Leppard,
launched at the same time as Ratt, Great White, Wasp and many others, Black N
Blue came out of the gate great, but seemed to run out of stamina. Their self
titled debut was a well received punchy collection of pop metal, this was
followed by the more melodic and radio friendly follow up “Without Love” a
great album in itself, but quite a step away from the sound of the debut. In
1986 Gene Simmons (Kiss) entered the fold as producer and mentor and took the
band back to a tougher sound for their third album “Nasty Nasty” , while it had
some great songs, it also had a few not so great songs. Simmons stayed on as
producer for the bands forth and last
major label album “In Heat” released in 1988. The album is a very well crafted
collection of mature sounding melodic hard rock songs that blend 80’s era Kiss
with Pyromania era Def Leppard. Without a doubt the best Black N Blue album and
one of the best and criminally overlooked Hard Rock albums of the 80’s.
2. Keel - Keel (1987)
Keel had a minor MTV and radio hit with the title track to their
1985 album “The Right To Rock”, produced
by Kiss’s Gene Simmons, this was followed by another Simmons produced album in
1986 “The Final Frontier”, both excellent albums in their own right but it’s on
1987’s self titled “Keel” album that the band hit their full stride. Absolute
huge arena style hard rock anthems in abundance. Songs such as “United Nations” and “It’s a Jungle Out There” and shows Keel
at their arena rocking best, while “Somebody’s Waiting” and the superb “Don’t Say You Love Me” lean the
band more towards Melodic Rock territory in the best possible way. An excellent production from Michael Wagner (White Lion, Dokken)
brings a huge production adding to the enormous sound these songs have.
Exceptional.
1.
Ratt – Out Of The Cellar (1984)
And the winner is...Ratt, with their 1984 debut album “Out Of The
Cellar. I was on board from the beginning with Ratt, from the 6 track EP I
bought on Cassette in 1983 as a kid. There was a
huge hype in the magazines at the time surrounding these guys in the lead up to
the release of “Out Of The Cellar” that they had created with their EP.
Thankfully for Ratt and their fans, they delivered an absolute ace, the album went on to outsell
Motley Crue’s “Shout At The Devil” for the year and stayed in the US Billboard top
40 for over a year. The album spawned a string of chart topping songs including
“Wanted Man”, “Round and Round” and “Back For More”. This is in my opinion the
most essential Hard Rock album of the 1980’s, it defines the era and sound. An
album full of pop metal masterpieces, excellent guitar work from Warren Di Martini
and Robbin Crosby (RIP) and huge hooks from vocalist Stephen Pearcy with his
melodic raspy tone. No home should be without this one!
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