Mötley Crüe - Shout at the Devil
I quess my heavy metal listening started from this song. It was 1983. I was 5 years old. I have a 10 years older brother who didn’t listen to heavy music but post-punk and some other dark and weird bands and I had seen odd band pictures and that kind of stuff in the album covers of Bauhaus and so on. From the big vinyl album covers I had seen interesting and little bit scary pictures and they somehow tempted my mind and I found them very thrilling and fascinating.
Then I saw the album cover of Mötley Crüe’s Shout at the Devil from some magazine and I just stared it. Weird looking guys with their big hairdos, bizarre leather clothes and make-up. It was like a fairytale for me. I said to my parents that I wanted that cassette. It was almost Christmas and they said that if I wished it from Santa Claus I could maybe get it.
Before Christmas eve I just thought about the cassette all the time because it just somehow got to my mind. And then came the Christmas and there it was among the other gifts. Mötley Crüe’s Shout at the Devil. I immediately stormed to my room and started to listen. The intro was scary and alluring in the same time and promised something really good. And when the song ”Shout at the Devil” hit the speakers I was sold. No turning back. My future was set. I wanted to listen to heavy metal music.
Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall
I was like 6 or 7 years old and although I had listened some heavy metal music already such as Mötley Crüe, W.A.S.P. and Twisted Sister I remember that this song was somehow scary and enchanting. The melodramatic male voice, the child choir and the monotonous drum beat made mystical and little bit frightening atmosphere. Those couple of times when I heard it I listened it very intensively and mesmerized. One time it was summer in my friends back yard. They had a radio out side. It was nice and sunny day and we were playing something with my friend but when ”Another Brick in the Wall” started to play in the radio I freezed and just listened to the song. I couldn’t do anything else.
It was early 80’s and I heard it from the radio couple of times and somehow managed to miss where they told which band it was. That also caused more mystical feeling around the song. Although it wouldn’t be any help if I would’ve known which band it was because back then there were very little of sources where you could read about the bands. Maybe couple of magazines and the radio but it was much more coincidence if you could get any information about the music what you were listening.
It took me several years before I knew which band and which song it was back then in the radio. I never started to like Pink Floyd although the one song had made a big effect on me. But still when I hear ”Another Brick in the Wall” it reminds me that time when I was a kid and same kind of a feelings start to show up in my mind. It is a pleasant little memory.
Korn – Need To
It was 1994 when Korn released their debut album. The first song I heard from it was ”Need To”. A friend of mine had recorded it from metal oriented radio show and emerged to my door saying that now he had heard something that would blow up my mind. And he was right. When he hitted the play button me and my other friend was like ”what a fuck is this?” I had never heard that kind of a music. The riff was very weird. So simple and it just bounded through my mind. The bass was slapping funky but still somehow brutal.
We had all heard same kind of ”rap-metal” bands before like Rage Against the Machine, Body Count and Biohazard but somehow Korn sounded different. Jonathan Davises furious screams and really psychotic whispers were something that changed my life for many years.
I still listen to Korn but it’s not in everyday rotation. I still admire the band and their innovative touch in the music and nowadays when I listen ”Need To ” it immediately throws me back to that moment when I first heard it. Staring my ghettoblaster that spits some weird shit to my teen brain and fucks it up.
Metallica – Master of Puppets
I heard this masterpiece back in 1986 when the album had just released. In those days it was very common to sit front of your radio and listen to programs and record music that interested you. I often sat front of my radio and listen to the rock programs and sometimes they played heavy metal music also. I was immediately impressed from Metallica and thought that this song was very good and it touched my heavy metal diggers heart.
Funny thing is that I didn’t know how to write the song name. I was 8 years old and didn’t know English very well. I tried to listen what the singer was singing in the chorus. I heard something ”Master…” I had seen the third Mad Max movie Beyond the Thunderdome recently and there is the sort of double character called Master Blaster. So I figured that singer was shouting ”Master Blaster” when he was shouting ”Master… Master…” So I though that the song name was ”Master Blaster” and wrote it to the cassette cover.
My 10 year old friend from the neighbor house copied the cassette which was full of radio recorded heavy music and he also copied the ”Master Blaster” name. Some time we were in my other neighbor. He was 12 years old and there was also the other guys older brother who was 11. This 10 year old guy had this cassette with him and we started to listen it. The 12 and 11 year old guys watched the song names from cassette cover and immediately asked why the 10 year old guy had written the Metallica’s ”Master of Puppets” song name wrong. 10 year old guy tried to explain that he had copied the cassette from me and I had wrote the song name wrong but the older guys didn’t believe it and just bitched the 10 year old about that he had written the song name wrong and even tried to blame me a younger kid about it.
Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit
The same guy who got the blame about me writing Metalica’s song wrong had bought Nirvana’s Nevermind. I had never heard it. It was 1991 and my friend came to my place and just told me that there is this new band called Nirvana and it’s not heavy music but it is really good and somehow little bit weird because it wasn’t actually traditional rock like AC/DC but it still sounded really rock. My friend put the cassette to my tape recorder and as soon as I heard the legendary ”Smells Like Teen Spirit” intro riff I was like, whoa, this is some really good shit. I had listen to almost only heavy music until then but Nirvana and especially ”Smells Like Teen Spirit” made me listen to other kind of music also. The song is still very powerful and it causes me shivers. I listened the song back in the days maybe more than any other song ever.