Metal Health by Quiet Riot helped kick off the 80s metal explosion
When it comes to music, 1983 was a formative year for me. At the beginning of the year, Def Leppard released Pyromania, one of my all-time favorite albums that in many ways served as the template for all hard rock and hair metal albums for the rest of the 80s and early 90s.
But this post is not about Def Leppard. Because also in 1983, about a month after Pyromania was released, an unknown band called Quiet Riot released an album called Metal Health. I don’t think this album is nearly as great as Pyromania, but it is certainly good and had a much bigger hit on it, one that allowed Metal Health (after 32 weeks on the chart) to become the first heavy metal album to hit #1 on the Billboard 200 album chart on November 26, 1983.
Compared to Pyromania, Metal Health was more of a slow burn. Although it was Quiet Riot’s 3rd album (as Pyromania was for Leppard), they were not nearly as well known. In fact, their first two albums came out in 1978 and only in Japan!
Times were also different back then when it came to album releases. Unlike today where album singles are released many months ahead of the album release, singles were usually released about the same time as the album, sometimes even after the album was released.
I suspect this was because they wanted people to actually be able to buy the album if they liked the single they heard on the radio.
In the case of Metal Health, the first single was Cum on Feel the Noize, a cover of a popular (reaching #1 in the UK in 1973) song by Slade1. Slade was virtually unheard of in the US, so the fact that this was a cover was also not common knowledge then2.
What is peculiar is that this single was not released until July, several months after the album itself was released. I have no idea why this was the case, but perhaps the label just did not have faith in the song or album.
Like the album, Cum on Feel the Noize was also a slow burn as it didn’t reach its peak of #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 until November, being a big enough hit to enable Metal Health to reach #1 for the one week. Later that month the 2nd single, Metal Health (Bang Your Head)3, was released. I actually prefer this song, but it didn’t do nearly as well and eventually peaked at #31 in early 1984.
This album is not all about the singles, however. There are song other good songs. Don’t Wanna Let You Go is a nice ballad and could have easily been a single. Slick Black Cadillac is a fun romp. Love’s a Bitch sounds like a prototype for Motley Crue.
Breathless is a straight-forward rocker and nothing special. Run for Cover is better, but these are the two weakest songs in my opinion.
Battle Axe is a short instrumental. I really like Let’s Get Crazy with its heavier, slower tempo.
Thunderbird is a touching tribute to Randy Rhoads, one of the founders of Quiet Riot that tragically died in a plane crash in 1982. (He had left the band in late 1979 to join Ozzy Osbourne’s post-Black Sabbath project Blizzard of Ozz.)
Metal Health sold about 6 million copies in the day, matching Pyromania and has now reached a total of about 10 million copies sold. Definitely impressive, especially for an album with only two singles.
Quiet Riot would try to ride this wave by quickly releasing a follow-up in 1984, Condition Critical. This album also had a Slade cover, Mama Weer All Crazee Now, but that did not do as well on the charts. The album itself also did not sell nearly as well and Quiet Riot never again achieved the level of popularity they did with Metal Health.
Quiet Riot lead singer Kevin DuBrow passed away in 2007, but Quiet Riot has continued on. Their most recent album is Hollywood Cowboys from 2019.
Since then original bassist Rudy Sarzo has re-joined the band and they tour periodically.
If you haven’t listened to Metal Health recently, give it a play!
This song only reached #98 on the Billboard Hot 100 when Slade released it.
Unless you listened to Casey Kasem’s American Top 40. I’m pretty sure he mentioned this fact every time it got played.
Yes, I did name this newsletter after that song.
I also had metal health on cassette, and at the time, the only way I could play it was through my Atari 410 using a small basic program that I found somewhere.
I remember hearing the song "Metal Health (Bang Your Head)" fairly frequently on heavy metal radio shows throughout the first half of 1983 before "Cum on Feel the Noize" was released as a single. It was strange when it came back around as a single late in the year and was played on more regular radio shows.