Theme Song: This is a compilation of music videos for the following songs: “Cum on Feel the Noize,” “Metal Health (Bang Your Head),” “Party All Night,” “Mama Were All Crazee Now,” and “The Wild and The Young.”
Interesting Dated References: The somewhat brief success of Quiet Riot and the dominance of the Los Angeles bar-metal scene, which basically became it’s own genre.
Best Line: All lyrics.
Social Context: Although far from spectacular, Quiet Riot wasn’t a terrible band. They probably achieved most of their goals and they managed to score a few hits. Sure, 50% of their charting hits were written and recorded by a different band 10 years prior, but that didn’t really seem to matter. Quiet Riot aimed straight for the middle, and at that they succeeded. They didn’t ask a lot from you, and that made them more enjoyable. They had fun, they had financial backing, and they refused to hang it up. I think I saw Quiet Riot perform in front of drunk county fair audiences in various shitty Wisconsin towns twice during the 00s. Frontman Kevin DuBrow had little shame about his mid-show wig changing, and I distinctly remember one show in which they opened and closed with “Cum on Feel the Noize.”
Summary: Quiet Riot: Bang Thy Head was released after the album QRIII, the last album they had that charted. It was also right after this that everyone else in the band fired DuBrow (albeit briefly) and released an album without him. Quiet Riot: Bang Thy Head was, assumedly, some type of cash-grab, trying to squeeze every last dollar out of the VHS and Betamax market.
“Cum on Feel the Noize” begins with your average Quiet Riot fan waking up in bed. Judging by the lighting, it’s after the noon hour, and as expected, he passed out in his day clothes. Slowly the sounds of Quiet Riot invade his peaceful, fart-smelling bedroom as he hallucinates that his stereo is becoming gigantic in size.
Then, right when the stereo is at critical mass, the guys from Quiet Riot start jamming out on a stage. DuBrow’s stage presence was unabashedly cheeseball and it’s easy to see why the band caught on with the 80s hessian audience.
At the end of the video, the Quiet Riot fan wakes up from his giant stereo nightmare only to realize the nightmare is not over: He is, in fact, still a fan of Quiet Riot, which means he will be in for a lifetime of mediocre music.
Next up is “Metal Health (Bang Your Head).” One thing the guys in Quiet Riot were good at was setting up a brand identity. Taking a page from Iron Maiden, they created a recognizable mascot, which further helped enforce their brand.
Continuing his cheeseball antics, DuBrow does this horribly annoying thing to lead guitarist Carlos Cavazo in which he hovers his hands over Cavazo’s hands as he’s playing, mimicking the shredding Cavazo is doing on the guitar. It had to be totally annoying and distracting for Cavazo, and you know that more than one time DuBrow bumped him, causing the riffage to cease.
Yeah, after metal-face dude escapes the padded cell, it’s just a bunch more concert footage and camera-mugging DuBrow.
After making shit-tons of money on the Metal Health album, the studio must have thrown a shit-ton more money at Quiet Riot for the next set of videos. “Party All Night” has a full two-minute intro, complete with actors, sets, and dialogue.
Some nerdy girl waits for her parents to leave, then invites her nerd-friends over. They order a pizza from some pizza joint that is over-run by punks, bikers, and sluts.
They all overhear the address and decide to go party at the nerd-girl’s house, and they also bring their friends, Quiet Riot. The party immediately gets out of control because no one has any regard for how much they are spilling their cups all over the carpet.
Then the song ends and everyone goes home because anytime Quiet Riot is done playing, that means it’s time to leave.
“Mama Weer All Crazee Now” also begins in some type of insane asylum/hospital, with our metal-faced figure being forced to watch Quiet Riot perform. Then there’s a bunch more footage of the band jumping around on stage.
The last video for “The Wild and The Young” is really overblown and seems to have had a bigger budget than all the other videos combined. In some type of futuristic wasteland, Quiet Riot has been imprisoned for creating too much music that allegedly totally rocks.
Somehow Quiet Riot is able to escape the prison, and they put on a concert for everyone. Caving to pressure, DuBrow had started wearing a full-on wig by the time this last video was filmed. That’s too bad, because I liked his receding look much better. It was way more working class. Perhaps this overblown, super-dressed up later incarnation of the band is one of the reasons their fan base started to dwindle (see also: Judas Priest).
Poster and Box Art: This box is basically a reworking of the cover for QRIII, although it features an effective airbrush technique. Those fucking airbrush guys love to make stone textures. If you see some guy in his garage airbrushing and tell him you want a sweet as marble texture on the hood of your Fiero he’ll shit his fucking pants and then knock that shit out in like 20 minutes and only have to switch nozzles like twice.
Availability: Used VHS on eBay is about it.
Very nice, I needed a laugh. And Quiet Riot still rocks and you are totally on point with every observation.