Songoftheday 3/30/13 - So you think I've got an evil mind, I'll tell you honey I don't know why...

Quiet Riot - "Cum On Feel The Noize"
from the album Metal Health (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 14

Today's Song of the Day was the first American true "heavy metal" record to reach the top-10 on the pop charts, by a group that also topped the album chart with a heavy metal title for the first time. Quiet Riot started out in the Los Angeles area gigging at clubs and opening for bigger acts like Van Halen. After getting signed in the 70s, their first two records were put out only in Japan, after which guitarist Randy Rhoads and bassist Rudy Sarzo were nabbed from the group to join Ozzy Osbourne's band. However, after Rhoads' untimely death in a plane crash, Sarzo returned to the band as they prepared a new album that started as a tribute to Rhoads, and ended up being the Metal Health album.

The song that would bring Quiet Riot their seemingly instant fame was a cover of a #1 single from England from a decade before. Glam Rock group Slade were the biggest thing in Britain in the 70s, with six #1 singles and seven more top-10 hits. One of those chart-toppers, "Cum On Feel The Noize", managed to spend just two weeks on the American pop chart, peaking at #98...

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So when Quiet Riot put the cover out in 1983, to young people like me it seemed like a totally new invention, and aside from the usual dark and moody hard rock that ruled bands like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, this was solely meant to party...

Quiet Riot's single raced to both the top of the singles and album chart, making Metal Health the first heavy metal album in it's 80s form to top the chart. Also, one of the results of the success was Slade finally getting noticed in the States, eventually putting out an album an scoring two top-40 hits of their own here.

Here's the band performing the song live at the US Festival in 1983...

Since then, many up and coming acts have tried to take on the song without the reception of the Quiet Riot cover, though Oasis did an interesting cover in the 90s...

Up tomorrow: an unknown romance for the orange-headed diva.