Thursday, February 12, 2009

WHO CRIES FOR THE CHILDREN?

On May 20th and 21st, 1985, a virtual who's-who of 80's Cheez-Metal masters descended upon A&M Records Studios in Hollywood to record the song "Stars". Ronnie James Dio (right) spearheaded this massive undertaking, inspired by the success of such benefit recordings as Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and USA For Africa's "We Are The World". Dio wanted the world to know that the Metal community cares about children too, and enlisted 40 of the biggest names in the genre, including Blackie Lawless from W.A.S.P., all of Spinal Tap, Dave Murray and Adrian Smith of Iron Maiden, Yngwie J. Malmsteen, George Lynch and Don Dokken of Dokken, Rob Halford of Judas Priest, Ted Nugent, and Geoff Tate from Queensryche, among many, many others. Despite their good intentions, "Stars" is one of the WORST fucking songs ever recorded, but the video documentary is one of the most entertaining bits of 80's-Metal awesomeness ever committed to film. Below is the entire documentary in 3 parts. Highlights include Dio scolding Dokken for his vocal wussiness, Geoff Tate's ridiculously over-dramatic screeching, searing solos from Malmsteen and Lynch (David St. Hubbins from Spinal Tap claims that the first time he heard Yngwie play, he "threw his guitar out the window"), and Dio's super-pretentious utterance of the line "Who cries for the children? / I do" over the intro of the song. Watch this shit in its entirety, I beg you. You won't regret it.

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I actually kinda always liked the song. I just don't get what is so funny to you about all of this. I mean you are trying to make this out to be a heavy metal parking lot and it simply isn't.