#327) "Foolin'" by Def Leppard - Simply put, one of the best hair metal songs ever, although Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliot would likely not appreciate any further association with hair metal than has already taken place over the years. And I guess it really isn't a fair categorization, if calling anything they did "hair metal" places it anywhere within the vicinity of White Lion, or Winger. And "Foolin'" pre-dates the height of "hair metal" by a couple of years, was howling away when "the kids" were still digging Michael Jackson, the Police and Culture Club...and USA for Africa. ;-)
But whether you call it hair metal or whatever, "Foolin'" is, decades later, still kind of awesome (and this might be a reason not to call it hair metal): aggressive and anxious in equal measure, the authentically haunting melody pairs seamlessly with growling guitars, pounding drums and Elliot's formidably squealing vocals.
Let's just agree to call it a great song...from the hair metal era.
"Is anybody out there, anybody there / Does anybody wonder, anybody care..."
#328) "No Excuses" by Alice in Chains - Alice in Chains is another band that doesn't deserve to be chained (sorry...) to its association with a specific era of music, in their case "grunge". That being said, Alice in Chains was the best of the grunge bands in my opinion, tasking one of the greatest rock voices of all time in Layne Staley with the job of being the perfect vehicle with which to carry Jerry Cantrell's sinister harmonies.
"No Excuses", from the 1994 EP Jar of Flies, is one of those rare things I was into as it was happening. Usually, I display a sort of automatic skepticism when it comes to anything current, anything too cool, too of the moment, and then reliably come around years after the fact, flashing a "what was I (not) thinking...??" shrug and going on and on about everything I missed. Many of the songs on this very list, which I've been churning out for almost six years now, are songs I came late to.
But the grinding sense of alienation, the false hopes and empty promises, the fatalistic sense of departure, perhaps to something you can't come back from, so effortlessly forged in "No Excuses" by Staley's compelling vocals, was something I was absorbing fully like ointment when I was 21 and this music - and music like it - was slow-crawling up the charts.
"You my friend, I will defend, and if we change well I'll love you anyway..."
