On May 29, 1983, the four members of LA rock band Quiet Riot realised they were on to something big...
It was ‘Heavy Metal Day’ at the US Festival at Glen Helen Regional Park in San Bernadino, California, 60 miles from LA.
Quiet Riot were the opening act on a bill also featuring Mötley Crüe, Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, Triumph, Scorpions and headliners Van Halen.
It was around 11.30am when Quiet Riot hit the stage, but even at that early hour the the vast open-air venue was already filled with people – as many as 375,000.
And when Quiet Riot’s set climaxed with the title track from their new album – featuring the brilliantly idiotic chorus, “Bang your head! Metal health will drive you mad!” – the band’s drummer Frankie Banali couldn’t believe what he was seeing and hearing.
As he recalled to Classic Rock: “There was no horizon, just miles upon miles of faces singing, ‘Bang your head!’
“I was so elated. Quiet Riot was on the same stage as Judas Priest, Ozzy, Scorpions and Van Halen – the cream of the heavy metal crop. For us, it was a groundbreaking moment.”
Formed in the mid-’70s, Quiet Riot had grafted long and hard to get to that point. Their chief claim to fame was that the band had once featured Randy Rhoads, the guitarist who had gone on to stardom with Ozzy before being killed in a plane crash in 1982.
Metal Health was the band’s third album, and their first international release.
The album’s lead single was a rowdy version of a classic glam rock hit from 1973 - Slade’s Cum On Feel The Noize. And after that single climbed all the way to number five on the US chart, the album took off like a rocket.
Metal Health eventually hit number one on the US Billboard chart on 26 November, 1983, displacing The Police’s Synchronicity.
Only six albums made it to number one in America that year.
Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the biggest selling album of all time, held the top spot in 1983 for a total of 22 weeks across four separate periods. Synchronicity was at number one for 17 weeks across two separate periods. Australian band Men At Work’s debut album Business As Usual was on top for the first eight weeks of that year, the Flashdance movie soundtrack for two weeks, and Lionel Richie’s Can’t Slow Down for three weeks.
It was an amazing achievement for Quiet Riot to get a number one album amid such competition.
But was Metal Health really the first heavy metal album to top the US chart?
Quiet Riot’s drummer Frankie Banali insisted that the band never made that claim. “We weren't the ones that were hailing ourselves in that way at all,” he said, “although I do like the sound of it!”
Ultimately it all comes down to the distinction between heavy metal and hard rock.
Long before Quiet Riot made it to the top, Led Zeppelin had six number one albums in America between 1969 and 1979 - with Led Zeppelin II, Led Zeppelin III, Houses Of The Holy, Physical Graffiti, Presence and In Through The Out Door.
And in 1981, AC/DC had a US number one with For Those About To Rock (We Salute You).
Were Led Zeppelin ‘heavy metal’?
“I don't think that the term ‘Heavy Metal’ was used for Led Zeppelin,” Frankie Banali said, “although I could be wrong.”
Former Zep singer Robert Plant agreed, once telling MOJO magazine that descriptions of Zeppelin as heavy metal were simply “journalistic complacency and claptrap”.
Likewise, the members of AC/DC have always described their music as simply “rock ’n’ roll”, even though the title track from For Those About To Rock is widely considered to be one of the all-time great heavy metal anthems.
But if Led Zeppelin and AC/DC are best described as hard rock bands, then so are Quiet Riot. Despite its title, Metal Health is more hard rock and than heavy metal.
And the same can be said of other US number ones from later in the ’80s - Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Feet and New Jersey, Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite For Destruction, Def Leppard’s Hysteria and Mötley Crüe’s Dr. Feelgood.
It’s also worth noting that Black Sabbath never had a US number one until 2013 (with the album 13), while other classic heavy metal bands active before Quiet Riot have never had a US number one, most notably Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.
So when all is said and done, if it wasn’t Metal Health, what was the first heavy metal album to hit No 1 in the US?
It was an album released in 1991. The self-titled fifth album by Metallica, commonly known as The Black Album.
