Poison is an American glam metal band formed in 1983 in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. The most successful incarnation of the band consists of lead singer and rhythm guitarist Bret Michaels, drummer Rikki Rockett, lead guitarist and backing vocalist C.C. DeVille, and bassist Bobby Dall. The band achieved huge commercial success in the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s and has sold 30 million records in the United States and over 65 million albums worldwide.
Glam metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that features pop-influenced hooks and guitar riffs, upbeat rock anthems, and slow power ballads. It borrows heavily from the fashion and image of 1970s glam rock.
Joan Jett is an American rock singer, guitarist, songwriter, record producer, and actress. She is best known for her work as the frontwoman of her band Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, and for founding and performing with the Runaways, who recorded and released the hit song "Cherry Bomb". With the Blackhearts, Jett is known for her rendition of the song "I Love Rock 'n Roll" which was number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 for seven weeks in 1982. Jett's other notable songs include "Bad Reputation", "Light of Day", "I Hate Myself for Loving You" and her covers of "Crimson and Clover", "Do You Wanna Touch Me " and "Dirty Deeds".
Cinderella was an American rock band formed in the suburbs of Philadelphia in 1983. The band emerged in the mid-1980s with a series of multi-platinum studio albums and hit singles whose music videos received heavy MTV rotation and popularity. Cinderella initially had a glam metal sound throughout the late 1980s before shifting into a more blues rock-based sound during the early to mid 1990s.
Monsters of Rock is a hard rock and heavy metal music festival. It was originally held annually in Castle Donington, England, from 1980 to 1996, taking place every year except 1989 and 1993. It later branched into other locations such as the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Sweden, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the United States, and Russia.
Mark Rezyka was best known as a top director of heavy metal music videos in the 1980s and 1990s. With partners Marcelo Epstein and Dominic Orlando, he founded Pendulum Productions in 1982, and directed over 300 music videos over the next 15 years. Artists included Quiet Riot, Kiss, Ratt, Cinderella, Whitesnake, Survivor, Foreigner, Cheap Trick, and Joan Jett, among others.
The Mississippi Coliseum is a 6,500-seat multi-purpose arena in Jackson, Mississippi, built in 1962 and located on the Mississippi State Fairgrounds complex. The arena has 6,812 seats available for basketball, and can be expanded to 10,000 for concerts. It sits 2900 feet atop the extinct Jackson Volcano.
Moondance Jam is an annual rock and classic rock festival held in mid-July in the Leech Lake/Chippewa National Forest Area near Walker, Minnesota. It is recognized as Minnesota's largest rock festival and a major classic rock festival in the United States. The Jam has gone from being a party for a few hundred family and friends back in 1992 to a rock 'n' roll and camping celebration that entertains tens of thousands today mainly because it has maintained a clean, safe and friendly atmosphere along with open festival seating for general admission ticket holders.
Frosh is a compilation album series, released on Polygram Records in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The albums collect popular party anthems frequently associated with university and college frosh week festivities.
Youth Gone Wild: Heavy Metal Hits of the '80s is a series of compilation albums of heavy metal songs of the 1980s, the heyday of the genre. The title comes from the song by Skid Row, which does not appear in the series.
Rocklahoma is an annual 3-day hard rock and metal festival held in Pryor, Oklahoma. The festival features 3 official stages, as well as many unofficial campground parties and performing acts and onsite vendors. There were an estimated 100,000 people at the first annual Rocklahoma held in 2007. The Third Annual Rocklahoma had over seventy bands on four stages, including favorites from previous Rocklahoma festivals, Beautiful Creatures, LA Guns featuring Tracii Guns, Bang Tango, Lillian Axe, Gypsy Pistoleros and Faster Pussycat. Included on the side stages are bands from all over Europe. Coffee table books for Rocklahoma 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 have been published and are available on the web.
Monsters of Rock is a heavy metal/hard rock compilation album released by Razor & Tie, which includes 16 hits of the 1980s "hair metal" scene, many of which charted in either the Top 10 or Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100. A 2 disc version was also released, heavily promoted by TV commercials and containing 35 songs.
Monster Ballads is the first in a series of compilation albums that feature a combination of many popular and lesser-known power ballads, usually from the glam metal and soft rock genres, many of which charted in the Top 10 or Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100. Like Monsters of Rock, it was released in both single and 2 disc versions, which were heavily promoted by TV commercials. The single disc version was eventually certified platinum by the RIAA in 1999, while the 2 disc version was certified gold that same year.
Monster Madness is a compilation album of heavy metal hits released in 2000 as part of Razor & Tie's "Monster" line of 1980s hard rock/metal compilation CDs. However, despite including a number of Top Ten or Top 40 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, this was less successful than its predecessors, and it didn't receive a certification from the RIAA.
Monster Ballads: Platinum Edition is a compilation album. It features many power ballads, most of which appeared on previous Monster Ballads installations or related albums.
The Heavy Metal Box is a CD box set with heavy metal / rock songs from various artists and bands. It was released by Rhino Records in 2007.
Ratt was an American glam metal band formed in Los Angeles, in the 1970s, that had commercial success in the 1980s, with several of their albums having been certified as either gold, platinum, or multi-platinum by the US RIAA. The group is best known for their hit single "Round and Round", the group's only song to reach the top twenty of the US Hot 100, peaking at number 12.
"I Love Rock 'n' Roll" is a rock song written by Alan Merrill and Jake Hooker and first recorded by the Arrows, a British rock band, in 1975. A 1981 cover version by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, released as the first single from her album of the same name, became Jett's highest-charting hit, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and becoming the No. 3 song for 1982. The single was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, representing two million units shipped to stores. Jett's version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2016.
Guitar Rock was a 27-volume series issued by Time-Life during the mid-1990s, spotlighting rock music—in particular, hard rock, classic and album-oriented rock of the 1960s through early 1990s.
