Winners Take All

Condition Critical, Quiet Riot's follow-up to their number one, multi-million-selling commercial breakthrough Metal Health, is nearly identical to its predecessor. Not only do they repeat the hard-driving pop-metal hybrid to the last detail, they even throw in another Slade cover. Like on Metal Health, the Slade cover on Condition Critical ("Mama Weer All Crazee Now") is the finest moment on the record – it's the only time the riffs have a solid hook and the melody is memorable. However, the rest of the record is well produced and sounds good, even if the quality of the songs is somewhat poor.

Many heavy metal fans will agree that Quiet Riot's peak occurred during 1983 and 1984, when the quartet's mugs were constantly plastered all over MTV, and Metal Health and Condition Critical were two of the genre's top sellers. As a result, it seemed inevitable that a "rarities" set that focused specifically on those years would emerge, and in 2005 Live and Rare, Vol. 1 appeared. On the one hand, there's no denying the party atmosphere the band cooks up on such live tracks as "Let's Get Crazy" and "Metal Health" – you can easily imagine an arena filled with finger-less glove/headband wearing, mullet-sporting headbangers whooping it up.