Thee Diane Riot

Sons of Society is the eleventh studio album by American heavy metal band Riot, released in Japan on July 15, 1999 and in the USA on September 7, 1999 with a missing track…

Twenty-five years after their first release, it wouldn't be right to simply dismiss Riot as aging '80s metal hacks. It's true that the music on 2002's Through the Storm is dated and uncomfortably dramatic, but new underground movements (especially in Europe) made this approach to metal hip again in the late '90s…

It's easy to write off There's a Riot Goin' On as one of two things – Sly Stone's disgusted social commentary or the beginning of his slow descent into addiction. It's both of these things, of course, but pigeonholing it as either winds up dismissing the album as a whole, since it is so bloody hard to categorize. What's certain is that Riot is unlike any of Sly & the Family Stone's other albums, stripped of the effervescence that flowed through even such politically aware records as Stand! This is idealism soured, as hope is slowly replaced by cynicism, joy by skepticism, enthusiasm by weariness, sex by pornography, thrills by narcotics…

Playlist: The Very Best of Quiet Riot features 15 tracks defined on the back jacket as "the life-changing songs, the out-of-print tracks, the hits, the fan favorites everyone loves, and the songs that make the artists who they are." While it may boast little in the way of rare, live, unreleased, or "out-of-print" material, it certainly eclipses 1996's Greatest Hits collection as the most listenable Quiet Riot overview on the market. All 14 tracks (15 is a CD-ROM cut) are culled from the group's three biggest albums – Metal Health (1983), Condition Critical (1984), and QR III (1986) – and while many listeners may only know the group's breakout hit, a cover of Slade's "Cum on Feel the Noize," the band consistently turned out its own quality pop-metal during its mid-'80s heydays.

Zoot Suit Riot: The Swingin' Hits of the Cherry Poppin' Daddies is a compilation album and fourth album overall by American ska-swing band the Cherry Poppin' Daddies, released on March 18, 1997 on Space Age Bachelor Pad Records. The album is a collection of all of the swing-styled songs culled from the Daddies' first three ska punk-oriented albums, plus four bonus tracks recorded exclusively for this release. After a successful independent release in early 1997, Zoot Suit Riot was re-issued and nationally distributed by major label subsidiary Mojo Records following the Daddies' subsequent signing to the label. By early 1998, regular radio airplay of the album's eponymous single helped propel Zoot Suit Riot to the top of Billboard's Top Heatseekers, eventually becoming the first "new swing" album to enter the Billboard Top 40 and serving as the catalyst for the short-lived swing revival of the late 1990s.

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.

Unquestionably the best offering from New York's Riot, Fire Down Under is considered by many to be an early-'80s metal classic. After two marginally successful LPs, 1977's Rock City and 1979's Narita, bandleader Mark Reale worked out all the kinks in Riot's membership and musical delivery, and the results are dramatic. The songs are tight and memorable, the guitars are flashy, and the production is aggressive and slick on this 1981 collection…