Heavy Metal Rocks Now More Than Ever In Heavy Metal: The First 20 Years In Stores July 25th

When nearly every town in the country has a radio station that still plays songs like Kiss' "Detroit Rock City," "Rock You Like a Hurricane" by the Scorpions and Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law," there's no escaping the fact that heavy metal, rock n' roll's brazen and histrionic stepchild, has endured the test of time. Heavy Metal: The First 20 Years (in stores July 25th, Time Life) is a tribute to the bands that rocked, filled with songs that manage to be both nostalgic yet as relevant as ever. Vintage metal videos still run on VH1 Classic around the clock and fans still wear their beloved tour t-shirts, but this time around, their adolescent kids are wearing them too.

Filled with songs from the first two decades of earsplitting rock (1964-1984), Heavy Metal boasts stadium anthems by Alice Cooper, Kiss and the Scorpions and the over-the-top orchestrations by acts like Iron Butterfly and Queensryche. Quiet Riot's pop-crossover hit, "Cum on Feel The Noize" is tempered by Dio's sonic masterpiece "Holy Diver" and Motorhead's speed metal "Ace of Spades," showcasing the full spectrum of the heavy metal genre. Defined by its loud instrumentation, relatively simple song structure and raucous lyrics, heavy metal first roared on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1960s and continues to be one of the most enduring and popular forms of rock.