The Jimi Hendrix Concerts

Led Zeppelin III – Audio Cassette

If you regress, reverse-chronologically through the 1970s, it’s all very trend-led until you rewind prior to the beginning of glam rock. Then you drop into a sort of crisis of direction in which a lot of the decade’s potential stars aren’t really sure where they’re going. You’ve reached the year 1970, and you’ll be hearing a lot of folk influence, as the overdriven blast of the late 1960s reaches its first “have we gone too far?” moment.

Yngwie Malmsteen – Trial by Fire: Live in Leningrad

If there were a definitive list of things that should have been left back in the 1980s, I think even a large number of modern rock fans would agree that the concept of “Hair Metal” would be on it.

But at its best, ‘eighties “Hair Metal” was something whose technical spectacle was mind boggling. It could so easily be mocked, as the movie This is Spinal Tap demonstrated with the epitome of aplomb. And it could also rank among the most proficient displays of musicianship across any genre in that era. If you were fed up with buying albums on which the lead vocalist appeared at the top of the personnel listing, this one might provide the change you were looking for…