Rocktober Album #9: Riot – Rock City (1977)

Riot – not to be confused with Sunset Strip rockers Quiet Riot – was a hard rock band out of New York known as much for their weird album cover art as their music. I have no idea what that thing is, but it appears on four of their album covers.

Rock City is the band's debut album, and it's a rocking good start for them. In a time when heavy metal was thought to be dead, Riot disagreed wholeheartedly, putting out an album with wailing vocals, appropriately distorted guitars, and fast, big beats. They gained minor popularity over the next several years, particularly in Britain when the New Wave of British Heavy Metal took hold.

Unfortunately, Playlist.com only has one song from the album, so for the rest, you will be relegated to the 30-second clips on Amazon.com.

1. Desperation
A good start to the album. Not unlike a young Donna Rice, this song is fast and loose. Too soon?
2. Warrior
This one has a great opening riff that busts into a frenetic song presumably about Chris Mullin.
3. Rock City
I want to go to there.
4. Overdrive
This is a slower, more deliberate song – tawdry, if you will.
5. Angel
Unlike most songs entitled "Angel" (see Aerosmith, Patsy Cline, Shaggy, etc.), this one is a fast-paced rocker. Then again, it's about an "angel with a broken wing," so she's probably rushing to the hospital. Nothing sentimental about that.
6. Tokyo Rose
I really like this song. It's got a really catchy guitar riff, and I like how it kind of takes a hard break into the chorus each time, before easing back into the riff.
7. Heart of Fire
This is another solid rock song.
8. Gypsy Queen
As you may know, my grandma hated no one – except gypsies. Thus, it is with conflicted emotions that I enjoy this song.
9. This Is What I Get
Have you ever heard a song that you've never listened to before but sounds unbelievably familiar to you? As far as I know, I had never heard anything by Riot or even heard of them before they came across one of my Pandora stations in 2006. "This Is What I Get" seemed (and still seems) overwhelmingly familiar to me. It's eerie. I see certain colors (light browns, dulled oranges, pea greens, and other '70s colors), and I struggle to reconcile why I have such strong, very real feelings when the song comes on. It's like the song wants to evoke memories that aren't there. When I hear "This is What I Get," I feel oddly happy and comforted, as if this song was "our song" from a high school girlfriend that never existed -- or would have been in her late teens when I was born.

This album came out four months before I was born. Maybe my mom unknowingly listened to Riot while I was in the womb. (I say "unknowingly" because I have never known my mom to listen to anything harder than Barry Manilow.) Whatever's going on, it's weird, although Riot isn't the only music that brings about such distant familiarity. "Summer Breeze" by Seals & Crofts has the same effect. When I hear it, I feel like I was a teenager in the mid to late '70s, and I should have real memories to correlate with the song, like necking or smoking grass. That's what we called it back then.