66. Cum On Feel the Noize by Quiet Riot

"Cum On Feel the Noize" by Quiet Riot

Written by Noddy Holder and Jim Lea
Produced by Spencer Proffer
Released on Metal Health (March 11, 1983)
Released as a single in July 1983
Peaked at #5 on Billboard Hot 100
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This song epitomizes all that is glorious about pop metal in the 1980's. It's a fun song with a mildly inappropriately spelled title, a fun video, and the greatest of all sing-a-long choruses every recorded. At the start, the chorus feels fairly typical with the backing vocalists overdubbed a couple of times. It's fun and effective.

By the end, they crank up the overdubs to the point that it sounds like an entire stadium of voices is singing along with the band. It's a trick that was used by a lot of my favorite bands of the era.

"Cum On Feel the Noize" is also one of those songs that many people in the US forget is a cover. This was originally written and recorded by the band Slade in the 1970's. Their version managed to top the charts in the UK, but barely made a dent across the pond. It's bizarre how two versions that have so many similarities can sound so different. The lead singers have extremely similar voices; both recordings overdub the backing vocals; yet somehow I find Quiet Riot's version infinitely superior.

Like so much about the music on this list, one version is familiar and comfortable to me, and the other is just different enough to make me squirm a bit each time I hear it. I'm sure there are quite a few people who are 10-15 years older than me who have similar experiences, except that they love the original and hate the cover. Music is weird like that.

What feels familiar feels right. I love this recording of this song. It rocks. While I usually prefer original songs by their original artists, there are always going to be exceptions. This marks the fourth of seven cover songs that appear on my list. Of those covers, the only ones that have original recordings that don't make me squirm are the songs that I first heard in their original form ("Hey Jude" and "Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World"). It's almost always that first version I hear that is my favorite (whether it's the cover or the original), unless the cover artist does something that fundamentally transforms the song (like Wilson Pickett and Israel Kamakawiwo'ole did).

So I like Quiet Riot's cover of "Cum on Feel the Noize."

Right now, "Cum On Feel the Noize" by Quiet Riot is (probably) my 66th favorite song of all time.