Heavy Metal (Music from the Motion Picture)

As befitting the soundtrack to a wildly inconsistent animated anthology film made by Canadians based on a European adult-oriented sci-fi/fantasy comic magazine, Heavy Metal: Music from the Motion Picture delivers as wild an experience as its source material. It provides a perfect snapshot of rock in the midst of its transition from 70s musical excess to 80s technological excess. Unexpectedly strong last gasps from dinosaur rockers (Grand Funk Railroad, The Eagles’ Don Felder), alternate mixes better than their album counterparts (Sammy Hagar, Black Sabbath), a bona fide radio hit from Journey, two of Cheap Trick’s hardest rockers, a Blue Oyster Cult song that wasn’t the one they wrote about the movie, an attempt to break French boogie rockers Trust to an American audience, a pair of wildcards (Devo, Stevie Nicks), and a couple AOR jams from whoever the hell Riggs is make this a radar ride to remember.