It’s been a good long while since I’ve played this silly little game. Awhile back I was prepping one and pretty much all of the songs were horrible, so I shitcanned that post and haven’t revisited this concept since. I finally got to looking the other day and stumbled into a great batch of songs and artists for this, so this concept lives again.

For those unfamiliar – here I take a bunch of songs with the same name, all from different artists, and decide which one I like the best. It’s an exhaustive process of playing them for all of 30 seconds before I make a snap verdict. Though honestly on this one I did play all the way through these songs and I have a fair few of them in my collection anyway.

Today’s pick is Bad Reputation. There are a whole boatload of songs with that name, thankfully there are enough that keep me in my favored genres so I can stick to familiar ground for this one. I am at least roughly familiar with all but one of these songs, I own most of the albums these are off of and I’m very, very familiar with a few of them. There are seven entries here today which is more than I’ve ever done for this before so buckle in and get ready to go around.

Damn Yankees

Right off the bat it’s the 1990 supergroup featuring members of Styx and Night Ranger, as well as Ted Nugent. This album was a showstopper back in the day, one of the last remnants of good old hard rock before alternative took over.

Bad Reputation was the 5^th single from this album, these songs got a lot of mileage back in the day. It’s a very, very nice track that cuts a nice groove and rocks out above the “hair” fray. I have no clue who wins this as I write these blurbs but this one is very hard to argue against.

Heavens Edge

Up next is the lone entry I haven’t heard at all. Heavens Edge were (are, maybe) a hair metal group that didn’t really catch on back in the day, they have been sporadically active through the years. This song was also from 1990 and from their debut.

Honestly this is a pretty good song. I mean, I can see “hair metal” and “1990” and get why they didn’t really hit back then, but there’s no shame in the game when it comes to the music. Also I wanted to separate the first and third artists, there are people who won’t want to be next to each other.

Joan Jett

Up next is the song I would suspect most people would know from this grouping and also the person I wanted to keep away from the person mentioned up above. Jett’s song is one of her most known and loved tunes. This was first out on the album in 1980 then got a single release in ’81. All these years later and it’s one of the first Joan Jett songs people are gonna know, for sure.

And there’s reason for all that – this song is 100% pure, ferocious punk rock attitude. Joan knocked this one out of the park. This song is the business and it’s the favorite to run off with the win here today.

Sammy Hagar

This is one I know very well, which is chalked up to me being a pretty huge Sammy fan. This came from his 1980 solo album Danger Zone, which was the album before he really broke out. This wasn’t a single or a live staple but it did make some of the many greatest hits packages that Capitol Records put out after Sammy got famous and then joined Van Halen. For me personally it is a contender in this contest, it’s been a song of Sammy’s I’ve always enjoyed.

The Reverend Horton Heat

Shifting gears for just a bit from rock into rockabilly. This cut comes from the good Reverend’s debut album Smoke ‘Em If You Got ‘Em from 1990. This one changes the theme of “bad reputation” up a bit – some of the other songs indicate that the bad reputation is a warning sign, while in this song it’s an attraction. This is a really fun rockabilly track and yet another viable contestant to take the crown today.

Thin Lizzy

It’s now on to the oldest song on the list, this one hailing from the band’s 1977 album of the same name as the song. The album was regarded as a return to form for Thin Lizzy, who were struggling through all manner of issues, including Phil Lynott’s chemical dependencies. The song also departs a bit from the theme of the others, this one is a warning to someone to watch their step, as they have a bad reputation.

This song is also a total monster. It has fat riffs to spare, not that anyone would be surprised by that in a Thin Lizzy song. It also has a great groove to it, a bit of funk in spots but still on track as a hard rock ballbuster. The field of strong contenders is crowded but Thin Lizzy are certainly in the mix.

Vixen

We wrap up with a song from the band’s second album Rev It Up. If you guessed that it came out in 1990 like over half of the stuff here, you’d win a prize if there were any prizes. This was not a single from the album and this time frame also marked the end of Vixen’s mainstream run, which isn’t a shock given that the dark figure of 1991 was just around the bend.

While Vixen would lose their record deal in the fallout of alt-rock, they went out with a bang. This song is very well done melodic hard rock. Nice guitars, hot vocals and good arrangement here. Nothing wrong with jamming this hot rocker out at all. It picks up speed at the end as a nice touch too.

So there’s a deliberation process here. I’m not actually going to narrate it, no one wants to read internal monologue. All of these songs are at least good and few are great. It did quickly whittle down to a two-horse race for me, but in the end I found my champion of Bad Reputation.

The Winner – Thin Lizzy

I can’t knock Joan Jett’s song at all, that is a total banger. But in the end I gotta go with the champions of monster guitar. Thin Lizzy edges out Joan Jett to take the crown today in a very close race. These are all really good songs, I might keep the playlist I built to run them down. But there can be only one winner. It was as close to a tie as I can recall on these, maybe there was one more, yet the Irish rock gods take home the prize.

That’s all for today. Be sure to join me this Friday as the Album of the Week moves to a special slot for one time only, in order to celebrate the 30th anniversary of one of my favorite records. It’s also an album with a bad reputation in some parts. See you then.