Legendary Rock Songs: I WANT OUT: HELLOWEEN.
Theme:I WANT OUT.
Disc:Keeper Of The Seven Keys, Pt.2.
Year:1988.
“I Want Out” is the turning point of European heavy metal. While in America they were taking the old-school hard rock bands and “pop-metal” groups, all of them with their consequent high hairdos, the Germans Helloween decided to take Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and the whole NWOBHM as a starting point, and spicing it up with the influence of the Teutonic metal patriarchs, Scorpions and Accept, to take heavy metal to a new level.
There is no doubt that they were one of the most influential European metal bands of the 80's, taking a big step towards speed in their early days and solidifying the foundations of what we know today as power metal, a style of which they are the absolute progenitors. With the two volumes of “Keeper Of The Seven Keys” they enjoyed an excellent response from the public, and when their reception began to be noticed even in the USA, the house of cards collapsed.
The second part of their great masterpiece already evidenced a certain feeling of internal rupture and estrangement among its members, as Kai Hansen, who until then had been the absolute leader of the group, firstly also vocalist and who used to take the weight of the composition on his back, signed many of the usual songs in favor of the other guitarist of the band, Michael Weikath, whose difficult and intractable character the fans point out as instigator and guilty of the different ruptures and remote delations of the band over the years.
Shortly after, “Heading For Tomorrow”, the debut of Hansen's other band, Gamma Ray, which has kept him busy to this day, was already on the street. But even though Kai did not have the predominant role in that album, one of the pieces he devised would become the most emblematic of the German quintet. “I Want Out” had the makings of an absolute classic, delivering the power from the first second with Hansen's guitar harmony and the characteristic melodic sound of its riff in duel with Weikath's axe, the unstoppable drumming of our dear Ingo and his unpronounceable surname and, of course, Michael's wonderful voice, of course, the wonderful voice of Michael Kiske, the vocalist with whom Helloween gave the definitive backing and perhaps the most missed absence by the fans, with that prodigious throat that had all the character and strength of Bruce Dickinson and the range of treble of Rob Halford.
“I Want Out” kept the joyful spirit of their most festive songs without being one of those horny blunders that led them to be defined as “happy metal”, a label that said very little in their favor, at the same time it had the monumentality of the most grandiose and legendary pieces of the band. Everything would be very different from then on for the famous pumpkin that lost its great opportunity of world expansion but not its bastion of public in the European market.
Thank you for reading my people, and I hope you like this report of this incredible and legendary subject. A thousand blessings and see you in a new post with more rock music.
