* * * * <i> Great Balls of Fire</i> * * * <i> Good Vibrations</i> * * <i> Maybe Baby</i> * <i> Running on Empty : </i> : WHAM, GLAM, NO THANK YOU, MA’AM

* * “APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION.” Guns N’ Roses. Geffen.

* * “FASTER PUSSYCAT.” Faster Pussycat. Elektra.

In the wake of the $ucce$$ of Motley Crue and--more recently--Poison, it’s hardly surprising that major record labels are jumping on Los Angeles’ neo-glam bandwagon by signing up every lipsticked riff-slinger whose hands can stop shaking long enough to make an X on a recording contract. Witness these two debut long-players from a pair of local quintets that, underneath their shared bad-boy image, display marked musical differences.

Guns N’ Roses is the more accomplished, with a greater rhythmic vocabulary a la Led Zeppelin and a duel-guitar attack reminiscent of Aerosmith. (They wish). Although this flipped disc is remarkably consistent, this wanna-be wild bunch of Jack Daniel’s-swilling guitar-slingers winds up firing blanks, thanks to a combination of stoopid lyrics, obnoxious lead vocals and the fact that these pistol-packers couldn’t write a song if you pointed a rose to their collective heads.

Speaking of Aerosmith and obnoxious lead vocalists, Faster Pussycat’s oh-so-cleverly named throat-person Taime Downe has to be either the world’s best or world’s worst Steven Tyler impersonator this side of a Las Vegas revue. (Inspirational verse: “I’ve got rocks in my head and in my pants.”)

Meanwild, these cats on a hot tin riff are laughably derivative, all flash and no panache, suitable for consumption only by those who either missed the party the first time or wax incredibly nostalgic for those halcyon daze when we were all hanging out at Rodney’s English Disco falling off our platform shoes. Sounds good on paper, not so good on the turntable.