Hair-Metal: thoughts and memories!

[jaxxalude]

The purpose here is to remember any given trend of the past and share your thoughts and - if anyone has them - memories of those days.

When hair-metal really broke through to the big time - 1986-1990 -, I was in Elementary School. Here in Portugal, and Europe in general, things didn't get as crazy as I believe they did in the US. That didn't mean, of course, that most of the major bands of the day - just or unjustly lumped with that trend - weren't selling here. Bon Jovi, Guns N' Roses, Whitesnake and Def Leppard certainly delivered the big numbers, while Mötley Crüe, Poison and Skid Row didn't do too bad either, even if they weren't getting the same round the clock appreciation across the pond as they were at their home turf. Meanwhile, classic acts who rode the wave like Scorpions, Van Halen, Alice Cooper and Aerosmith built on their dedicated and fairly large fanbases to achieve their biggest acclaim in the Old Continent as of then. But other bands like Ratt, Warrant, Winger, Slaughter, Dokken, Quiet Riot, Twisted Sister, Faster Pussycat, Lita Ford, Cinderella, White Lion, Tesla or Kix were just met with acclaim within the rock community, while being ignored by mainstream audiences.
On the other hand, a strange thing also happened. In 1992, grunge was sweeping away most of these bands in Uncle Sam's territory. But bands like Bon Jovi, Guns N' Roses, Def Leppard and Aerosmith only then met real, wide mainstream acceptance in Europe, while late entries to the game as Extreme or Mr. Big managed to sell bigger numbers than Poison or Mötley Crüe had ever achieved by relying on acoustic, low-key numbers ("More Than Words" and "To Be With You", respectively) that connected with an audience for whom all the bombast of most of the power ballads from the big-selling American acts sounded, at best, cheesy beyond belief.
With the benefit of hindsight, I can say that, in the innocence of my pre-tween years, all those ballads and mid-tempo songs always sounded to me as glorified pop songs that happened to be sung and played by people with long hair. I'd had already listened to some bits of stuff from Iron Maiden (who were always, and still are, very popular in my country), Accept, Ozzy Osbourne, Saxon and DIO and, seeing that I found all that too noisy (even today, I still have a bit of problem with this kind of classic heavy metal, although not for noise reasons ), all those hair-metal bands, with their good-looking singers, flashy guitarrists and pop hooks never looked that dangerous or radical to me. I was in my infancy and those bands were definitely the ones that helped open doors for me to fully appreciate heavier stuff like Megadeth, Metallica, Pantera and everything faster, louder and more agressive than that.
Nowadays, it's only natural hair-metal feels even more inoffensive than already was back then. Not only that, but most of it became an easy joke. That doesn't mean some good things haven't come from it. Def Leppard and Guns N' Roses music still sounds vital because even if the production is dated, their songs really show keen sense of songwriting and structure, thus standing the test of time in the best possible way. Some of Bon Jovi's stuff also holds up quite well, even if most of it ends up walking a fine line between good and guilty pleasure. Mötley Crüe and Skid Row stand today as music that's really fun to listen to, although no one will ever have their lives changed by it. On the other hand, bands like Extreme, Mr. Big, White Lion and Tesla tend to be a bit underrated and actually show some classic songwriting craft here and there that shouldn't be neglected. And Poison are a special case, in the sense that their music serves very well as kitschy fun to not be taken that seriously. As for most of the other bands, they might have one or two fairly decent (i.e., not embarrasing) song, serve well for nostalgia trips - be it the serious ones or the irony-drenched ones -, but are very tied to that era to really make some sort of impression. In the end, I guess hair-metal is just like other subgenres, in the sense that it spawned its fair share of everything, from the good to the bad, from the memorable to the forgettable, from the notorious to the infamous.

Now where did I put my makeup kit?...

[Chato]

I can tolerate many of the bands from that era , but I think things got really bad when ultra-poppy fluff bands hit the scene around 90/91 , bands like Trixter , Firehouse , Slaughter sounded like Adult Contemporary bands. Another problem was that this genre was designed for mainstream adiences only and many bands relied on style/good looks rather than on serious musicianship. Sadly some non-hairmetal bands of that era also got swept away by the grunge wave just because they were unfairly tagged as hair-metal.

[jimmy74747]

I loved this era. I was also in junior high during its peak in the late 80's, so part of my love for this is nostalgic. The music was all about big hooks, sing along choruses and kick-ass solos. You gotta love it.

What killed the genre was overkill. Every label needed a hair band and you had Trixter, Danger Danger, Britny Fox and countless others that just flooded the market. The same thing happened with grunge and boy bands. Too much too soon.

And its funny that you mention serious musicianship lackling here. Most of these bands were trained musicians and could actually play. By far more talented than most of today's bands. They just chose to right fun radio hits than anything deep and personal.

[joker]

I got into hair metal during its latter stages. I had the tapes of Poison ("Flesh & Blood"), Def Leppard ("Adrenalize"), Guns N Roses ("Use Your Illusion" 1 & 2), Motley Crue ("Dr. Feelgood"), Warrant, Skid Row, Slaughter, Tesla, Jackyl, L.A. Guns, and more. That stuff was some of the earliest music I listened to on a regular basis, along with MC Hammer, Young MC, Bobby Brown, and other r&b/rap from that time.

More than 15 years later, you're not gonna find many of those artists on "Best Ever" lists or what not, and perhaps rightfully so. But I agree with jimmy: there's something to be said about the nostalgia factor.

There are a lot of songs from that era, that if I listened to them today, I'm able to overlook the cheesy lyrics, the bad hair, and the style-over-substance vibe I get from the music. Maybe the music really is good. Or perhaps there's just an appeal there, in that a lot of these songs take me back to simpler, more innocent times, both in general and in specific moments of my childhood.

[tico]

I have a greater appreciation of this type of music now than I did back in the 80s. As cheesy as it may've been back then, you look back on it and say, "Wow!", and you find yourself singing along right with them. Half the stuff I like, the other half I didn't care for, but still fun to listen to every once in a while.

[busyboy]

Back from the dead, LOL...

I really can't add much to the discussion, since all the basics have been covered. Maybe just that being a teenager in the early 90's was extremely positive for my musical upbringing (I think I have to thank my parents for conceiveing me when they did... ). It was a time were anything went, basically, and in this particular case, the death of hair metal juxtaposing to the rise of grunge and alternative really opened my mind to both aspects of rock music: the light-fun-party kind, and the serious-deep-intense one.

Of course, later in my teenage years I would deny I even owned GNR or Poison cassettes because, in my quest for authenticity, the only artists that mattered where the depressed and suffering ones (Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, and so on). You know, the ones that people refer to as 'real' musicians that make 'real' music (like there is anything like 'fake' music: as long as there are organized sounds coming out of my speakers and headphones, that is music to me. Right?)

Later on, when I realized that liking Mötley Crüe and Warrant and Def Leppard should not be considered a guilty pleasure, I finally managed to listen to those songs for what they were: good (OK, not always, but still...), catchy slices of rock, very tied to the times production-wise but deserving of my attention and affection as well. So, it is about nostalgia to me, but there are artistic qualities to consider too.

[Chato]

Just to pick up one thing Jimmy mentioned: It's true, overkill was the death of hair metal, just like it had been the death of prog-rock (at least for some time around 78-83 or so, and in general as a major commercial force), punk-rock (which imo has been dead since like 1979) and arguably some other (sub-)genres as well... Overkill is also what might eventually put an end to post-grunge, nu-metal and emo as well.
Tu cut things short: Grunge, alt-rock and crossover-metal weren't the reason for hair metal's (and 80s metal in general) demise, they were just there to take its place when overkill had already done its duty, only to evolve into something far more vile than hair-metal ever could've gotten.

[unicorns]

Although I wasn't alive for most of this era, I LOVE IT! I love mostly every band from this era including a lot of the ones jaxxalude mentioned like Warrant, Dokken, GNR, Bon Jovi, Dio, Ozzy, Quiet Riot, Def Leppard, Skid Row, Motley Crue, and of course Lita Ford!

Just overall it was an amazing era for music IMO.

[irock]

I was really into Iron Maiden, Dio, early Def Leppard (who I tired of by the late 80s), some Judas Priest, Metallica (particularly the first album) and Guns 'n Roses. There was also a group called Queensrÿche that had a few songs I liked.

Iron Maiden was far and away my favorite heavy metal band. Their material was on a different level altogether from other bands. You'd never hear them do the typical sex, drugs and rock 'n roll you'd get from other bands. Their music was inspired much more by classical literature and historical events. A few favorite songs: Wrathchild, Transylvania, Charlotte the Harlot, Prodigal Son, The Number Of The Beast, Run To The Hills, Flight Of Icarus, The Trooper and Rime Of The Ancient Mariner. That last one is absolutely among the greatest rock songs of all time, imo.

[unicorns]

I like "Run To The Hills" and "The Trooper", and I heard a little bit of "Flight Of Icarus" and it sounded good, but aside from that I'm not very familiar with Iron Maiden.

[johnnywest]

It was OK for its time but I'm glad it ended.

[emperortigerstar]

I wish Hair Metal would come back. Some of my favorite songs when I was younger were hair metal songs.

[josh]

Gaga's "Hair" is indeed a true classic.