"Hair Metal" vs Grunge

[Marla 1976]

Not if you'er truly listening!

I don’t think ‘dead’ is the right word. Rock music has simply gone (back) into the underground. But it most likely will not come above surface again.There are still many bands in different genres of rock music who are putting out great albums, you just have to dig a little deeper now.

However, rock music, at the mainstream level does not exist any longer.( Rock music is only dead if you can’t see beyond the mainstream media.) It is not part of the youth establishment; it is not the energy for rebellious teenage angst; nor is it the catalyst to any reaction towards politics. You’re not going to see another band like the Stones, Zeppelin or The Who again.

I like seeing my 80's bands in smaller concert venues 1. I don't have to pay the big $ that i used to and 2. personally feel more conceited to the the band and being with my age group!

Just my opinion but, To say any one band "ruined" rock music because they started a new musical movement is incredibly stupid, you could apply that logic to any new musical movement, you could say hair metal killed new wave which killed punk which killed prog which killed psychedelia which killed surf music which killed rock n roll which killed crooning and so on. There is no "should" or "should not" in rock music, things just happen, music is in a constant state of evolution and only someone who can't look beyond the past would want to keep it in an eternal state of infancy.

Not all rock music has to be about sex or having a good time. Though if you don't think bands do that kind of music today you need to get out more.


John Lennon wrote songs about depression and self pity, does that make him a hack? No. Nor was Cobain a hack. He may not have been Yngwie Malmsteen on the guitar, but his music meant something to a lot of people and it went a little deeper than just having good music to f*ck to.


Where we stand today.
Rock music owes everything to the people who love it. While mainstream gatekeepers search for the “next big thing,” rock, punk, and metal fans already know what it is, because they heard it online or got told about it by their older brother’s / sister's weird friend. That’s always been a vital part of loving rock music, but with the options and entryways available to fans today, it means that getting roped into trends or being sold a hollow image is quickly becoming a thing of the past. And as long as the people are there with fists in the air, then the music will be, too.

Now this is all just MY Opinion!

By The way " Welcome to CRF!

Wow. You really seem to get to a bottom of things. My god I miss my youth. You are right. I guess i am emotionally hurt by what happened in the 90's. 80's/early 90' were such fun times to be alive and a fan of Heavy Metal music. Musicians playing real instruments, there was a sense of family and community in the scene, people went to these shows to have fun actually enjoy the music, no one had stupid smartphones pointed at the stage. Compare the gutter shit that is popular today to " hair metal" bands, mumble rappers, boy bands and a bunch of social media personalities pretending to be Mariah Carey. All because Nirvana managed to dethrone heavy metal and rock. When grunge came in, rather than it being more about the music, it became even more about "the look". Musicianship and musicality went totally down the toilet. I admit that i miss the 80's/early90's with a passion! I was a teen in this era LATE80S/EARLY90S. Everyone was happy.....the music was happy and upbeat.....and the occasional power ballad to get over you first boyfriend. Great music not to remind you of your problems.....but to make you feel good, laugh, and enjoy life! Teen Spirit hit in the fall of 1991. It wasn't an overnight thing, but 1992 saw a quick rise in the grunge bands. I remember noticing how depressing music became around that time. Around 1994, I remember Korn, Wu Tang Clan, Dr Dre, Tool, and Nine Inch Nails on heavy rotation on MTV. The 90s became an angry time, and many of those grungies died of heroin overdoses. Go to a bar today and what do you hear? Poison, Bon Jovi, Motley Crue etc. Party songs. You won't be hearing Nirvana covers. And everyone wore flannels and wallowed in self pity back then.

How do we go from bands like Guns N Roses, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Motley Crue doing sold out stadium gigs of tens of thousands to not even finding a mention of metal in popular culture? A lot of modern metal has just gotten too radio unfriendly to get a lot of mainstream attention and air-time. Screaming vocals turn a lot of people off.
80's/early90's were golden age of metal? There were a ton of good metal bands in the 80's. Abundance of bands were releasing almost consistently awesome albums. The 80's/early 90's was the best time for metal because it was everywhere, the age was metal. Stadium tours, albums in the charts, the era of high sales, magazines, fan clubs. So many amazing underground bands were still out there. Iron Maiden, Motley Crue, Poison, Def Leppard, Guns n Roses, Metallica, Bon Jovi, Dio and Ozzy were kings! .

I resent that Nirvana were practically overnight anointed the teacher's pet of MTV and the music industry, at the expense of a lot of other Heavy Metal bands who were instantly blackballed. This was a major change from the 80's/early 90s where MTV catered to all different audiences a little bit with their programming and specialty shows like Yo MTV Raps and Headbangers Ball. Then MTV instantly threw that all away when they crowned Nirvana. God, they still make the emergence of Nirvana seem like the Beatles appearing on Ed Sullivan or some shit and sorry folks I just do not see it. I hated the way the situation was handled and the way the band was managed and propped up and I always will.And so many bands followed the Nirvana formula. Guitar starts off clean, the singer sounds like he just woke up and has a hangover, then the distortion kicks in and all you hear is screaming screaming and more screaming. The only guitar solo sounds like someone is castrating a bull, and you can't understand a word the singer is saying. Weird Al did a perfect video of smells like Nirvana. Even tho he has just joking around like he always does he was telling the truth in that video. After grunge exploded it carried over into post grunge then to nu metal. And because of that that's why we have rap,pop,and indie style of music are on the charts. Glam metal musicians were honest. At least they could play guitar. What's the last song that even resembles a Rock anthem?

 

[Aero]

here's one thing that jumped out at me: the record companies and MTV screwed up in 1991 when they switched their focus away from straight ahead melodic rock and towards alternative and grunge...

This was all by design.

I don't believe for a second that back in the early 90s, the music industry was looking to find new music that people would enjoy. After all, they hate taking chances on anything new unless sales are way down. So why did they push Nirvana when there was no reason to?

Well, you mentioned they steered away from melodic rock back then...and still do today. When was the last great melody you heard in a rock song? They are few and far between now.

The record companies wanted this. I think they all had a meeting back then and decided they would stop looking for talented new bands that showed promise and instead severely limit the customer's buying options to make their job easier. The plan was to homogenize everything to reduce risk and maximize profits.

In order to do this, it meant killing melody in songs as that would make it easier to produce a hit song when you don't need to worry about constructing a great melody around it. Since the end of the 80s, melody has been slowly removed from music. Today it's nearly non-existent and one of the main reasons music continues to "get worse."

This is collusion at the highest level and it continues to go on today.

 

[Trickster]

Wow. You really seem to get to a bottom of things.

And you don't?

Don't get me wrong I don't like Kurt Cobain or the band Nirvina . I also loved the 80's music and still listen to it!
But i have found other newer rock bands that are cool and fun to listen to! If you want good rock music, stop looking for the commercial radio and music video stations to deliver. These stations are all pop-based now and the only rock stations out there are ones that heavily rely on classic rock (I blame their laziness for this more than MTV, the major labels and all the divas combined). The idea of the rock single hasn't been main-stream for a long time and the decline started after post-grunge era. However the rock album is still going strong and selling. Concert attendance for rock gigs is still going strong.

I guess what I'm trying to say is i don't care that my music isn't mainstream anymore! I'v gotten over it and listen to what i like with out the radio.


To me good rock has to move me and hit below the belt. Tom Petty once said something like “Rock and roll is not supposed to be pretty” and I agree with this sentiment.

Viva rock!

 

[Marla 1976]

This was all by design.

I don't believe for a second that back in the early 90s, the music industry was looking to find new music that people would enjoy. After all, they hate taking chances on anything new unless sales are way down. So why did they push Nirvana when there was no reason to?

Well, you mentioned they steered away from melodic rock back then...and still do today. When was the last great melody you heard in a rock song? They are few and far between now.

The record companies wanted this. I think they all had a meeting back then and decided they would stop looking for talented new bands that showed promise and instead severely limit the customer's buying options to make their job easier. The plan was to homogenize everything to reduce risk and maximize profits.

In order to do this, it meant killing melody in songs as that would make it easier to produce a hit song when you don't need to worry about constructing a great melody around it. Since the end of the 80s, melody has been slowly removed from music. Today it's nearly non-existent and one of the main reasons music continues to "get worse."

This is collusion at the highest level and it continues to go on today.

EXACTLY! I totally agree with you. I was 16 year old in 1992 grunge broke big and can remember listening to it on the radio and seeing the videos on mtv and thinking "why do so many of these people only want to talk about being depressed and hating life?", then I remember the day kurt cobain committed suicide and the massive overreaction it got as if it was somehow this unexpected event despite the fact he'd tried to off himself two or three times in the previous year or so (all of which had been widely reported on) yet my peers all expected me to care as if it mattered to me in the slightest regardless of the fact I hated his music and didn't care for the grunge fad at alll. All those "alternative / Grunge Bands" also copied each other & a lot of my friends were even selling out to them. Im like WOW you guys were putting down Poison & Slaughter & THEN talk highly of Nirvana & Pearl Jam!? WTF? That's how I felt about the 90's. Just a bunch of bands cloning each other and a majority having boring, annoying whiny vocalists. Glam metal bands still had plenty of fans, but the industry embraced the whole alternative/grunge scene at that time, and milked that dry too. What annoys me is how people don't take 80s Heavy Metal seriously because of how the bands looked. If you go back and look, there was some KILLER hard rock/metal that came out in the early to mid 90's that largely went unnoticed. Skid Row's "Slave to The Grind" was amazing! The Coverdale/Page album, I still play to this day! Brother Kane put out some amazing stuff! Badlands was great! Poison put out a criminally underrated album in "Native Tongue." Warrant was doing great stuff. Winger was great! I could go on and on. The 90's" bands didn't last that long. After 1995 "grunge" died faster than hair metal. Think about it. During grunge Aerosmith, Def Leppard,The Scorpions, Bon Jovi just name a few had massive hits and sold a ton of records.

 

[Marla 1976]

This was all by design.

I don't believe for a second that back in the early 90s, the music industry was looking to find new music that people would enjoy. After all, they hate taking chances on anything new unless sales are way down. So why did they push Nirvana when there was no reason to?

Well, you mentioned they steered away from melodic rock back then...and still do today. When was the last great melody you heard in a rock song? They are few and far between now.

The record companies wanted this. I think they all had a meeting back then and decided they would stop looking for talented new bands that showed promise and instead severely limit the customer's buying options to make their job easier. The plan was to homogenize everything to reduce risk and maximize profits.

In order to do this, it meant killing melody in songs as that would make it easier to produce a hit song when you don't need to worry about constructing a great melody around it. Since the end of the 80s, melody has been slowly removed from music. Today it's nearly non-existent and one of the main reasons music continues to "get worse."

This is collusion at the highest level and it continues to go on today.

Do you remember that the dreadful and pejorative term "hair metal" was never, ever, not once used in the eighties/early nineties. It was all Heavy Metal. Rock was never better then at the 80s/early 90s when Heavy Metal bands were ruling the world. When grunge came out, it became fashionable to be average musicians, sing songs about depression and cringe at anyone who had big hair and was actually good at playing an instrument. In that wake of Grunge there were a lot of bands that didn't deserve to be thrown by the wayside.



I think Nirvana is overrated in the sense that people act like they are the greatest band to have made grunge music when in my eyes Alice in Chains, Sound Garden, Stone Temple Pilots (early albums), Mother Love Bone are much better bands in terms of musical talent. They were also somewhat responsible for taking the guitar solo out of music that had been so prominent in the 70s and 80s and I hate them for that. For me their whole status is massively inflated by this (perceived by many) rebellious rock ' n roll suicide romanticism of Cobain shooting himself dead at the age of 27 after years as a heroin junkie, so it's like that whole James Dean thing (who was a lousy actor who made a few mostly pretty terrible movies that gained huge appeal after his death) and John Belushi (for me a moderately talented comedian) and Sid Vicious (who never had a single musical bone in his body) - you wonder if guys like this had lived they'd all by now be living in disgraceful middle-age, and starring on celebrity ballroom dancing reality shows? As a fan of "hair metal" , I like discussing its rise and fall. I miss the 80s/early 90s good times and good memories. I grew up on heavy metal. love hair metal. There was some good rock music in the 80s-early 90s. Rock music was butchered in 90s by media and people who were jealous of rock music's popularity. Late 80s/early 90s for me was the best years ever.

 

[Romulus]

I think its great to have a female OP so passionate in her subject. Where do I stand I was raised on UFO, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, T. Rex, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Alice Cooper, well mainly Rock from late 60's to late 80's. Grunge for me was awful did not like the music nor musicians but I did like Punk espescially the Sex Pistols (every one took them seriously but it was the band that played the audience...!). I like melodic dramatic rock so Nightwish, Sabaton I love. Also Muse , I saw them live in Teignmouth UK what a fantastic live band, nearly all their songs seem like a Rock anthem and the crowd just sang along as one with the band. Bands like the 'Foo Fighters' do a great disservice to Rock because for me their music (or noise) is so mundanely awful. When 'Heavy Metal' started to rear its head at the time I was not so sold on the music, because it seemed to me suddenly every one was wearing spandex trousers, suddenly the performers had long groomed hair, musicians began explore the stage, do a lot of posing espescially when playing solos. Bands from America seemed a lot more theatrical with commercial intent while Bands from UK were more grounded and down to earth. But now all is levelled of, all want to make that buck but there are thankfully some individual talents in rock. For me a lot of present day contemporary music has all often been done before and often better. But I am an old dinasaur, heavily biased who still think that the 60's was the best decade for contemporary music and its defnitely a no brainer....!

 

[Nai Noswad]

Glad i was blessed with a Heinz 57 music radar..Metallica, Mud, Mozart or Matt Monro..good song is a good song

 

[Marla 1976]

I think its great to have a female OP so passionate in her subject. Where do I stand I was raised on UFO, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, T. Rex, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Alice Cooper, well mainly Rock from late 60's to late 80's. Grunge for me was awful did not like the music nor musicians but I did like Punk espescially the Sex Pistols (every one took them seriously but it was the band that played the audience...!). I like melodic dramatic rock so Nightwish, Sabaton I love. Also Muse , I saw them live in Teignmouth UK what a fantastic live band, nearly all their songs seem like a Rock anthem and the crowd just sang along as one with the band. Bands like the 'Foo Fighters' do a great disservice to Rock because for me their music (or noise) is so mundanely awful. When 'Heavy Metal' started to rear its head at the time I was not so sold on the music, because it seemed to me suddenly every one was wearing spandex trousers, suddenly the performers had long groomed hair, musicians began explore the stage, do a lot of posing espescially when playing solos. Bands from America seemed a lot more theatrical with commercial intent while Bands from UK were more grounded and down to earth. But now all is levelled of, all want to make that buck but there are thankfully some individual talents in rock. For me a lot of present day contemporary music has all often been done before and often better. But I am an old dinasaur, heavily biased who still think that the 60's was the best decade for contemporary music and its defnitely a no brainer....!

Thank you. I guess i am passionate. In the broadest possible sense there are two "schools" of heavy metal pre-1980s (kind of like how there are two schools of jazz tenor playing, you're either a Hawkins disciple or a Lester Young disciple).

Theres the European school: Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Budgie, Rainbow, Judas Priest, etc.
There's the US school: Van Halen, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, Kiss, Alice Cooper, etc.

In the 80s the stuff generally considered to be "heavy metal" was bands influenced by the European school and the slightly later NWOBHM offshoot. This extended into newer genres like thrash, doom, power metal (the 80s definition of the term, not the modern definition of the term), etc. Thrash then later begat further offshoots like death metal.

The "hair metal" stuff was generally bands influenced by the US school...and mostly Van Halen to be honest. The US school to me has always been right on that cusp of hard rock/heavy metal, generally being more focused on upbeat party rock.

The influence of Led Zeppelin kind of falls somewhere in between the two schools as Plant's stage presence was a popular influential thing for hair metal vocalists to emulate...if you could mix Plant and Steven Tyler together you basically have every frontman for every commercial metal act during the entire decade.

This is of course an over-simplification, but I think it works from a cursory standpoint. If you read interviews with Motley Crue or Ratt during the 80s they always listed bands like Kiss and Aerosmith as primary influences. If you read interviews with bands like Metallica or Slayer they usually mentioned Sabbath, Deep Purple and all the NWOBHM bands. Anybody who thinks hair metal bands didn't care about the music is just ignorant. They cared no more or less than musicians in any other rock genre. Not saying it was all gold, but the implication that because of their appearance they didn't care about the songs is just asinine. Any thought that musicians in thrash or speed metal or just rock bands didn't care about the way they looked is also completely misguided. FWIW, as someone who grew up as a metal girl in the 80s/early 90s the genres weren't nearly as defined as they are now. We'd listen to Metallica or Iron Maiden or Megadeth and then something on the poppier end of the scale - Crue, Warrant, Slaughter, Cinderella, whatever. Yeah some people weren't into the extremes on either end (Firehouse or King Diamond, for example), but for the most part metal was metal and it was all rock.

 

[Romulus]

Thank you. I guess i am passionate. In the broadest possible sense there are two "schools" of heavy metal pre-1980s (kind of like how there are two schools of jazz tenor playing, you're either a Hawkins disciple or a Lester Young disciple).

Theres the European school: Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Budgie, Rainbow, Judas Priest, etc.
There's the US school: Van Halen, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, Kiss, Alice Cooper, etc.

In the 80s the stuff generally considered to be "heavy metal" was bands influenced by the European school and the slightly later NWOBHM offshoot. This extended into newer genres like thrash, doom, power metal (the 80s definition of the term, not the modern definition of the term), etc. Thrash then later begat further offshoots like death metal.

The "hair metal" stuff was generally bands influenced by the US school...and mostly Van Halen to be honest. The US school to me has always been right on that cusp of hard rock/heavy metal, generally being more focused on upbeat party rock.

The influence of Led Zeppelin kind of falls somewhere in between the two schools as Plant's stage presence was a popular influential thing for hair metal vocalists to emulate...if you could mix Plant and Steven Tyler together you basically have every frontman for every commercial metal act during the entire decade.

This is of course an over-simplification, but I think it works from a cursory standpoint. If you read interviews with Motley Crue or Ratt during the 80s they always listed bands like Kiss and Aerosmith as primary influences. If you read interviews with bands like Metallica or Slayer they usually mentioned Sabbath, Deep Purple and all the NWOBHM bands. Anybody who thinks hair metal bands didn't care about the music is just ignorant. They cared no more or less than musicians in any other rock genre. Not saying it was all gold, but the implication that because of their appearance they didn't care about the songs is just asinine. Any thought that musicians in thrash or speed metal or just rock bands didn't care about the way they looked is also completely misguided. FWIW, as someone who grew up as a metal girl in the 80s/early 90s the genres weren't nearly as defined as they are now. We'd listen to Metallica or Iron Maiden or Megadeth and then something on the poppier end of the scale - Crue, Warrant, Slaughter, Cinderella, whatever. Yeah some people weren't into the extremes on either end (Firehouse or King Diamond, for example), but for the most part metal was metal and it was all rock.

Back in the days my friend and I were into the Runaways, for two reasons, firstly we thought they were sexy and secondly they played some good Rock. In England we had equivalent girl band called Girl School.

I still get goose pump watching them playing with Motorhead, their chemistry together was electric (pardon the pun) Both lead singers RIP.

 

[Marla 1976]

And you don't?

Don't get me wrong I don't like Kurt Cobain or the band Nirvina . I also loved the 80's music and still listen to it!
But i have found other newer rock bands that are cool and fun to listen to! If you want good rock music, stop looking for the commercial radio and music video stations to deliver. These stations are all pop-based now and the only rock stations out there are ones that heavily rely on classic rock (I blame their laziness for this more than MTV, the major labels and all the divas combined). The idea of the rock single hasn't been main-stream for a long time and the decline started after post-grunge era. However the rock album is still going strong and selling. Concert attendance for rock gigs is still going strong.

I guess what I'm trying to say is i don't care that my music isn't mainstream anymore! I'v gotten over it and listen to what i like with out the radio.


To me good rock has to move me and hit below the belt. Tom Petty once said something like “Rock and roll is not supposed to be pretty” and I agree with this sentiment.

Viva rock!

People can laugh at the haircuts, videos, outfits, lyrics and album covers and the banality of power chords but there was a reason why this stuff was popular - it had some fine hooks, riffs and great hot singers. I admit to you that I wish Heavy Metal songs could be top 10 hits on the Hot 100 again played along with the pop and rap songs on radio stations. I just wish that rock/metal ruled the world again. Metal's glory years were 1980-1992. I'm a big fan of those years in Metal .'Hair Metal' was SOOO huge that top 10 Billboard charts and MTV most requested videos we're metal almost top to bottom for a few years. That's why I pick up Hair metal over Grunge. I never liked music only to be depressing, pessimist or dull. Never been a fan or existentialism in music

Of course "serious" magazines and bullshit judgements by the comitee (Rolling Stone and others) media only pick up music to depress like indie, grunge, punk, etc. All Cobain sang about was depression, gloom, doom, misery, angst, despair, loss and a terrible life growing up. Sure, he wasn't the first nor the last to sing songs like that but that was ALL he sang about! Take John Lennon for example; his dad abandoned him and his mom when he was a kid and John was practically destroyed when his mother was killed by an off duty police officer who was driving drunk but looking at his music it wasn't all about doom and gloom......and he didn't commit suicide either. All that alternative music that sounds the same was or is never going to be rock and roll. It was Nirvana who took the spirit of rock and messed it up completely. Kurt Cobain was heavily influenced by the Meat Puppets and the Pixies and told anyone who cared that the Teen Spirit structure came straight from Gouge Away. And the riff from Come As You Are was taken from Killing Joke's Eighties . Nirvana have no meaning behind their lyrics. To quote Kurt himself "a lot of times when I write lyrics it's in the last second because I'm lazy. Then I find myself having to come up with explanations". 99% of the time, Nirvana wrote down random phrases, tied them together and let people make up bullshit about it. Listen to today's commercial rock music and then listen to Nirvana. Any difference? They even wear almost the same clothes. Nirvana influenced those.

Give me Kiss over Sex Pistols, give me Bon Jovi over The Cure, Def Leppard over Nirvana, Poison over Pixies, Guns n Roses over Sonic Youth, etc. For me the late 80s/early 90s were a great time to be a metal fan. I think it was a lot of fun, got our blood flowing...unlike grunge that came after it, with it's gloomy outlook on life. After 1994 I found it harder to get excited about newer metal bands. I still love and listen to the older 80's and early 90's metal.