S&D: Glam Metal/Hair Metal

I never really thought of Extreme or the predominantly instrumental guitar mag shredders as glam metal, nor Ozzy.

Extreme drew some from hair metal but also like, Van Halen, methinks. and by their third album, they were a completely different thing.

Pornograffiti is a lot of fun and I also like III Sides to Every Story.

Maybe these mental barriers should be taken down, though.xp

I think glam/hair metal is ultimately a red herring, because it's as much of a fashion choice as musical choice. So no, Extreme and Ozzy were not really in that mode, but the guitar players definitely intersected with that scene, and of course all their roads (no pun intended) lead back to EVH. Like, the first line of Nuno's wiki bio is basically "Unable to make a dent in the music world with his Boston-based hair metal act Sinful ..." And Ozzy of course preceded the hair metal scene, but he definitely drew band members from it. Jake E. Lee was in one of those early versions of Ratt, etc.

Iirc Beach in the book says he dropped out of Berklee because they frowned upon that sort of flashy playing.

the true shredder stuff was the whole Guitar Institute/Berklee/Shrapnel Records axis, Tony MacApline, Paul Gilbert, Vinnie Moore, David T Chastain, Marty Friedman, Jason Becker etc

still find it hilarious that Rivers Cuomo started out being like a hair metal shredda

I bet a lot of (mostly) dudes were.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0mQlJqOFxY

xpost he said he took guitar lessons from Jim Matheos of Fates Warning (v much not a hair metal dude)

xxxxxpost Around the time of The Ultimate Sin (and forward) Ozzy was going for a glam look at least

omfg at Fogerty video. lol at solo with whammy dive bombs and tapping solo before "Keep on Chooglin'"

there was also "Close My Eyes Forever", so despite his protestations about glam/hair metal, he definitely dipped his toes in the water a *little* bit.

I bet a lot of (mostly) dudes were.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, May 13, 2021 8:39 AM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

when i was an intern at the magazine i worked for, one of the editors had grown up in buffalo with pat wilson from weezer. there was a small group of buffalo ex-pats there, so when weezer was on their green album comeback tour they had a bbq at their place and we got invited. ended up talking to pat about ronnie james dio for a long time, he loved dio...also said he was in weezer for the money at that point

That gives me the warmest feelings I've ever had for a Weezer member maybe ever.

The weird thing about GNR is that they totally *were* in the same camp, traveled in the same musical circles, etc, just never were into the hair and costumes and poppy stuff.

I mean it didn't help them in any way being wiped out with all the rest of em once the combo of Pantera/Biohazard + Nirvana/Pearl Jam swept their middle school fanbase away, but in retrospect it does seem to have given them more cred.

I think my (v possibly mistaken) 11-12yo pov was that Extreme was more like the poppy end of arty funk-metal like FNM or Living Colour. I do think they were going for something pretty different by III Sides to Every Story at the least, although it has been years since I listened.

there should be a Cock Rock Cruise

ugly kid joe always felt like they dressed the grunge part but were really of that before time

I just listened to Winger's "Headed for a Heartbreak" btw and the extended solo still sounds pretty epic.

xxxpost I mean I did think about Living Colour when I made my original post as Nuno's riff style has some similiarities to Vernon Reid, Pornograffiti has elements of sleaze, but there's a pretty well-regulated limit to how far it goes (unlike most hair metal), and the choruses are more Van Halen-esque with smooth, layered vocal harmonies, rather than the sleek,gang-style vocal harmonies of hair metal.

and yeah, III Sides pretty much leaves any connection with hair metal behind. it's not as arty per say, but Cherone leans a lot more into his Everly Brothers influences on vocals, songs are a little more stylistically varied, with orchestrations used on a few tracks.

haven't heard the debut or Waiting for the Punchline.

Suzy wants her all day sucker suzy wants her all day WHAT

i love the interview in the book w Steve Brown of Trixster. it’s so the opposite of the stories of the early scene bands, like just completely blowing mad piles of cash when the whole scene is literally over

they spent $600k on their second album that came out in ~1992~

and ***$250k*** on the video for the single “Road of a Thousand Dreams” … that MTV didn’t air

sad trombone lol

"Headed for a Heartbreak" actually does some pretty tricky things with tonality! The verses are mostly over Bb and C chords with a lot of extensions, while the melody is largely centred around C. It might lead you to expect an F major resolution in the chorus but the chorus mostly seems like G minor. Then the bridge is built over a Db pedal with Db-Eb movement in the chords and a melody that seems centred more around Bb. Then the last 3 minutes of the song are a long guitar solo.

Like, Poison wasn't doing things like that.

That makes sense, Neanderthal.

imo Winger are the Queensryche of this genre, they maybe more proficient & do better things musically but it will never ever (for me) save them from their lead singer being an unrepentant douchecanoe imo

interesting how quiet this thread was all day in the uk time zone.
also, this thread revival made me dig out a cd i picked up cheap a couple of years back, and had never listened to it.
the debut by l.a. guns.
damn, it was a lot of fun, i listened to it all the way through which i never expected to.

I went to a college with a guy who, well into the latter half of the '90s, would argue strenuously that Kip Winger was a criminally underrated musical genius.

wanted to post two minnesota hair metal era curios....and two of the more ridiculous (or ridiculously awesome) bands of that era

1) SLAVE RAIDER

Staples of the Minnesota club and ballroom scene, led by Chainsaw Caine (who now owns the traveling hair metal tribute band Hairball), they used to do kinda Alice Cooper theatrics, fire stuff and the chainsaw itself. He was really bitter about Jackyl's success; he claims they saw Slave Raider and stole the bit. Anyway, absolutely knucklehead silly shit, but catchy. Always got the sense Chainsaw was in on the joke. This video is so hilarious

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuGTrTPut1w

2) MORTICIA

Ex-punks who started as a goth/deathrock type band, had more synths like Sister of Mercy or something...eventually ended up an odd mix of goth and sleaze metal...one of them I believe went on to to be a touring member of the Cult.

i think they are still around kinda, went back to the goth roots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUyrpwG9eCU

xxpost I really like that first LA guns album, i listen to it a lot.

re Slave Raider, all I ever wanted to do as a kid was film a post-apocalyptic metal video at some abandoned quarry or construction site.

Hanoi Rocks on the edges of this?

I always thought Queensryche and Crimson Glory sounded a bit glammy but more things look/sound like like glam metal to an outsider, I haven't heard much of this genre.

Imo, Hanoi Rocks yes; Queensryche definitely aspired to something comparatively more progressive.

oh, and before this revival i randomly picked up a 'best of' (2004 comp) yesterday by def leppard.
are they regarded as hair metal, or are they too produced/polished ?

I guess I would put them in a category with Van Halen, definitely influential and formative to what became "hair metal" but big enough and unique enough that they were sort of their own thing, bigger than the genre if that makes sense

And I hear that Hanoi Rocks and Wasp have a lot more critical acclaim plus credit with other types of metal fans who might not care for glam?

that makes sense.
digging around i found a white lion 2cd anthology i had forgotten about, and even a w.a.s.p cd (inside the electric circus).
both of which i am not sure i have ever listened to.
could be an interesting, unexpected weekend soundtrack here.

xpost.

W.A.S.P. are more traditional heavy metal with glam elements than pure glam. Rock 'n roll is a big part of glam and it is with W.A.S.P. as well - hence lots of their cover song choices.

they definitely dressed the part for glam, though there was a bit of a shock rock element to their wardrobe too. the sleaze was there in full force, in the lyrics, the music, the performance. the chorus harmonies are pure glam, though Blackie's voice is a bit shrill compared to other glam vocalists (other than maybe Tom Keifer). but the riffing and songs could be much more aggressive than that scene at times too. especially on like Headless Children, or the back half of the s/t.

it's actually a pretty masterful blend as they liked to savagely cave your skull in but with catchy melodies and pretty harmonies.

I love W.A.S.P.

oooh INside the Electric Circus is great! it's no s/t but you should enjoy.

WASP/Electric Circus : title track on now - and yeah, this hits the spot.
i clearly prefer the dirtier sound as opposed to the clean side of this era.

well then you'll love W.A.S.P., who basically bathe in bacon grease and KY Jelly

glad you like that first LA Guns, sleaze masterpiece

just remembered I did buy that first LA Guns during my hair metal revisitation period and I did indeed like that one.

Going back to my initial misgivings, the issue as I see it is that just about all of these bands were equally inspired by Kiss and Van Halen, but none of them were even close to as good as Van Halen and at best some of them were about as good as Kiss, which is about as meaningless a victory as you can get. The smartest or the best of the bunch were the ones the hewed closest to '70s hard rock and punk.

I do feel a little bad for a lot of these folks. They were making so much money but ultimately losing so much more, and in the end if the only reason you're making music at all is for the adulation and the booze/drugs/girls that goes with it, and those things go away, then you're not left with much. It's not like Rikki Rockett was going to start writing bestsellers, you know? That said, I'm sure all of these bands are doing fine on the nostalgia circuit, along with their equivalents from the same or other decades. And at the end of the book the aforementioned Mr. Rockett is now espousing the virtues of girls in their '30s.

Oh, and back to this dude:

I went to a college with a guy who, well into the latter half of the '90s, would argue strenuously that Kip Winger was a criminally underrated musical genius.

A few years back Winger got a Grammy nom for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L81u2K2d3To

Hanoi Rocks were fully in the middle of it imo- influenced a lot of ppl in the scene & then there’s Razzle’s death in 84 w Vince Neil
inextricably linked you could say

I feel like Hanoi Rocks were your favorite band's favorite band

I don't remember anyone actually listening to them back then

Yeah I feel like they were always kinda whispered about as being "legends" among hair metal kids back in junior high, but no one had really ever heard them because you didn't see their records around.

They never really toured America, right? Until '84 or whatever? But yeah, they're definitely in the sub-genre's sleazy DNA.

Hanoi Rocks were the only glam/hair band that had a saxophone