S&D: Glam Metal/Hair Metal

Is there recorded footage of Page tapping during the solo of "Heartbreaker" (pre-78)? I don't think I've seen that in any versions I've seen.

Fans of the Nothing But a Good Time book might enjoy the discussion with its authors on "The Best Show" podcast (w/Tom Scharpling). It goes on for over an hour. At the end the authors field questions such as "What would you consider the Citizen Kane of hair metal?"

I’m curious what the answers were.

My 7 year old has been going to a school of rock intro class which got him really into Van Halen. Later I showed him a Poison video and he described them as “basically four David Lee Roths”

The Citizen Kane of hair metal = first Montrose album, or maybe first VH. Definitely not Shout at the Devil.

*spoiler alert*

One of the authors said Dr. Feelgood by Motley Crue was the Citizen Kane of hair metal. The other author suggested Poison's first album, but then kind of conceded that it's more like the Fast Times at Ridgemont High of hair metal.

dr feelgood is way too late in the era its gotta be the first ratt album or something

Citizen Kane of hair metal I'd suggest is the first Van Halen record (which Montrose for sure laid the groundwork for). "Dr. Feelgood," that's more of a symbolic last gasp, where the band peaked in popularity, got re-signed to a bazillion dollar contract and yet, never released anything of note ever again. And neither did any of their peers, afaict.

oh actually its bangkok shocks by hanoi rocks.

It's down to how you interpret "Citizen Kane," whether it means the blueprint for everything else that follows (in which case, yeah, Montrose or Van Halen) or whether it means the ultimate expression of the genre. The one author of the book thought Dr. Feelgood was the latter, iow the quintessential highpoint of the genre.

Hanoi Rocks and Montrose feel like ur-texts; I'm not sure how much hair metal resembles those acts (musically). I feel Van Halen really established the sleazy party vibe, and their adherents did their best to absorb the influence despite their general lack of inspiration or talent.

Seems like Hysteria>>>>Dr. Feelgood using that Citizen Kane metric.

One interesting thing in the book that the guys kept talkin about is that a ton of the early shit was coming out of later-day Christian Death style deathrock. Rozz Williams was huge in LA. Nikki Sixx was in London and there were a hundred other bands doing the same shit. It was a twisted post goth thing as much as it was David Lee Roth for at least a year.

You mean London the band, to be clear

yes ty

I think the problem with diagnosing a Citizen Kane without nominating something like Hysteria is that, for most of that core 84-90 period, most of the albums aren’t as well renowned as the big singles, the image or the live show.

Def Leppard an obvious exception (but again, how much or how far did DL transcend the hair metal scene with such gargantuan albums?), Crue probably by Dr Feelgood, maybe Poison to an extent

DL are too British hair metal is USA baby

Well part of the thing about Hysteria is that, in the book in question, the authors decided to focus on the US-based bands with some connection to the Sunset Strip scene, therefore Def Leppard wasn't a part of the conversation. Which I thought was kind of unfair and I expressed that opinion upthread. But the authors say in the podcast, if they had included foreign bands in their scope the whole project would've been exponentially more vast and daunting. Which makes sense. But I still think Pyromania and Hysteria were crucial inputs to that scene.

I sorta mutter about hair metal in my old piece on Hysteria:

https://thequietus.com/articles/09833-def-leppard-hysteria

But basically those two American smash hit albums of theirs were...like, TOO good. Or too hyperpolished and pristine, which is not a complaint, but a description. The hair metal types were essentially sloppy/dramatic trashiness, DL and Lange were going "What if glam rock was industrial pop shot through with lasers?"

But how many of those LA bands would have killed to have Mutt Lange produce their music and make them sound less sloppy & trashy

One does wonder!

Slippery When Wet: the Citizen Kane of Hair Metal
New Jersey: the Chimes at Midnight of New Jerseys

As ultimate expression of the genre Dr Feelgood tracks in a way

For me personally I’d say Cinderella “Long Cold Winter” but mostly just bc they’re a better band? Idk. I love Motley but I don’t wanna give them that much credit lol

Whoever said RATT can meet me in the parking lot

IMO Hysteria is the hair metal album Elephant in the Room, compounded by the fact they’re not American, never mind from LA, so as said they’ve always been thought of as a band not strictly ‘of’ hair-metal

It helps to have good timing - if you release your biggest album in 1987 - the peak of hair metal IMO - you’re laughing.
As already mentioned, as big as it was Dr Feelgood seems “late”

Surely Appetite for Destruction takes the Citizen Kane title over Slippery, Hysteria and Feelgood?

Ratt was light years better than Cinderella

Here's Martin Popoff's list of 20 albums that "invented" hair metal, going from influence to prototype:

Led Zeppelin — IV (November 1971)
New York Dolls — New York Dolls (July 1973)
Montrose — Montrose (October 1973)
KISS — Alive! (September 1975)
Aerosmith — Rocks (May 1976)
Van Halen — Van Halen (February 1978)
Def Leppard — High ‘n’ Dry (July 1981)
Dokken — Breaking The Chains (July 1981)
Loverboy — Get Lucky (October 1981)
Mötley Crüe — Too Fast For Love (November 1981)
Scorpions — Blackout (April 1982)
Van Halen — Diver Down (April 1982)
Twisted Sister — Under The Blade (September 1982)
Def Leppard — Pyromania (January 1983)
Quiet Riot — Metal Health (March 1983)
Ratt — Ratt EP (August 1983)
KISS — Lick It Up (September 1983)
Mötley Crüe — Shout At The Devil (September 1983)
Ratt — Out of The Cellar (March 1984)
Dokken — Tooth And Nail (September 1984)

Appetite is the Citizen Kane of hair metal if you take it to mean "everyone says it's the greatest ever, but they haven't watched/listened to it in forever and are really just saying that to sound cultured within their critical peer group." You kinda have to look at hair metal from the perspective of a teenage girl between 1983 (Shout at the Devil) and 1990 (Warrant's Cherry Pie) IMO. What would she think was the greatest album in the history of life? I'd probably argue for Skid Row's debut, myself.

Actually, 1988 might actually take the cake purely in terms of box office

RATT sucks and I hate them

Appetite? Nah. GNR were forged in glam metal but (pardon stretching metaphor) as the first nail that was hammered into the coffin *of* glam metal
thx for playing though

There was other early 80s hard rock bands whose sound and look while not being totally LA glam fits with this stuff

I'd say one band not yet mentioned in the thread is Night Ranger. I'd say Sammy Hagar's "Standing Hampton" and even some of the Canadian hard rock - not all tunes but some by April Wine, Helix and Aldo Nova (esp 'Fantasy') fits in with this music.

Helix was pretty sleazy.

Cinderella rules, Ratt iz schitt

If the Orson Welles of a genre is someone who codified technical advances to make a new artistic grammar, here it would be Van Halen on the guitar and maybe Lange as a producer.

Re: Cinderella -are there other well-known metal vocalists who sing mostly in falsetto, like Tom Keifer and King Diamond?

Slaughter

yall warren dimartini is such a sick ass guitar player and frickin don letts directed the round and round video!

Aw, I liked Ratt.

*kicks dirt despondently*

I kinda always thought 'Out of the Cellar' was pretty good and they never really wrote any other good songs. They went way more pop on everything else that followed. I think Ratt was the classic club band that played that first album over and over for years and never really had a good follow up.

Dokken also went soft after 'Tooth and Nail'.

The first EP and first two albums were good.

stephen pearcy is a syphilitic goblin who could not carry a tune in a bucket and Ratt’s songs all sound like they were written with a ouija board and a rhyming dictionary

dimartini is a great guitarist but he is not enough for me to endure sitting through literally any song

thanking u

:D

I'd argue no Ratt albums are good, but some singles are GREAT. Particularly "Slip of the Lip." That song swings better than any other hair metal song and it's not even close.

*gasface*

Redirect that gasface to "Way Cool Jr." and I'll join you.

VG not liking Ratt, I'm genuinely hurt.

also anyone who likes hair metal listen to Vain - "No Respect", imo a lost classic of the genre

xpost sorry dude, this is where i leave u

fare the well

thee lol

fare thee lol