Hair Metal

 Woody Metal.  Back at college – the University of Maryland, College Park – in 1988, we had a friend, who we’ll call Woody (yes, his name actually was Woody).  Woody was actually the first friend I had at UMCP; I met him at freshman orientation during the summer of 1986.  Eventually I wound up in his same suite on campus.

            Woody’s preference for music was what is often referred to as “hair metal”, but we called it “Woody metal”.  Bands like Motley Crue, Poison, Twisted Sister, Guns N’Roses.   ‘Sister in fact was his favorite band before Appetite For Destruction came out, at which point Woody then preached the Gospel of Axl to anyone who would listen.

            He also listened to Fates Warning, Queensryche, AC/DC, and other bands which didn’t fit that mold, and he was certainly intelligent enough to articulate his preferences and explain exactly WHY Appetite was the best album ever.  He wasn’t Beavis or Butt-head.

            So I may as well review this type of music.

The way I see it, there were two parallel “metal” movements in the 1980s:  “heavy metal” and “hair metal”.  What I’d call “heavy metal” was Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Scorpions, Rush, AC/DC, Metallica, Megadeth, who took themselves seriously and wrote about nuclear war, social issues, war, etc. and not merely partying.  Their sounds were heavier, darker, and more disturbing.  I definitely prefer this kind of music.  I also like “stoner rock”, which is essentially 80’s heavy metal with a heavy dose of weirdness and psychedelia, even jamming, but this type of music didn’t emerge until the 1990s at the earliest, with Sleep and Kyuss being the original two stoner rock bands – leaving aside its obvious basis, Black Sabbath.

Music style: Jackson & Charvel guitars in most cases, played through Marshalls, with high speed guitars and shrieking vocals.  The lyrics were deliberately unsophisticated and unpretentious: girls, alcohol, drugs, fast living, partying 24/7, etc.  Though by that standard, AC/DC qualify as a hair metal band.  Anyhow.

Motley Crue.  Arguably the premiere band, though GNR make a good case for competition.  The top albums: Shout At the Devil, Girls, Girls, Girls, and Dr Feelgood.  We saw them on the Theater of Pain tour.  By now drummer Tommy Lee has far eclipsed Nikki Sixx, Mick Mars and Vince Neil as the most famous band member, due to his …famous member.  ‘Crue can be described as mindless party rock, competently executed.

Poison.  Clearly Bret Michaels and his crew were emulating ‘Crue, though with more makeup and hairspray.  Look What The Cat Dragged In is their Dark Side.  It was the first album my brother got for his newly purchased CD player.

Ratt.  This is MY favorite among them.  “Round and Round” is the top hit, from their Dark Side, Out of the Cellar.  We saw them at Donington in 1985.

Def Leppard.  Emerging from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, the only band of that genre to successfully sell out; Diamond Head crashed and burned trying to do the same, whereas Iron Maiden and Saxon remained true to their NWOBHM roots.  My favorite album (naturally, pre-sellout) is High N’Dry, but Pyromania and Hysteria probably rank higher as objectively landmark ‘Leppard discs.  We saw them on the Hysteria tour back in 1987.

Cinderella.  By far the most blues-based and musically legitimate band, but I could never get past Tom Keifer’s makeup and the band’s lame name.

Skid Row.  Bitter rivals to ‘Crue thanks to Sebastian Bach, but I do like Bach’s healthy self-deprecation.  I’m less impressed with their hits than their covers album; of their originals, “Monkey Business”, from Slave to the Grind, is my favorite.

Twisted Sister.  How could I forget them?  Nasty transvestites, I suppose:  Dee Snider and Mark Mendoza looked like cross-dressers who’d just as soon kick your ass as kiss it.  “We’re Not Gonna Take It”, and Stay Hungry, remain their top hit and album.  We saw them on the Come Out and Play tour in Paris, and the Love is For Suckers tour in DC.

Guns N’Roses.  By now Slash has eclipsed Axl as a musical force in 2013, because he manages to make albums and tour with some degree of reliability, and doesn’t play the petulant, jaded, immature, spoiled rock star like Axl.  The cursing/stumbling drunk Slash of 1988 has been replaced by a guy who looks exactly the same but actually behaves normally by rock star standards.  Axl took 14 years to give us Chinese Democracy, a mediocre album which doesn’t make up for the time spent making it.  Appetite remains their peak.  The twin Use Your Illusion albums would have been a masterpiece if they simply combined the best of both onto one album, instead of a bloated, uneven, and inconsistent double studio album – but “Estranged” is arguably their best song.  We saw GNR in July 1992 at RFK on their joint tour with Metallica.

Pantera.  I haven’t heard the earlier era Pantera (pre-Phil Anselmo) which was a glam rock version.  Dimebag Darrell was cleanshaven and had his hair all pouffed up.  Firehouse, Warrant, and Bullet Boys were also glam bands.  By the time we saw them at the Ozzfest one year, they were well into their thrash era.
 

Bon Jovi.  Clearly from New Jersey and not L.A.  This band had the sound down cold, but the lyrics were closer to Tesla’s more naïve and innocent type, at least later as they matured: “Bad Medicine” and Slippery When Wet were still “bad boy” type of material.  “Wanted Dead or Alive” was more “cowboys of peace” B.S. but still their best song.  We saw them at Donington in 1985, but I can't remember anything about their set - I was resting on the grass with a headache.

Dokken.  Definitely “hair metal”.  We had a friend, Stam, from Greece, who was convinced that George Lynch was the best guitarist ever.  My brother considered singer Don Dokken to be not quite svelte enough for this type of music.  “Alone Again” is probably their best song, from Tooth & Nail, but we also had Under Lock & Key on vinyl.  We saw them open for Accept in 1986 in Paris.

White Lion.  Mike Tramp on vocals, Vito Bratta on guitar, not particularly original or different than the rest, but no worse either.  Tramp seems to be the only consistent member; according to him, Bratta appears to be the Ritchie Blackmore of the band, a petulant, uncooperative prima donna.   Tramp insists that a White Lion reunion is not going to happen.  We saw them open for AC/DC at Madison Square Garden in 1988.

Whitesnake.  I suppose the ’87 model + Slip of the Tongue qualify as “hair metal” after they ditched the Zeppelin-clone era of Bernie Marsden and Micky Moody – back when they still played Deep Purple Mark III songs in concert.  “Still of the Night” is excellent, and they resurrected some earlier material (“Here I Go Again” and “Crying in the Rain” from Saints & Sinners).   Having Tawny Kitaen in the vids should cement them into this category regardless of the blues orientation of the prior material.  We saw them on the Slip tour in early 1988.

Tesla.  For some reason, probably sheer coincidence of time, this band gets lumped in, but I would argue they are NOT a hair metal band, although they appear resigned to accepting that label.  First off, the lyrics are far too naïve, good-natured, and introspective, and not about partying.  Second, Jeff Keith really doesn’t play the “Steven Tyler” role, and the rest of the band dress more like AC/DC than ‘Crue.  Finally, lead guitarist Frank Hannon owes more to Angus Young than Mick Mars. I've seen them a few times recently, but also back in 1987 opening for Def Leppard.

Grunge.  Recently Dave Grohl, the drummer for Nirvana, was doing a documentary (“Sound City”) on Sound City, a famous L.A. recording studio, Sound City.  Ratt recorded Out of the Cellar there, so he tried to contact the band.  He laughed, because the band were unsure why he, of all persons, would be talking to them.  The general consensus is that hair metal was “killed” by grunge, with Nirvana being the major culprit for hair metal’s demise.

Rock of Ages.  Although I never saw the Broadway musical, I did catch the film version with Tom Cruise as Staycee Jaxx.  It’s truly a celebration of hair metal at its best/worst.  I can’t comment as to whether it “captures the scene”, as I only got to L.A. and the Strip in 2010, long after the scene was dead.  It certainly catches the music and the spirit.  For anyone even vaguely interested in that type of music – or even vaguely nostalgic – by all means, watch it.