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Five-Star Fridays: Hair Rock Countdown
Friday, July 24th, 2009So we’ve gone highbrow the last few months with the Dylan countdown. We’ll finish the summer by going lowbrow. I grew up in 1980s Indiana. So summer for me will always evoke glam metal screeching from the windows of some blowdried, Guess-jeans-and-IOU-sweatshirt-wearing high school kid’s Iroc-Z, and sweating through puberty slow dancing to power ballads at backyard co-ed parties. The soundtrack to my youth is hair rock.
Part of the difficulty here will be defining the boundaries of hair rock. I don’t plan to include Guns ‘n’ Roses, for example. Over time, Appetite just doesn’t feel like the same species of music as, say, Dr. Feelgood or Open Up and Say . . .Ahh! Pre-1980 or post-David Lee Roth Van Halen doesn’t count, but everything in between does. Metalica? Not hair rock. Neither is KISS. We’re looking for some combination of a 1980s heyday (give or take a couple years), teased-out hair, glitz, mascara, and cliched MTV videos depicting partying, leather pants, headbands, and groupies sporting side boob.
We’ll kick it off with my favorite Van Halen tune, “Panama.”
Nooooooo not hair rock. Make it stop, please.
I should point out though that I have absolutely no objections to side boob.
“I don’t plan to include Guns ‘n’ Roses, for example.”
Very good. Those guys are the ones who put an end to the Big-Hair hemotoma of the 1980’s.
Christ what an awful pile of bullshit that period was. I hated ‘em all, from coast to cost.
Please, please tell us you were smarter than that. But side boobs? For everyone.
Never understood hair metal myself. While all the cool kids were wearing their Motley Crüe t-shirts to school, I was getting made fun of for listening to INXS and R.E.M. That being said, if you’re gonna pick a Van Halen song, you really should’ve gone with “Hot For Teacher” (also one of the greatest rock videos ever). I suppose I personally wouldn’t consider it hair metal, but it meets your Van Halen criteria.
This blog post receives the MOA seal of approval. I suggest maybe next week something from the Godfather of “hair bands”; the infamous Billy Squier and maybe “The Stroke” or “My kind of Lover”?!
Reading the post and seeing the words “Van Halen” caused my brain’s internal CD Player to immediately switch to “Panama”, which was funny as I then scrolled down and saw what your selection was.
+1 for Hot For Teacher. 1984 is an amazing album. Girl Gone Bad has some bitchin’ guitar work too.
Next up …. Ratt.
There were some decent songs that appeared out of that era. Ratt had some good stuff. So did Whitesnake. Cinderella. Def Leppard.
How about Milton Berle’s guest appearance on Ratt’s Round and Round video, lol. Back when MTV still showed videos and had VJ’s.
Anyway, not a lot of all-time classics came out of the hair band genre, but there were some decent musicians that got stuck there, probably because their label’s demanded it.
Quit Riot – Metal health. Bang your head! :)
meant Quiet Riot..
Gotta love the hair
Looking forward to some Warrant, Poison, Ratt, Whitesnake, and anything else VH1 Classics throws into a 100 countdown!
KISS isn’t hair rock? Really?
I think they each used a whole can of Aquanet in this pic, but hey, if you want to split semantic hairs (no pun intended), go for it.
…and groupies sporting side boob.
Then we know Yankee Rose is coming.
Lets be careful with the Motley Crue cracks. They may have started it all with Theater of Pain but they shouldn’t be held accountable for crap like poison, enuff z enuff (most hilarious video ever), and winger.
Nikki Sixx is still my hero.
enuff z enuff video
http://vodpod.com/watch/343819-enuff-znuff-fly-high-michelle
I agree with Chris in AL…there were some good bands and songs that existed in that era…although I’ll admit that I listened to some pretty bad stuff then, too. (but in my defense, I was really just listening to the guitar players…swear.)
Like most genres of music that experienced a spike in popularity (90’s examples: grunge, alternative, Lilith Fair folk rock, Britpop), hair metal was eventually commercialized and manufactured by the major labels (once they saw the number of zeros on the checks) and, inevitably, the music turned into some watered-down interpretation of what the labels thought would sell (might I suggest my homeboy’s, the Delaware Valley’s own Britney Fox, of which several members are still “active in Philly’s music scene.)
Remember, hair metal started out as post-punk glam bands…witness Crüe’s first album: they looked like NY Dolls, sounded like the Sex Pistols.
At some point in the 80’s, it seemed like everyone in a band teased their hair out, and so the “hair band” assignation became less focused…kind of like this post, now that I read back through it…
You are WAY out of line here. “I reach down…between my legs…ease the seat back…” Jesus F. Christ.
Panama! Please tell me this is your favorite Van Halen cheese song and not favorite in general. I mean, have you ever listened to Van Halen, Van Halen?
Jeez, I’m trying not to lose respect…
I loved me some hair metal back in the day. I think you had to be just young enough at the right time to really love it. I mostly listen with a sort of jokey nostalgia, now…but it is is nostalgia nonetheless. Bring it on!
Radley, I love it that you’re doing the hair band FiveStar Fridays. It tells me that in spite of your analytical nature, you can enjoy music for its entertainment value and aren’t overly pretentious. Maybe that’s just me, but I think it’s great.
Frankly, I wasn’t too into the hair band thing. Sure, I liked the singles, but never bought the albums. I’ve always been a bit more boring than that. I was a more straight-up pop girl – Madonna and Duran Duran being a couple of my first albums.
My husband, on the other hand …
Let’s just say there are three White Lion CDs on our iTunes and probably four or five Van Halen. I give him so much crap for the White Lion, but when I was joking with him about getting another one at the used CD store down the road, one of the guys behind the counter piped up about his own love for WL.
White Lion
Whitesnake
Great White
Seemed for a while like every band had the word “White” in their name.
WTF?
“…the Godfather of ‘hair bands’; the infamous Billy Squier and maybe ‘The Stroke’ or ‘My kind of Lover’?!”
I emphatically disagree. I toured with Billy, and he’s for real in ways that the Sunset Boulevard refugees never were. He comes from authentic electric blues rock, without pretense, and he’s not a poseur when he slings-up his guitar.
I will never forgive Steve Vai for Whitesnake.
(I toured with White Lion, too. I liked them all personally, but they were very confused.)
I am with “B” – I was young enough in the 80’s to enjoy the hair metal and I look back on it with the same jokey nostalgia. Alot of it was terrible music but there are some decent songs from the genre that are still enjoyable in the same way other mindless pop songs from your youth stay enjoyable. Panama is one of those for me.
I am pulling for DIO’s “Holy Diver” to make the countdown, that song is amazing and terrible all at once. I still turn it up, sing along, and do the rock fist thing when I come across it on the radio…
I could be wunder’s husband (but don’t think that’s my wife’s post). I love all the hair bands: Poison, Motely Crue, Warrent, Slaughter, Krokus, Quiet Riot, Damn Yankees, Europe, Cinderrella, Scorpions, Steelheart…. All of ‘em. My teen-aged kids hate to ride in the truck with me because my radio dial is nailed to XM’s Hair Nation. My favorite concert ever was Guns N Roses opening for Motely Crue at the Mississippi Coliseum in Jackson. That said, bring it on, Radley!
Oddly enough, DaveL, my husband’s name is also Dave.
You children of the 80s who are into hair metal might wanna check out the roots (pun intended) of the genre.
Slade is almost unheard of the US, even though Quiet Riot’s covers of “Cum on Feel the Noize” and “Mama Weer All Crazee Now” were note-for-note covers of Slade songs. Slade’s Run Runaway used to get a lot of airplay on MTV… what a great song that is.
Sweet is remembered in the US for “Ballroom Blitz” and “Fox on the Run” (and worse, “Little Willie”) and while they’re considered bubblegum/glam, they were a big influence on the US hair bands. They were marketed to the teeny bopper girls, but they had attitude in spades. There used to be a video on YouTube of them doing “Ballroom Blitz” on Top of the Pops where their bass player came out wearing an SS officer’s cap and a Nazi arm band, and the singer had “FUCK YOU” in big letters on the back of his jacket. The BBC made him put duct tape over the “FUCK”, and while he was lip-synching, you can tell he was pissed. This a few years before the whole punk thing blew up in the UK, so it was a ballsy move for them.
Also, Sweet’s drummer, Mick Tucker, was an absolute monster. Look up their version of “Man With The Golden Arm” (the theme from the Frank Sinatra film) on YouTube, or their cover of “Paperback Writer”.
#23 – yep, I think “Don’t Say No” is a highly underrated classic.
There is only one punishment fitting for hair metal and it will be dealt in Rocktober by me via my game-pad and Brütal Legend. Man that game looks so hot
Tim: you had to see him play “In The Dark” live. I’m fuckin’ tellin’ ya.
I just sort of fell into that deal. It was a brief tour (a month, I think) that floated through the offices at R.A. Roth (lights) when I was working there and driving the AutoCAD desk. I was in position to pull off tours that I saw coming almost when I wanted to. I don’t recall exactly how and why it worked out, but the thing is that I was not a big Billy Squier fan before I went out with him. He sold me completely on the first night.
He was a very nice guy, too.
Diamond Dave is SO awesome. And Panama is the best Halen Jam, too. Great pick!
Nitro, the ultimate caricature of hair metal.
Mister DNA,
I have a collection of Slade music. “Keep your hands of my power supply”, and the “best of..” My older cousin was stationed in europe and brought me back an album in the late 70’s. He also took me to my first concert, Kiss, when I was 8.
For some reason “my friend stan” and “goodbye t’jane” are 2 of my biggest faves
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFAd-zpqWiU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHdH3XWUP8A
Slade kicks ass, my last comment is “awaiting moderation” probably because of 2 you tube links.
So I’ll just leave this here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m-loYwaCJI&feature=related
Tokin42,
Your Slade story is pretty common – my older brother was stationed in Scotland when he was in the Navy, so he came back as a huge Slade fan. I got turned on to them as a teen, hanging with Brits when my dad worked in Libya.
Watching some of their videos might be a little embarrassing due to the platform shoes and sequined capes, but their music has aged quite nicely.
Heyday of hair…
I was production coordinator in a Midwest university arena in the mid-80’s and worked with ‘em all: Van Halen, Great White, Poison, Tesla, Cinderella, Skid Row, Def Leppard, The Crue, Ratt, Quiet Riot, G n’ R, etc, etc. While that was my paying gig, I much preferred Replacements, Husker Du, REM, Ramones, Iggy and the Stooges, The Clash, Talking Heads, Black Flag…
Ahhh… those were the days! There was good music wherever your head was at!
Where’s Dokken in this discussion? Yeah, they were cheesy as hell. But, they had a few good songs and George Lynch was and is a great guitarist.
InsanityRules – I hear that. Except I wasn’t that old. My brother was into all the hair bands and I hated most of them. But I fell into punk and and never looked back. I remember my dad coming into my room all pissed off about me playing Fugazi’s 13 Songs too loud.
They were my gateway to Husker Du, Wire, Iggy and a dearth of other old-school, underground(?) rock and punk acts. Let’s just say Pandora has been my bestest friend now that I can get it on the palm pre and my car deck comes equipped with bluetooth. After a couple of years of fine tuning, I have a pretty consistent set of music to listen to that I don’t even have to skip over.
So in a way, I owe my musical tastes in part due to my distaste for hair, glam and powerbalads. It’s a love/hate relationship.
I’m a “Cradle Will Rock” man, myself. “Have you seen Junior’s grades…????”
And let me also recommend…CHICKENFOOT!
aka Joe Satriani, Sammy Hagar (VH), Michael Anthony (VH) and Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers).
http://www.chickenfoot.us/
Thank god I somehow avoided the whole hair metal thing. I was in high school in the late 80s, but had grown up on punk and the “college” alternative, so I was blasting the Sex Pistols, Clash, Buzzcocks, Stiff Little Fingers, Replacements, REM (when they were still unknowns), etc out of my car stereo. Growing up in Alabama, I was definitely out of the norm – mine was the only mohawk in a sea of BIG hair in my school…
First album I ever owned – Nevermind the Bollocks (someone gave it to me when I was 8, hooked on punk ever since). First concert – REM back in 85…
“Chickenfoot” is the first new-release CD I’ve bought in YEARS. (If only I’d known it’s available on vinyl…) Satch is in good form, playing with focus and relative restraint. If you’re familiar with “Jump On It”-era Montrose and Van Halen in the OU812 period, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what Chickenfoot is up to.
One interesting thing about any Hagar-related project is the fact that his lyrics tend to be more thoughtful than the typical “let’s party/drink/screw” themes of the heavy rock genre.
Oh, sure, Hagar’s just as big a Sybarite as the next front man (although he’s the only one I know to have celebrated marital fidelity — check out Van Halen’s “Poundcake”). But on Chickenfoot’s “Avenida Revolucion” he appears to offer a sympathetic view of the plight of illegal immigrant workers and on “Runnin’ Out” he alludes to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hagar also has the distinction of being the only rock lyricist to express Austrian School views regarding fiat currency and inflation — anybody else remember the title track of Montrose’s second album, “Paper Money”?
Lots of good mentions of great bands like the replacements and the buzzcocks. crap, even beavis and butthead liked the replacements and hardly anyone under 40 has ever heard of em. I know a lot of people who heard Social Distortion for the first time thanks to Guitar Hero. Before mass use of the internet and the horror MTV has caused (in flooding the market with crap music) you kinda had to work to find good, fairly obscure bands.
I know I have a modest collection compared to a lot of people, like 60 gig, but a lot of that is newer stuff I’ve picked up in just the last few years. Flogging Molly, Big D and the Kids Table, Rise Against, bands I heard of for the first time thanks to video games and satellite radio.
Speaking of obscure punk, anyone else heard of The Queers? How can you ignore an album title like “love songs for the retarded”?
“One interesting thing about any Hagar-related project is the fact that his lyrics tend to be more thoughtful than the typical ‘let’s party/drink/screw’ themes of the heavy rock genre.”
That’s why I vastly prefer Van Hagar over the Roth period. I couldn’t stand Roth. That band only really came alive to me after Sammy got involved.
Rush destroys all comers when it comes to rock and roll. I know that they are not a hair band but it bears mentioning. NO ONE rocks as hard and as good as they do and have for over 30 years. I have mentioned this before here but if you have not checked out 2007’s Snakes And Arrows, you are missing out on a return to the roots that made Rush the great band that they are. The best album to come out from them since Moving Pictures. OK, now that I am finished spreading the Tao of Pratt, Dirk and Lerxst, on to topic . .
One hair band I thoroughly enjoyed is Cinderella. They just hit the right buttons for me. And I pretty much HATED glam/hair rock. Another that comes to mind is L.A. Guns. They had some attitude and chops. One more that came from that scene/era that is a guilty pleasure of mine was called Loudness, a Japanese metal band that rocked pretty hard. Their lyrics probably suffered from the fact that English was their second language, but I still found myself banging my head a bit to the tunage.
Queensrÿche CONSTANTLY gets classified as a hair band. And yeah, they looked the part for awhile there but their music was NEVER in the same class as those they are compared to. An overlooked gem from them is 1986’s Rage For Order. This album employed my favorite ’sound’ for QR, a deliciously visceral mix of power guitar chords, samples and keyboards that has not been equaled since by them. If anyone knows of something comparable, I’d love to hear the suggestion.
I thought 95% of that glam/hair stuff was pedestrian, cookie cutter drivel. The best thing about those groups I’d say was that they inspired bands like Metallica and Slayer to really change the face of metal in the insipid direction it was headed . . .
“Tim: you had to see him play “In The Dark” live. I’m fuckin’ tellin’ ya.”
I actually rented a concert VHS long ago, just for the hell of it basically, and actually was more impressed than I thought I’d be. I’m sure this was on there as it was that tour – no newer stuff was on there.
“The best album to come out from them since Moving Pictures”
Disagree. I think S&A is generic, lame, and I just don’t get it. I’m in the camp (yes friends and neighbors, this one has polarized Rush fans, many love it) that can’t find anything particularly Rush-y about this one. Other than sound quality issues, I think Vapor Trails was the return to form, and I rank it right there with MP as my 2 favorites.
Tokin42, it sounds like you and I have very similar tastes. The Buzzcocks’ Singles Going Steady is one of my favorite albums, and I also like A Different Kind of Tension.
Have you ever heard 999? A lot of their stuff was produced by Martin Rushent (who also produced The Buzzcocks). They had a heavier sound, but today it sounds less like punk and more like just good old-fashioned guitar oriented rock. If you haven’t heard them, check out this live video of Homicide; it’s pretty representative of their sound.
I’m not too into The Queers (I have a secondhand horror story about them), but I dig Screeching Weasel and The Riverdales. Oddly enough, my 68 year-old mom is into Screeching Weasel, too (although she calls them The Screeching Weasels).
I simply love rock music, no apologies.
Hard Rock
Hair Rock
Blues Rock
Grunge Rock
Radley, “Panama” is my least favorite VH song. It ranks down there with “Dance The Night Away” YUCK!!
Try something rockier like “Dirty Movies”!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p28wayd-oAo
“Drop Dead Legs”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jPLXF-lWOQ
Anyone remember UFO?
Oops, forgot to link to my favorite UFO/Michael Schenker song:
You Don’t Fool Me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcHSmL5_gLc
Try it out.
One more from UFO:
Electric Phase
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdtpbg0uOLE
Tim C: I totally respect your opinion, man. I know of many Rushians like yourself who don’t care for S&A. As you said, it is truly a polarizing record for fans of the band. I don’t remember a Rush record causing this much ruckus since GuP and possibly Signals. But that’s what you get when you’re a Rush fan. Something different every time out. I like it that they don’t stand still with their sound and try new things. As much as I’d like them to time warp back to the Farewell To Kings/Hemispheres sound, we both know that ain’t gonna happen. Now I am surprised that you (and others) say that you can’t hear the Rush on S&A, but I have said that about other Rush albums (HYF comes to mind) and others have been surprised that I couldn’t hear it so there’s that. I just feel that some of you guys are missing out on a really good Rush record and that kind of bums me out. But the vibe is all subjective, of course. They have a fantastic body of work that I think we can agree is pretty amazing, in any case.
One other thing, I agree with you on VT as far as roots are concerned. I hate the engineering on that recording, but then again most people who haven’t blasted their ears out do. There are some great songs there and it is terrific return to straight forward rock. I just thought S&A took it to the next level.
One thing is for sure about being a Rush fan . . . it’s never boring. ALWAYS something to talk about at the very least.
Heh, I think VT was also pretty polarizing (i.e, leaving out the production issues).
Back on topic, I think Geddy definitely had some hair moments, but it’s excusable from someone who can sing and play “Turn The Page” at the same time….
Geddy Lee had his hair moments before hair was cool(?)!
Too funny, ‘What You’re Doing’ came on my playlist while I was reading your reply . . .
“Oooooo yeah! Ooooooo yeah!”