A long time ago (nearly seven years to be exact), I started a thread about how certain once-popular genres of music eventually became targets for derision and ridicule. Among the genres I mentioned was 80’s Hair Metal which, outside of some ironic appreciation, was never liked by the critics and quckly fell from public grace when the Grunge/Alt. Rock revolution hit in the early 1991. At the time, I said Hair Metal was the best example of a genre that was now considered a joke by most people.
Those seemingly lookalike and soundalike 80’s Hair Bands now have something they didn’t have in their heyday: critical respect. In fact, there now seems to be a developing theory that (unironically) considers them musically superior to the supposedly more challenging grunge and alternative acts that followed in the 90’s.
This is not to say I agree with the linked article. In my view, Hair Metal still deserves every derisive snort it gets. It’s just goes to show any musical genre–no matter how crappy and ridiculous–will eventually be critically reappraised and come back into fashion. After all, if it happened to Disco, why not Hair Metal?
I’m with you. Technically speaking, disco was also extremely influential in the development of electronica and a lot of bass-heavy forms of popular music.
I agree with you guys - I love Big Dumb Rock™ as much as the next guy, but the bulk of Hair Metal is as bad as its rep - it was a fad more than a movement…
The thing about hair bands that was so horrible was that it was derivative (glam rock saw its heyday in the 70s) and the bands were so interchangeable and cookie-cutter. I certainly wouldn’t place Bon Jovi in that category, and I think Whitesnake had too much history to be a true hair band. But if I never heard another Winger, Cinderella, Skid Row, or Poison track again, my life would be good.
I think Bret Michaels was put on notice by God to stop playing his horrible music and appearing on reality shows with that ridiculous hat when this happened.
Of course most hair rock music sucks. MOST music sucks. Most grunge sucks, most pop sucks, most dance music sucks, most hip-hop sucks, most modern rock sucks, most music in the 60’s sucked, so on and so forth.
Some of the hair metal from the 80’s was good. Nothing wrong with Guns 'N Roses. Def Leppard made some good songs. “Girls, Girls, Girls,” cited in the linked article, is a good song.
There are lots of great songs out of the genre. There are lots of bad ones. The problem is that nostalgia often makes it hard for people to differentiate between the two.
By his own admission, Tony Sclafani (the author of the article I linked) is indulging in a bit of anti-elitism in his praise of 80’s Hair Metal and condemnation of Grunge and College Rock. However, I think it seems to be of a knee jerk “well, if those smarty pants college kids hate it, I love it and vice versa” variety.