The worst band ever

I got into HEAVY METAL, aged 13, in ''78 because the kid across the street from me was a huge KISS fan. He owned Alive and Alive 2 and his bedroom wall was plastered with the booklet/posters from those LPs. I was introduced to Van Halen that very same year.
I've been a rocker for a long time! Metal's glory years were 1980-1992, I think, and there were a lot of great Bands from that era, including Priest, Maiden, Ozzy, Motley Crue, Motorhead, Ratt, Dokken, Megadeth, Cinderella, Skid Row, W.A.S.P.,Slaughter and, of course, Metallica...the DCC of Master of Puppets is excellent, Kill 'em All was one of the first thrash albums, and best...I'm a big fan of those years in Metal.

 

Back then the genres weren't nearly as defined as they are now. It was all METAL.

 

Didn't Metallica get shunned by the LA scene for sounding "too punk"?

 

Back when Heavy Metal music was about having fun. I miss these days! Nothing compares to the 80's; especially the music. I'm still stuck in the 80s and early 90s when rock was great.

 

Metallica was considered way more aggressive and "punk" than classic metal like Iron Maiden or Judas Priest. Early days Metallica was 100% underground and non-commercial, it really wasn't until the MOP album/tour with Ozzy along with their growing reputation as a ferocious live act that they started breaking out. At this point they had no videos on MTV so there was a little bit of a mystique surrounding them, that all changed with Justice and the One video. It really wasn’t until the One video was released that they really started to explode. Then the Black Album broke them through to supernova. It reallly wasn’t until the Black album that their back catalogue really started going multi platinum . Maybe Justice sold 2 or possibly 3 million before that which was really impressive for a heavy band like that. Glam Metal dominated the charts, Thrash Metal dominated the underground. It was the best of both worlds.

 

I always liked Nirvanas first album more than Nevermind

 

Nirvana are about as original as the band Green Day. If you didn't notice Punk existed before Nirvana. They were so original that the riff to their biggest hit is pretty much "more than a feeling" by Boston and the band admitted to it. Please, Nirvana weren't original at all. They wrote a few catchy songs, a multitude of mediocre bands spawned in their wake and it quickly died off. There was zero original about Nirvana. I've been going over Billboard charts for, identifying musical trends, tracking the evolution of the pop industry, that sort of thing.

here's one thing that jumped out at me: the record companies and MTV screwed up in 1991 when they switched their focus away from straight ahead melodic rock and towards alternative and grunge. The charts don't lie: grunge went over with pop audiences like anchovies on ice cream.

Here's the evidence: From 1986, when Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name" became the first hard rock/metal #1 hit since "Metal Health", the "hair bands" became a constant presence on the charts. Those of us who lived through that wonderful era know this. But then 1991 and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came, and that was the end, right? Grunge dominated, game over, end of story.

Well, it didn't work out that way. Smells Like Teen Spirit peaked at #7. After Smells Like Teen Spirit, there were still hair bands hitting the top 10 all the way until 1993, when Firehouse's "When I Look Into Your Eyes" became the last top 10 hit in the hair metal genre. Between 1991 and 1993, except for Smells Like Teen Spirit, not a single grunge song cracked the top 10, despite heavy MTV airplay. Only a few, softer alternative hits, like Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train", and Spin Doctors "Two Princes", became genuine hits. Grunge, while certainly popular among rock audiences, had no crossover appeal. The early 90s were almost totally dominated by rap and R&B. Ah, the glory days of "Baby Got Back" and "Whoomp! There it is!" So what was the music industry thinking? They managed to make it uncool to listen to hair bands, yet the alternative they put forward was never really as popular as it was supposed to be, and pretty much died out by 1995. MTV during that period was pretty much alternative around the clock, and some really weird stuff, too, much of which will probably never be shown again, even on VH1 classic. If you watch and episode of Beavis and butthead, there's some pretty weird videos there. It was a really strange era for music, most of it was garbage and quickly forgotten. Again, what were they thinking? An alternative band gets one #7 hit and that's a reason to dump your whole roster and sign anyone with a pulse from Seattle? Yet Meat Loaf had a #1 hit for five weeks at the end of 1993, and no one saw that as a reason to push more straight ahead melodic rock groups?.


My original point is that the music industry made a conscious decision to jettison melodic rock, and that I believe this was a mistake and unnecessary. there's no reason that Warrant, Slaughter, Winger, etc. couldn't have existed side-by-side with the Seattle scene. An equivalent , what if when rap got big, the industry had decided to no longer promote R&B? But R&B and rap exist side-by-side, and collaborate with each other, with no tension.

What happened just didn't have to happen, the industry MADE it happen. As long as the industry kept releasing melodic rock, melodic rock did well. Keep the Faith sold well, Bat Out of Hell II sold well, Firehouse's Hold Your Fire, and even 3, which came out in 1995, did well. Mr. Big did well. But then the supply just dried up even with that trickle of good releases and everyone just moved on.

The common belief is that melodic rock got tired, then grunge came out, and grunge then dominated. But that's not what happened. melodic rock was at its peak when grunge came out. 1991 and 1992 were great years for it, sales wise. And during the height of the grunge era, melodic rock releases, what few there were, STILL charted well, on both singles and album charts. And then the record companies just gave up on it for no particular reason. It never went sour for anyone who enjoyed Nirvana's melodies. Funny that Nirvana made music with abstract lyrics, but yet you believe that the lyrics should only mean something special to awkward kids. When Guns n Roses were at their peak they were the next Rolling Stones if anyone ever was. Grunge pretty much died when Guns n Roses imploded anyway. Guns and Roses is the last really good American hard rock band. I'm a massive Aerosmith fan. Even in 1993-1994, at the height of alternative's popularity, Aerosmith also remained incredibly popular during the "Get A Grip" period. Eventually it became passe to like a lot of the "hair bands", mostly once Beavis And Butt-Head came on, but it was more of a gradual shift of tastes as opposed to the way history makes it out like one day Poison were the biggest band around then Nirvana hit.
It strikes me that if MTV hadn't suddenly changed course, that the 80s would have evolved into the 90s in much the way that the 70s evolved into the 80s. There wasn't some massive shift between the rock of the 70s and the rock of the 80s. Rock got big, it declined a little when disco became king, and then it emerged again repackaged. I think the same thing would have happened had the industry stayed the course. Instead, they did a massive 180, and while alternative kept people interested for a little while, when that mini-boom ended rock as an industry was mangled beyond recognition. There was no longer a "formula". Which a lot of people would consider to be a good thing from a creative standpoint, but makes the music less viable from a commercial standpoint. Everyone knows the formula for writing a successful pop, R&B, rap, or country hit, but there really isn't a way to predict what rock will sell and what won't, so the industry is cautious about promoting new rock artists. They just try a little big of everything and a few bands manage to stick. I think it was really the media and the record companies that killed "Hair" metal rather than the music itself, although I think that some of the bands were to blame too as they decided to jump on the bandwagon rather than stay true to their roots (although that blame could go to the record company forcing them to go in that direction). I don't recall the changeover being so immediate. Obviously MTV starting playing more grunge and less hair metal, but I think the process took two years. Nirvana ruined rock & roll. So Nirvana were pretty terrible, at least musically speaking, but so was most of the rest of grunge. For the most part, grunge was a media sensation, driven by hype. The bands from that era worth listening to, which can be named on a single hand (Alice in Chains, Mother Love Bone, Stone Temple Pilots), are the ones furthest from Nirvana’s divorce rock. When Nirvana came along, they broke everything and the pieces are never going to be put together again. People might still keep killing it on the underground circuit and that might be better, but since Nirvana, rock has slowly exited mainstream consciousness. Today’s rock audience prefers stuff like The White Stripes, The National and Arcade Fire. It’s over, kids.

 

Honestly, I think ACDC is over hyped, overrated and under talented. They're junk.

 

I hate AC/DC. Sorry sinead I didn't read the entirety of your report on why hair metal is king.

 

I think everybody has at least been on the piss when ACDC songs Thunderstruck, TnT and Highway to Hell have come on and everybody gets a bit loose and they associate this with a good time.

I'm the opposite. The drunker I get, the worse they sound. Now I know it's odd considering I'm into Death metal etc. But I can't stand that squawking seagull type of vocals and all the scream. As far as I'm concerned 2am and ACDC comes on, that's a nightie alarm for me, g'night.

 

Eventually there will be a musician who isn't a total dork and rock shall rise again.

 

Nirvana were just awesome. Not Kurt's fault that everyone wanted to be like him. I'm sure he's in Heaven laughing at our misery. All of this sadness and lameness begets more depression. Someone should write a self-pitying song about how much pop music sucks.

 

I think Rob Zombie is pretty down to earth, music is good, intelligent, decent guy, no real fucks given but doesn't have an attitude. More people should be like Rob zombie.

 

As long as i don't have to listen to his music.

 

There'll be a country called Asmodean, and you can have all the bands you want

 

I'm good. I just don't want to listen to Rob Zombie.

 

And country Irminsul will reside next to it, and the borders will be one big long straight line, with a field. On each side of the border we will host our respected music choices, and our followers will mosh each other, Braveheart style. and we'll see who wins every year.

 

I don't crave followers Just avoid stuff I don't like and enjoy stuff I do. So that way I'm ok with both Rob Zombie and glam metal (but that the latter is dead as a doornail doesn't hurt either of course )

 

I never got involved in the Glam metal and Hair? Metal. I'd never even heard of a Hair genre. my initial thought was it must be like glam.

Would Kiss be glam?

I really only know Steel Panther, and I don't care for them much. I remember a few years back, Steel Panther was playing one auditorium with a thousands of audience, and I was across the road watching Blaze Ya Dead Homie with 17 other Juggalos. I reckon our gig was better.

 

Yes, hair and glam are pretty much interchangable terms for the same kind of 80s metal. As I was 10 in 1992 I also was blessed with getting into rock and metal when the hair/glam stuff was on the decline. Hasn't bothered me a lot in reality at all. I was more 'anti' in the 90s against grunge and nu metal. And punk rock. Although Offspring - Smash was one of my first albums lol (hey we all gotta start somewhere).