These down boys upped the hooks on their sophomore effort. The title track (catch the subtle imagery on the cover?) has been played to death at this point but the real arresting tunes are tracks two and three. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” may not have anything to do with the book but it’s an effective piece of southern-fried noir nonetheless, and “I Saw Red” shows remarkable empathy towards the significant others of the girls the band took backstage. “Blind Faith” is no “Heaven” but it’s hilarious if you think of it as a prequel to “I Saw Red.”
Glam Metal
by Jeff Treppel
Hair metal gets a bad rap, and while it certainly has a lot of reasons to be ashamed of itself, it’s hard to be the dominant musical mode of an entire decade without producing anything of merit. On the other hand, there’s nu-metal. Mistakes have been made. Still, genuinely worthy albums came out of that toxic cocktail of hairspray, hedonism, and misogynistic videos. When you throw enough talented musicians into the mix, magic happens.
The lineage for the genre alternately known as hair metal, glam metal, and pop metal is pretty straightforward: Yardbirds, Zeppelin, Aerosmith, New York Dolls, KISS, Van Halen. Van Halen were never quite hair metal (even with Sammy Hagar in front) but their classic debut really marked Ground Zero for the style. With Los Angeles as their home base, an over-the-top frontman with more character than pipes, a flashy guitarist, and songs about women and drugs and more women, they set the template in stone. That initial eruption triggered the flow of Sunset Strip wannabes.
The first wave in Van Halen’s wake hit in 1981 as Motley Crue, Dokken, and Kix all released their debuts. 1983 brought the big commercial breakthrough: Quiet Riot’s Metal Health, which hit number one on the Billboard charts on the strength of Slade cover “Cum On Feel the Noize.” After that, major labels started snapping up Hollywood hopefuls faster than Vince Neil could down a bottle of Jack Daniels. MTV’s burgeoning popularity helped immensely; the outrageous androgynous looks and stage shows of the metal masses fit the medium perfectly. The rising tide also helped lift some older boats: otherwise unaffiliated acts like Def Leppard, the Scorpions, Aerosmith, Kiss, and Alice Cooper got elevated/rejuvenated in the gold rush.
By 1986, however, the bands may as well have been Wham!, with Bon Jovi and Poison’s blue-collar and bubblegum gunk eclipsing their harder-edged predecessors. Appetite for Destruction, Guns ‘n’ Roses dirty bomb of a debut, tried to correct the course, but most of their followers learned the wrong lessons and went for “authentic” blues rock bullshit or increasingly wimpy power ballads that made Richard Marx seem like Megadeth. Even with some impressive efforts from latecomers like Love/Hate, Skid Row, and Warrant, watered-down nothings like Trixter and Nelson eventually led the whole scene to give a defeated sigh and lie down in front of Kurt Cobain’s steamroller. And that was that. The nineties dropkicked even the biggest acts into desperate obscurity. In the new millennium, well-timed reunions and VH1’s celebration of the scene allowed some of the survivors to embark on lucrative nostalgia tours, but despite repeated cries that the sound was coming back, spoiler alert: it didn’t.
A sordid history to be sure, but the music itself has its merits. There were a few reasons for the genre’s success. First, by leaning into the goofy looks and pop hooks, it made the genre accessible to a wider audience that may have been scared off by the demons and leather of genre progenitors like Black Sabbath or Judas Priest (and especially the darker side of the genre in the eighties, as exemplified by Metallica and Iron Maiden). Second, as much as it (unfortunately) objectified them, it also welcomed women into the club in a way that the previous generation of actual metal hadn’t. While a lot of the earlier stuff was aimed squarely at angry young working-class white men, these guys weren’t afraid to show their sensitive side – hence the enduring popularity of monster ballads like “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” and “November Rain.” Most importantly, it was just plain fun! Seventies metal bands and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal dealt with dark, serious subjects. These bands played party music. Everybody loves a party.
When fans of Jason McMaster’s Texan prog-thrash outfit Watchtower first heard his follow-up project – which shared a name with a Control and Resistance track he didn’t even sing on – they probably didn’t expect his sinister screech in front of these hair metal harlequins. Adding a little southern charm to their Southern California-influenced sound helps them stand out. Singles “Teas’n Pleas’n” and “Sportin’ a Woody” make it seem like they have their minds (and, uh, other body parts) on one thing, but the Alice Cooper homage/alcoholism warning “Scared” may be one of the most chilling tunes the genre produced this side of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
Three quarters of this band are terrible people (Mick Mars seems cool) but these satanic road warriors provided the model for the genre in just about every way that Van Halen didn’t, from sound to behavior. Their second splatter platter transcends the genre ghetto. It’s just a flat-out great metal record, filled with all-timers like the title track, “Looks That Kill,” and “Too Young to Fall in Love” that feel dangerous. Hard to say if the extracurricular activities informed that sensation or resulted from it.
Skid Row were one of the few hair bands that actually went heavier moving into the 90s – “Monkey Business” and “Livin’ on a Chain Gang” still had that funky backbeat, but “Psycho Love” and especially the title track verged on thrash as that genre was also peaking commercially. Bold move for an act whose label undoubtedly expected more along the lines of hit ballad “I Remember You” from their (also excellent) debut. Props must also be given to Sebastian Bach for attempting lyrics with a little more social relevance than the usual babes-and-rebellion hair metal topics.
Sporting the most majestic hair and the most meme-worthy chili dog jingle of any of their peers, Philadelphia’s glass-slippered Cinderella took the blues to their (very unnatural) Jim Steinman-esque conclusion on their very own white album. Side A is awe-inspiring by any yardstick: the swinging “Bad Seamstress Blues” and road dog rockers “Gypsy Road” and “The Last Mile” would make this one for the history books on their own, but “Don’t Know What You Got till It’s Gone” ranks up there with the 80s’ best power ballads, somehow simultaneously intimate and totally over the top.
Jizzy Pearl possesses one of the grossest stage names in all of music (even rivaling the members of GWAR) and a real sleazeball snarl, but that makes this ode to excess feel all the more filthy. Heavier than a lot of their hair metal peers, both in tone and subject matter, this thing absolutely wallows in the salacious dark side of the scene. “Why Do You Think They Call It Dope?” doesn’t exactly celebrate drug use (despite a deliciously funky bassline), and while “Slutsy Tipsy” and “Slave Girl” sport questionable names, they hide horror stories underneath the catchy choruses.
Unfortunately, the hair metal industry didn’t have a lot of room for women in non-hood ornament capacities, which leaves Lita Ford and these fox-y ladies the non-dude representation in the field. “Edge of a Broken Heart,” the one for the ages, throws all their male equivalents’ insincere sad-guy breakup ballads right back in their pretty-boy faces. Otherwise, they match the bad boy boogies and lascivious leering punch for punch, making it even more tragic that the labels’ casual sexism prevented us from getting more of this POV.
Yes, “More Than Words” is a goddamn abomination, but don’t judge this book by its ballad (or its cover, actually). Guided by the fleet fingers of Nuno Bettencourt, these latecomers to the party metal party leaned hard into the funk – so much so that one of these songs is called “Get the Funk Out,” a Parliament-level terrible pun for sure. “When I’m President” didn’t beat every band to rap metal but it sure beat a lot of them. Meanwhile, “Decadence Dance” and the title track meld the heaviness and booty-shaking effectively. You can hear why Van Halen hired Gary Cherone when the David Lee Roth reunion didn’t work out.
No amount of makeup was going to make these Long Islanders look anything but grotesque, so they leaned into the horror movie shtick. They’d been kicking around tri-state bars in various forms since the early 70s. By their third album they were famished. “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “I Wanna Rock” (and the accompanying videos) made them megastars, Tipper Gore made Dee Snider a First Amendment hero, and vicious deeper cuts like “Burn in Hell” and “The Beast” allowed them to headline legit metal fests in their reunion years. Not bad for some silly merry fellows (that’s what SMF means, right?).
By the time of her second solo album, Lita Ford had been ground through enough music industry abuse for a lifetime in the Runaways alone – so when she sounds like a grizzled veteran here, it’s because she is. Her debut had the big hits but this has the better songs. “Hungry”’s libidinous strut will eat you alive, “Stiletto” crams an entire late 80s erotic thriller into 4 ½ minutes, and the Alice Cooper cover comes from experience.
One of the all-time great hard rock albums from any band, decade, or planet, this record rips so hard that the bad songs make the great songs better and the great songs make the bad songs good. The intro to “Welcome to the Jungle” perfectly captures that moment right as the roller coaster pulls up to the crest for the big plunge, and from there it’s a nonstop thrill ride. Axl Rose is a madman guiding you through Paradise City, Izzy Stradlin and Slash’s guitars are out to get you, it’s so easy, bottoms up! They pause briefly for the unmatched tenderness of “Sweet Child o’ Mine” before calling you crazy and declaring that anything goes. Everything else seems watered down in comparison.
Kevin Dubrow ain’t much to look at, and neither are any of the other post-Randy Rhoads members of this Billboard breakthrough band, but you’d be crazee not to feel the noize. Actually, the Slade cover may be one of the weakest tracks here. “Metal Health” really will make you bang your head against the padded walls, “Slick Black Cadillac” puts the pedal to the metal, and “Run for Cover” doesn’t provide anywhere to hide. Not sure what magic touch made them top the charts before the other hair-banders but these experienced pros make a solid case for the pole position here.
These Finnish fashion plates put the “glam” into glam metal in a way few of their contemporaries did. By embracing the New York Dolls’ sleazy slithering and putting some heavier guitars on top, they came closer to approximating late-60s Stones swagger better than even the actual Stones at that point. This swansong finds them at the peak of their powers. Of the many offenses committed by the members of Motley Crue, Vince Neil’s 1985 drunk-driving manslaughter of Hanoi Rocks drummer Nicholas “Razzle” Dingley unquestionably ranks at the top, costing a young man his life and cutting down the band in their prime.
So much for shouting at the devil – these Christian crusaders had more choice words for Old Scratch. Whether or not you agree with their Jimmy Swaggart-inspired worldview, it’s hard to think of many other holy roller rock anthems as infectious as the title track here. Otherwise, the poodle-haired praise feels both personal and catchy enough for even non-believers to enjoy. You know this is good because Swaggart himself denounced it!
Buzzsaw-codpieced Born-Again Blackie Lawless now refuses to play the hit about fornicating like a metazoa and guitarist Chris Holmes’ booze-soaked interview in The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization Part II may be one of the most tragic moments ever put to film, but these Empire Pictures regulars’ first record still shows no mercy. “I Wanna Be Somebody,” “L.O.V.E. Machine, ”and “Sleeping (in the Fire)” bring a B-movie charm to the genre. Like their plastic skeleton versus the real skull King Diamond used to bring on stage, their horror shtick wasn’t that scary compared to other acts, but it’s positively terrifying by glam metal standards!
Springsteen for folks who didn’t want to have to deal with the politics, these working-class stiffs stayed on the opposite coast from the Sunset Strip but picked up a lot of its tricks. Working with pop songwriter/professional earworm breeder Desmond Child resulted in two of the biggest and most inescapable sub-Journey rock radio hits: “You Give Love a Bad Name” and “Livin’ on a Prayer.” Its third megahit, “Wanted Dead or Alive,” will be riding on a steel horse through Hell’s loudspeakers forever. Like its title, Slippery When Wet is slick, crass, and absolutely undeniable.
Future Molly-Flogger Dave King and former Motorheadcase “Fast” Eddie Clarke provided the soundtrack to this profoundly stupid (but probably still best) entry in the “possessed heavy metal musician goes on a killing spree” horror movie subgenre, summoning their finest musical hour in the process. Kind of funny how those flicks were marketed at metalheads but the conservative hand-wringers turned out to be the good guys in the stories. At any rate, the title track and doom-Zep “Heft” deliver chills and thrills and hooks without having to play the record backwards.
Metal bands live or die on the guitars, and Ratt had one of the best teams on the entire Sunset Strip in Robbin Crosby and Warren Demartini. Their dynamic interplay on this full-length debut has that Tipton/Downing magic. Stephen Pearcy’s rodent-killing rasp grabs a lot of the attention, but “Wanted Man,” “Lack of Communication,” and even megahit “Round and Round” display some seriously fierce teamwork. If not for the subject matter and the voluminous hair, it’d be easy to mistake this for an NWOBHM record from around that time.
Kix knew exactly who this stuff was for right from the start (their 1981 debut has a song called “Kix Are for Kids”). While their earlier work proved that hair metal descended more from power poppers Cheap Trick than doom-and-gloomers Black Sabbath, their fourth album found them embracing their inner AC/DC and going more for big power chords instead. Beefing up their hooks worked wonders for them. “Red Lite, Green Lite, TNT,” “No Ring around the Rosie,” “Cold Blood” – the hits strike like lightning the whole way through. Although the original master sounds a little flat, seek out the 2018 remix to hear the songs in their full electrifying glory.
Not sure what Don Dokken did to piss off the Creature from the Black Lagoon but considering how much his guitarist George “Mr. Scary” Lynch hated him it had to be something pretty bad. Their first four albums (and subsequent live document) all pretty much rip. Record number two just has that extra bite. Poppier then their debut, the tension between Lynch and Dokken proves key here – their volatile chemistry gives tunes like the title track, Freddy Krueger fave “Into the Fire,” and “Just Got Lucky” that killer edge.
If all hair metal is pretty much junk food, Poison are the Twinkies – zero nutritional value, kind of gross but still utterly addicting, and they inexplicably never go stale. Debut Look What the Cat Dragged In contains the purest bubblegum pleasure, but by album number three, their best, C.C. Deville had learned to play his guitar (whether or not that’s a good thing is up for debate) and the band got a little more ambitious with the songwriting. The title track might be the heaviest thing the band ever did, and the big singles like “Unskinny Bop” and “Something to Believe In” show some real maturity peeking through the mascara.