re: Alice in Chains Dirt may be the greatest album of the 90s.

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geographical reference

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I think it's more of a mood, with darker real life lyrics. I had really gotten tired of the hair band sounds and was craving something heavy, but more serious. Bits and pieces came through in the 80's, but the first time I heard "grunge" I was instantly relieved.

You can hear it in some Green River songs, but I think the popularity was spawned by the death of Andy Woods.

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I agree with these sentiments as well. Some "hair metal" bands had some great musicians -- Cinderella and Shark Island being two. Then, there were some who just sounded like 20 other bands they'd copied ala Autograph (Who used their connect with Van Halen to get a record deal) and Britny Foxx (got their record deal due to their coattails with Cinderella).

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Hair band music was party music for the most part. I grew tired of it pretty quickly but have to admit that I'll bet that LA scene was awesome back in the day.

Rog, fly down here for NYE, Zakk is playing at a casino

There's four main reasons Motley Crue was not a hair metal band. They are Nikki Sixx, Mick Mars, Too Fast For Love, and Shout At The Devil. Like I mentioned before the only hair metal period they had was Theater Of Pain. By the next album they'd shifted their image completly. Yes, the hair was still big, but all sense of glam was banished never to return. I wouldn't even call them a metal band from that point on too much. They were more just a pure hard rock band than metal.

Yes, the success of Theater Of Pain and specifically the 'Home Sweet Home' video along with Tommy's much publicized marriage to Heather Locklear (Which did a lot to lower the threat level that Motley and metal had been perceived at by women in particular. Before that, the vast majority of young girls in small town America didn't think of metal or hard rock bands in that way) were the things that put the hair metal phenomenon in irreversible motion, given the rest of their body of work to label they themselves as hair metal doesn't seem to be an argument that holds up to closer scrutiny.

Nikki usually wrote about stuff of a depth that hair metal bands would never think about going to. Anger and rebellion and deviancy and addiction and sex on a level that made the average hair metal band seem like the choir boys in comparison.

When it comes to Mars, his sound was always lower and raunchier and blusier than the clean crisp and soul less sounds of someone like C.C. Deville. I just listened to Merry-Go-Round off the first album and when the solo comes in Micks tone was unmistakeable. He was so much older than his competition and the axe men in other bands. His musical touchstones and knowledge were so much broader. He wasn't some pretty boy in drag pouting for the camera. His scowl and a grimace were about all the emotion he allowed.

Too Fast For Love was DIY punk. As the years have gone by and I've read how other young non-metal bands of that era looked up to that album as an expression of youth totally lacking in corporate bullshite, I was kinda shocked. It was always my favorite Motley album because despite the lousy production it is just a perfect collection of simple yet powerful rock n' roll boiled down to it's essence. But I had never had the slightest notion that it was so highly thought of outside of the heavy metal circle at that time.

Shout At The Devil is about as far from hair metal as a band can get. Bon Jovi sang about giving love a bad name. Motley sang about revolution, fricking, and cold blooded murder. I remember I must have been about 13 or so when I was at a friends house and picked up some magazine and opened it to an article on Motley Crue. It was an interview around the time SATD came out in Creme or Hit Parader before they censored their articles. Motley was talking about shoving beer bottles up some chicks snatch and all the cocaine and dope they were doing on a regular basis. They were gloriously fricking nasty, down in the gutter where hair metal bands never dared to tread.

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Like many, Shout at the Devil was my entry point.

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Like most I would imagine, myself included.

Too Fast For Love, shitty production and all, is better and more honest in and of itself than the whole catalogs of bands like Bon Jovi or Poison.

Wild Side was one of my favorite Crue songs. Just good old raunchy rock like it was meant to be.

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I just f'n hate hair metal with an undying passion. It's not a pose. I hate the whole genre


Would you, then, please at least do us the favor of defining the term?

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It's one of those things where it's hard to define but when you see it, you know it applies and it's going to be different for each person. Because I know when I think of it, it applies more to just as much style as substance.

Personally I think Crue skirted the line. You're talking about a band that did the hard partying sunset scene with teased hair, studded leather, spandex, and makeup and appealed to the fans of Winger, Poison, etc. Sure some of their songs are just hard rock to the core but let's not discount their power ballads like Home sweet Home, Don't go Away Mad, and the sorts. If you asked me, I'd label them that on Theater of Pain alone. But then again, I didn't give them another listen after that album came out. I'll just stick with their first two.

As far as the AIC compared to hair metal argument. There's some teeth to that. There's demos floating around out there with songs like King Of The Kats, Social Parasite, and I Can't Have You Blues that give validity to the argument that there was some hair metal tendencies about them early on.

And then there's this show before they were signed.

LINK

You misunderstand me. Not saying facelift is anyway, shape, or form hair metal. I am saying that prior to being signed they had some hair metal tendencies that's all. I was mainly replying to whoever said the demo bootlegs didn't have any hair metalisms. Doesn't matter I grew up in the 80's so I dug hair metal anyway.

It isn't.