Glam Metal : It Was (Kind Of) Legit Until It Wasn't
Before we immerse ourselves in the evolution, complexification and hybridization of metal, there’s a third dead genre I need to cover. Perhaps the weirdest and most idiosyncratic blip on Satan’s unholy radar: glam metal. A genre also known as hair or pop metal. There aren’t exactly the same thing, but almost.
Glam metal is historically relevant for one excellent reason: it was the commercial apex of the genre. That shit was fucking popular. Even fringe shitkickers like Warrant sold well into seven digits records. It’s not that they were particularly awesome, but glammed up androgynous men, high flying guitar solos and catchy chorus is what people wanted then. Hair metal bands were the Taylor Swifts of an era that mostly hated women.
Although it is widely regarded as an unfortunate mistake by metalheads old enough to remember it (and that recollection is valid), glam metal will have its role to play in the development of metal as a genre. The aesthetics might’ve died, but the obsession with technique and the rock star mythos have endured and triumphed over the self-loathing of the nineties. So let’s put our egos aside and get into it.
Before the Sunset Strip
A lot of influences shaped the glam metal sound and they have little to do with what we’ve seen so far. The blueprint isn’t Black Sabbath like for other metal genres, but British arena rock forefathers Led Zeppelin. I haven’t talked about them at all so far in this apocryphal history of metal because they’d mostly taken the backseat for speed metal and NWOBHM, but their contribution to metal is undeniable and it’s going to become obvious in the eighties.
If Black Sabbath were dark and brooding, Led Zeppelin were epic and dreamy. Tony Iommi downtuned his guitar and played slow, but Jimmy Page shred the everloving shit out of his instrument under the spotlight. Two different approaches to sounding massive, two foundational philosophies for metal. Zeppelin were the birth of the rock star in the classical, romantic definition of the term and if glam mealers were anything, they were fucking rock stars.
Robert Plant’s screechy, virtuosic high pitched voice is another landmark that would influence metal singing. Before Conrad Lant and Jeff Becerra would pioneer the guttural growl in the early eighties (which would remain comfortably underground for a decade), the default idea of a metal frontman was the sexy, charismatic vision who could sing like an angel and turn your kids to sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. All glam metal frontmen wanted to be Robert Plant.
Led Zeppelin had two important qualities that would define the philosophy of glam metal: instrument mastery and stage presence.
But arena rock wasn’t the only influence on glam metal. I’m sure you’ve guessed it by now, but glam rock plays an equally foundational part in its sound and aesthetics. I’m talking about glam rock icons like David Bowie, T. Rex and Roxy Music here, but the most important influence on glam metal was New York Dolls, a proto-punk rock band contemporary to The Stooges who stretched the androgynous aesthetics to lengths that were quite confronting for the era.
The Dolls were angry, subversive and rebellious. They also embraced the idiotic post-war backlash against men with long hair. Squares saying stuff like : “Is this a guy or a girl? I don’t know anymore”. Sylvain Sylvain, Johnny Thunders and the others gave them girls alright, but in the most punk rock way possible. They wanted to piss off corporate dummies more than they fought for expression of genre at large, but they did plant the seed of that idea.
Of course, it would be the tip of the iceberg in terms of androgynous rock. KISS also played a foundational role, but to a lesser extent. They were doing their own inimitable alien rock thing and having success with it. We were a long way from Vince Neil and Marilyn Manson, but in 1975 already a tour musician for the New York Dolls would actually bridge the gap between glam rock and glam metal in history.
A man named Steven Duren, better known as Blackie Lawless, fearless leader of bizarro glam metal stalwarts W.A.S.P. That short lived history more or less starts here. Not that his contribution matters. His band was not that good. It’s the last time I’ll mention him in this essay.
Rainbow Bar & Grill, Whiskey a Go Go and All the Others
The official birthday of glam metal is November 10 1981 (one year exactly before I was born). On that day Mötley Crüe released their debut record Too Fast For Love, which would mark the beginning of the Sunset Strip era. Although they would become one of the genre’s flagship bands, they weren’t exactly a finished item by then. They played fast, energetic arena rock that was lighter on the anthemic hooks that were going to make their renown later.
See? That shit was much more like straightforward punk rock. Dokken, the other pioneering glam metal band, would actually incorporate power ballads and pop sensibility first into their music and create their own lineage of bands that would include among others Cinderella, who were perhaps the glammiest of the glam. Visually, Cinderella was influenced by Mötley Crüe, but musically they had the poppiness and the discipline of Dokken.
Musically, glam metal was straightforward and easy to recognize. It was structured around a catchy lead guitar riff, pop hooks and choruses, anthemic formulas to beat your chest to (Shout! Shout! Shout! Shout at the Deviiilll!) and had the tender power ballad inserted in there for shits and giggles. It was also a sound dominated by virtuoso guitarists who turned the art of guitar solo into a dick measuring contest that is still going on in metal today.
Crüe were the big dogs on the Sunset Strip, though. They’re the band everyone remembers today. These guys were a hit machine. A force to be reckoned with. Even today, songs like Kickstart My Heart, Girls Girls Girls, Shout at the Devil, Dr. Feelgood and Looks That Kill are super fun to listen to. They were never the most conventional glam metal band, though. Their aesthetic and sonic identity never really settled, unlike for their contemporaries.
Bands like Poison and the aforementioned Cinderella would boil that formula to its purest essence and bring metal to the masses. Songs like Talk Dirty To Me, Every Rose Has It’s Thorn, Unskinny Bop or Don’t Know What You Got (‘Til It’s Gone) were era-defining. Other bands like Ratt, Hanoi Rocks or Night Ranger would also shine on the Sunset Strip, but ultimately these years would belong to Mötley Crüe, Poison and another, lesser known UFO: Guns N’ Roses.
The Misfits of Pop Metal
There was another, equally successful scene that ran parallel to the Sunset Strip in the eighties. It was similar in sound, but it didn’t buy into the whole androgynous aesthetic. At least, not nearly as hard as bands like Crüe and Poison did. In the eighties, everyone was a little androgynous. It was the “in” thing to be.
There were two sides to pop metal. The clean cut, radio friendly bands who played the most accessible metal possible like Def Leppard and Whitesnake and the grimier, more in-your-face one who didn’t quite feel comfortable with the whole sexual ambiguity thing. I’m thinking here of bands like Skid Row or Guns N’ Roses who enjoyed the music, but had an edgier and more conservative outlook on how a mainstream metal band who sound and act.
Def Leppard in particular went hard (and still go hard) on the choruses and harmonies, while bands like GnR and Skid Row hedged their bets on faster tempos, aggressive guitars and darker, more conventionally metal imagery while still including the occasional power ballad that got them laid. None of these bands were Satanic in the least, but they were all about existential struggles and the darker side of contemporary living.
Both are super instrumental in the birth of alternative metal, the commercial counterpart to glam metal in the countercultural bubble of the nineties.
As counterintuitive as it might seem, all these partying and getting laid vibes of the eighties slowly burned out and transformed into the world is dangerous and I’m slowly killing myself with drugs and alcohol vibes in the nineties and Guns N’ Roses were instrumental in that transition. Labeled as a Sunset Strip band at their start, it was obvious they were different. They were darker, edgier and had a lifestyle more compatible to Ozzy Osbourne than Bret Michaels or Tom Keifer. They brought this hard partying style to its logical conclusion and ironically enough, it turned them into the most popular band of the era. They are still touring today.
A Crash Course in Glam Metal
It’s not the most complicated and multifaceted genre, but it had its quirks and nuances that might not be apparent to the untrained eye. Here are three songs that I hope will help you get the gist of what it was and how it evolved into somewhat of its own antithesis with time, maturity and party fatigue.
Cinderella - Nobody’s Fool : It has to be a tie between Poison and Philadelphia’s Cinderella as to who’s the glammiest glam metal band of the eighties, but the former seemed more interested in rockin’ out the old fashioned way than the latter. I mean, listen to this. It has to be the corniest power ballad ever. These guys were horny as shit. They looked ridiculous, but they could write a catchy hook and a half. That was the name of the game then.
Def Leppard - Pour Some Sugar on Me : Notice the aesthetic difference between them and Cinderella. The more arena rock (Led Zeppelin inspired) style of riffing and bombastic drumming? Def Leppard lived a glamorous lifestyle, but they weren’t glammed up at all. They were a NWOBHM with a heightened pop sensibility that blended into glam metal if you closed your eyes and thought about leather pants super duper hard. Also, this is some timeless shit you hear at hockey games.
Skid Row - Slave to the Grind : This one came in the dying years of glam metal (1991), but it’s a good example of how the sound and aesthetics were morphing into something heavier, more tormented. It’s absolutely glam metal, though. That chorus is pure pop. It still holds up today, to be honest. That is an absolute working class banger despite the leather pants and funny shoes.
That’s it folks, I hope you liked it. Next month I promise to get into either power or thrash metal, but I’m not telling you which yet!
