What really happened to 80s metal

Yeah, those first couple of Great White albums were pretty damn "metal" to me back in the day. Then they started getting slicker with SHOT IN THE DARK and especially ONCE BITTEN. Both of which are still good records but not as "heavy" as the first two.

chewie wrote:

That first Great White album is my favorite!!!!!!!! This is where being there clashes with revisionism(I think I got that right).

It's a heavy album. For those who haven't heard the band before let's say "Once Bitten...Twice Shy", they might be pleasantly surprised.

Quote :

Nothing as annoying as people thinking '80s metal = hair metal

So true. Look at all the bands from the 70s that were metal and then woke up in the 80s to be called hair metal. Scorpions, Motorhead, Riot, Judas Priest, Iron maiden, NWOBHM are all examples.

metalinmyveins wrote:

chewie wrote:

That first Great White album is my favorite!!!!!!!! This is where being there clashes with revisionism(I think I got that right).

It's a heavy album. For those who haven't heard the band before let's say "Once Bitten...Twice Shy", they might be pleasantly surprised.

I just looked into getting the first album.... It's a shame some of the 80's releases are going for stupid amounts. I'd love to replace some of the stuff I had, but not a chance at those prices.

TheGreatDuck wrote:

Most bands didn't go modern rock/alternative/industrial/grunge/whatever until like '94 (although there were already some that did in '93).
As I understand it, as late as 1991 hair metal was still mainstream ( some bands, such as Styx, Deep Purple, Foreigner or Crimson Glory even jumped on the bandwagon in '90-'91).
However, although grunge was taking over by '92-'93, a fair share of bands did try to change, but didn't go grunge yet, and went into a heavier/bluesier/proggier direction - Poison's Native Tongue, Bon Jovi's Keep The Faith, Winger's Pull, Kiss' Revenge and Warrant's Dog Eat Dog are all examples of this.

Yep. Just listen to "Love Is The Ritual" by Styx. Great rock song but sounds nothing like Styx. Foreigner changed vocalists and released that one album (Unusual Heat?) which had a few tracks that were pretty good and an updated sound.

Way to go Ronnie!

"All the hair bands started to come out and THE MUSIC WAS RUBBISH!"

"Poison killed everything"

S.D. wrote:

Way to go Ronnie!



"Poison killed everything"

ummmmmmmmmm, maybe that is why it's called "poison"

Ronnie has some good points but he does come across as an old guy in that set. His comments about not doing it the way his generation did it harken back to folks who said similar things about rock.

I'm gonna get royally flamed for this, but I believe the entertainment "industry" in general, makes music acts popular, not the record buying public. What were these bands in the 80's promoting through their lyrics? Casual sex, hedonism, consumtion of alcohol etc. Whatever values they want to promote-that's the bands/singers that become popular.I trully believe that a NYSYNC and their ilk were promoted due to their "boyish/effiminate" looks, that was over ten years ago, that's one of my theorys why there is so many school teachers going after their young male students."Monkey See, Monkey do" is the creed of the TV generation.
I also believe that both Thrash and "concious" (sic) hip-hop were both marginalized on purpose, and about the same time. Both genres had alot of political commentary that could be dangerous to those in power. Gangsta rap killed Public Enemy, just as much as Grunge and Death Metal buried thrash. Poltical commentary (Metallica, Nuclear Assault etc) was replaced by depressing, sad music (Grunge) and undecipherable (sic) growling (Obituary etc).

Cognitive Dissonance wrote:

I'm gonna get royally flamed for this, but I believe the entertainment "industry" in general, makes music acts popular, not the record buying public

If that was true than why is the industry dying

A company could spend "zillions" on marketing and promotion of a band and it could go either way. You get a Poison or end up with a Warrior Soul. You have to place the "buying public" into the eqaution someplace. The industry doesn't market a band then spend more money buying their own product.

If ya wanna say that the ammount of money the company spends on a band can make a band, then I'd go along with that an extent.

As far as the teacher/sex/student anology, I don't buy into that. Ya don't hear about clowns getting raped, and look at how popular Slipnot is.

James B. wrote:

As far as the teacher/sex/student anology, I don't buy into that. Ya don't hear about clowns getting raped, and look at how popular Slipnot is.

That's because boy bands are marketed to a female audience. with an underlying sexual context. Slipknot's audience I would guess is mostly male, hence the lack of sexual context.

I also believe the powers that be are willing to give away their message for free as long as it's listened to. That's why I suspect the porn industry is subsidized somehow now, since the advent of the internet- why would anyone pay for ir when it's so easily accessed? Yet they make billions of dollars a year?

If "socially concious" music was marginalized, then why were Rage Against The Machine all over MTV in the 90s? And while we're at it, why does Rolling Stone constantly cover politics (from a certain perspective mind you but still,,)?

Cognitive Dissonance wrote:

I also believe the powers that be are willing to give away their message for free as long as it's listened to. That's why I suspect the porn industry is subsidized somehow now, since the advent of the internet- why would anyone pay for ir when it's so easily accessed? Yet they make billions of dollars a year?

Most "online" sites are subsidized Example of how it works is Facebook. It is "free" but makes millions/billions. Somebody pays somebody else just due to the fact that somebody "visited" their site. Just like with facebook, I'd wager those fees/subsidies are paid to porn sites for the privlidge of having their spyware, malware and viruses hitch a ride to the old hard drive ?


My Sliknot reference was a joke. Yet I think placing blame on boybands and the manner of marketing as cause for teachers sleeping with their students is a stretch. Anything is poosible though ? The usual reason besides plain ol simple lust is the teacher themselve was molested themselves by an older person when they were younger. I can see the National Enquirer headline now.... Teacher has triplets from three different students cause they looked like American Idol finalists.

Hadley wrote:

If "socially concious" music was marginalized, then why were Rage Against The Machine all over MTV in the 90s? And while we're at it, why does Rolling Stone constantly cover politics (from a certain perspective mind you but still,,)?

Rage against the machine, much like the 99% (the occupy movement) is what they call "controlled opposition". The elite create their own opposition-what better way to control it?

Whats sadder about the fall of 80s metal is that the traditional metal acts like dio, priest, and maiden were caught in the backlash as well (ozzy was able to survive somehow), despite not having anything in common with poison, warrant, or any of the other "hair bands".

exact33 wrote:

Ronnie has some good points but he does come across as an old guy in that set. His comments about not doing it the way his generation did it harken back to folks who said similar things about rock.

Grandpa Simpson said it best:

"I used to be with it, but then they changed what 'it' was. Now, what I'm with isn't it, and what's 'it' seems weird and scary".

Hadley wrote:

Whats sadder about the fall of 80s metal is that the traditional metal acts like dio, priest, and maiden were caught in the backlash as well (ozzy was able to survive somehow), despite not having anything in common with poison, warrant, or any of the other "hair bands".

Traditional metal and glam overlapped a lot of times. WASP, Twisted Sister, Dokken, early Motley Crue, Skid Row, Lizzy Borden, Icon, Quiet Riot, early Stryper, TNT and a lot of other bands had the glam looks Bon Jovi, Posion and Warrant had, but their music was closer to that of Saxon, Iron Maiden,, Judas Priest, Sabbath, Dio, Black Sabbath etc...
On the other hand, Priest, Raven, Saxon, Tygers of Pan Tang, Tokyo Blade, Scorpions, Yngwie, Black Sabbath and Def Leppard all attempted to jump on the hair metal bandwagon, with more or less success...And Ozzy was also kinda in the hair metal territory, at least for a time...I do think him being the original vocalist of BS played a large part in him remaining popular, though.

Just a question for you guys who were metalheads back in the '80s and early '90s: If you told someone you listen to metal, would they call it "screaming and noise" (like most ignorant people do these days), or would they consider it lame pop music for teenage girls, which seems to be the opinion of a lot of people who are "serious music fans" (you know, the like who listen to post-punk, jazz, alternative, indie, hip-hop, post-rock etc., probably worship Radiohead, claim to have an eclectic taste, and call old hard rock bands "dad rock" - and probably do listen to Zepp and Sabbath ("whose all albums after Sabotage suck"), as well as some newer metal bands (most likely Mastodon) - but will also bash '80s metal as being cheesy and not having deep lyrics, most probably not having any knowledge on the subject past a couple of hair bands, and will make claims that "'80s metal isn't metal" etc. )

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
People can think whatever they want to..... I am not
gonna ever change another's perception of what some-
thing was or was not. Regardless if they were there
or not. The experience(s) varied so much from metal-
head to headbanger. You got the casual fan going to
a show to see girls flash their boobz, you got the guy
up front bangin his head or moshin it up in the pit, the
people who care less about the show but just wanna
sport the tour shirt walkin down the hall in school, and
THEN you have the guys who lugged their equipment
around from biker bar to crappy dive tryin to figure out
whether they are gonna play what is in their heart or
go for that record deal. It is easy to look back in hind
sight, be it your own or historical anecdotes of others
and assume alot of things that are neither wrong nor
right. In the end it comes down to such a really simple
concept. Folks like what they like and not what they
don't.

my

TheGreatDuck wrote:

Just a question for you guys who were metalheads back in the '80s and early '90s: If you told someone you listen to metal, would they call it "screaming and noise" (like most ignorant people do these days), or would they consider it lame pop music for teenage girls, which seems to be the opinion of a lot of people who are "serious music fans" (you know, the like who listen to post-punk, jazz, alternative, indie, hip-hop, post-rock etc., probably worship Radiohead, claim to have an eclectic taste, and call old hard rock bands "dad rock" - and probably do listen to Zepp and Sabbath ("whose all albums after Sabotage suck"), as well as some newer metal bands (most likely Mastodon) - but will also bash '80s metal as being cheesy and not having deep lyrics, most probably not having any knowledge on the subject past a couple of hair bands, and will make claims that "'80s metal isn't metal" etc. )

Lots of caffeine today, huh?

S.D. wrote:

TheGreatDuck wrote:

Just a question for you guys who were metalheads back in the '80s and early '90s: If you told someone you listen to metal, would they call it "screaming and noise" (like most ignorant people do these days), or would they consider it lame pop music for teenage girls, which seems to be the opinion of a lot of people who are "serious music fans" (you know, the like who listen to post-punk, jazz, alternative, indie, hip-hop, post-rock etc., probably worship Radiohead, claim to have an eclectic taste, and call old hard rock bands "dad rock" - and probably do listen to Zepp and Sabbath ("whose all albums after Sabotage suck"), as well as some newer metal bands (most likely Mastodon) - but will also bash '80s metal as being cheesy and not having deep lyrics, most probably not having any knowledge on the subject past a couple of hair bands, and will make claims that "'80s metal isn't metal" etc. )

Lots of caffeine today, huh?

Mostly they went: huh?

As a metalhead of the late 80's and early 90's, the group of people I hung with were pretty diverse in all the hard rock and metal of the day. We could just as easily listen to Dokken and Warrant, then switch to Megadeth and Anthrax without anyone batting an eye. Maiden, Priest and Ozzy mixed in with WASP, Suicidal Tendencies, Brittny Fox, Cinderella, or Metallica.

Noone seemed to care as long it wasn't Madonna or Milli Vanilli.

Quote :

Noone seemed to care as long it wasn't Madonna or Milli Vanilli.

This...it was all Metal back then.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

As a metalhead of the late 80's and early 90's, the group of people I hung with were pretty diverse in all the hard rock and metal of the day. We could just as easily listen to Dokken and Warrant, then switch to Megadeth and Anthrax without anyone batting an eye. Maiden, Priest and Ozzy mixed in with WASP, Suicidal Tendencies, Brittny Fox, Cinderella, or Metallica.

Noone seemed to care as long it wasn't Madonna or Milli Vanilli.

Same here. There were a few hardcore "underground only" mo-fo's who deemed you a 'poser' if you listened to, say, Motley Crue or Twisted Sister instead of Metallica or Slayer, or inferred that if you listened to the former you somehow "weren't allowed" to listen to the latter. None of that ever made sense to me, I listened to what I liked, cuz I liked it, and said screw the cliques/trends/genre splitters.