Was glam metal misogynistic?

I also feel like their is a bigger issue within: the predatory lyrics/song titles kicking around. "Statutory Date", "Seventeen", "Jailbait" (a buncha times), "Laws Against Love"...off the top of my head anyway. And the lyrics in, I think it was Crue's "All in the Name of Rock"...the part about her being 15 and then "you say illegal, I say legal's never been my scene..."

And of course, the gold standard: "I don't usually say things like this to girls your age, but when I saw you coming out of the school that day, that day I knew, I knew, I've got to have you, I've got to have you."

And if these bands were carrying on the traditions laid out by the 70s glitter rockers, then I guess we can all thank that fine human being, Gary Glitter.

Haha, the more I analyze the stuff I grew up with, the more I'm...less interested in these dudes.

There are multiple collections of sexually risqué blues songs from late 20s and early 30s, many of them raunchier than anything hair metal bands ever dreamed of.

Quote :

I also feel like their is a bigger issue within: the predatory lyrics/song titles kicking around. "Statutory Date", "Seventeen", "Jailbait" (a buncha times), "Laws Against Love"...off the top of my head anyway. And the lyrics in, I think it was Crue's "All in the Name of Rock"...the part about her being 15 and then "you say illegal, I say legal's never been my scene..."

Let's not forget the Beatles: "She was just seventeen, you know what I mean..."

The Copulatin' Blues? That's a thing?

Jesus, I'm working for the wrong people. Whoever put THAT gem out - that's where my professional future lies!

Fat Freddy wrote:

Quote :

I also feel like their is a bigger issue within: the predatory lyrics/song titles kicking around. "Statutory Date", "Seventeen", "Jailbait" (a buncha times), "Laws Against Love"...off the top of my head anyway. And the lyrics in, I think it was Crue's "All in the Name of Rock"...the part about her being 15 and then "you say illegal, I say legal's never been my scene..."

Let's not forget the Beatles: "She was just seventeen, you know what I mean..."

Certainly not. Though I never considered Sir Paul a glam rocker. Heh. The Guess Who had a song too, during their mid-60s era stuff...damn I cannot think of the title of it, but it was basically an anthem to dating an underage girl and it being illegal. Annoying me that I can't remember the title...and trying to click through their albums on discogs, nothing is jumping out at me. I will need to consult my iTunes, even if just for my own peace of mind.

I have to assume that there are a number of mid-60s rockers and Beatles/Stones wish-we-weres that had similar motifs in their songs.

I've heard samples from that Blues album: still find it hard to believe it's real, since this kind of stuff is almost never talked about regarding music from that era!

It's the same with movies: There seems to have been more movies showing male/female frontal nudity in them in the 70s and 80s than there were in the 90s, where the standard for decency was generally much lower. And I'm not just talking about arthouse films either (which wouldn't inherently intend the nudity as erotic or whatnot).

As far as Zombie mentioning girls with knives held to their throat, I remember seeing almost direct influences in X Japan's first album (Vanishing Vision) to several other covers that he had mentioned. That song had one track called Sadistic Desire that could've been interpreted as misogynistic if you look at the lyric translation, but from what I understood the guitarist Hide (pronounced 'hee-day') wrote it mostly as a peek into the psychology of violent sex after watching the film Blue Velvet. Hide was kind of eccentric and into weird stuff like that though not really as a participant but just the way most of these kind of artists were in terms of raising an eyebrow. Not everything can be taken in its literal sense, so of course we have to take some caution in accusing the artists as being misogynistic, but for some there's no reading between the lines. Like one of our members said, their IQ just wasn't high enough for that.

What was that song where the singer threatens to kill his girlfriend if she doesn't toe the line or he finds her with another man? Motley Crue? WASP? Ozzy?

Oh no, wait. It was the Beatles. 'Run For Your Life'. Let's see...

Well I'd rather see you dead, little girl
Than to be with another man
You better keep your head, little girl
Or I won't know where I am

You better run for your life if you can, little girl
Hide your head in the sand little girl
Catch you with another man
That's the end, little girl

How is it that Tipper and her crew didn't add them to the Filthy 15? Oh, that's right, because that song was written way back when a young Tipper and her girlfriends were dampening their giant panties and fainting over some long-haired freaks from Liverpool. If only John Lennon wore a buzz-saw codpiece on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Maybe she expected that by the 80s, humans would have progressed. She was wrong. See chainsaw codpiece. Heh.

But yeah I always thought those song lyrics were interesting, especially in that they never, that I knew of, fell under any kind of scrutiny. To be fair though--and I am not arguing the assumption you pose as to why Tipper didn't go after the Beatles, sounds ironclad to me--I would assume she did not see the Fab Four as a huge threat to the youth at the time. I'm sure kids were buying Beatles records then, as they are now (or torrenting them now, but whatever), but "Run For Your Life" was not even popping up on the average Beatles Hits comps, that I know of. Some of the bands/pop artists on her list were being pumped into every house through MTV or being sought out by most kids. I guess the perceived threat level was not there. Ha, I like Al Gore, and if I had been inclined to vote during that election (I was too punk rock to vote back then), I would've voted for him, unquestionably...but Warrant's "Ode to Tipper Gore" was always nagging at the back of my brain that election year. Also, that is not intended to sound like I think the PMRC was good. It was the worst.

Obviously "Under My Thumb" is a good ol' dose of rock n' roll...sexism? Something like that going on there. Also, "That'll Be the Day."

When a friend of mine, a hardcore Christian dude, got married...like 12 years ago or so, I remember he and his bride reading passages from the bible and one of them was about how she was accepting that the man owned her. Weird stuff, man.

As a woman all i can do is facepalm hard.
This whole political correctness fad is getting annoying. Don't we have bigger problems than bitch and cry about stuff that "might" be racist or mysoginistic or whatever? It's really First World Problems and making Problems out of things that are not problems at all.
Why is everything taken so serious these days? When i bought the Tom & Jerry Box Set i was baffled that stuff was cut out that was shown on TV here still with nobody even caring. So a yellow water bucket explodes while Tom has his face in it and he looks up with the Yellow Can blown around him into stripes with a black face...i don't see a "racist imagery toward black people", in that scene he looked more like a sunflower to me.
Same is with music: Why would people take it serious?
I can see people have a problem with right-wing stuff, i was curious enough to listen into fascist rock like Störkraft and not only was it shit music (they really can't play their instruments at all) but the lyrics were so laughably bad....i'm all for banning that shit. Fascist lyrics should've no place in this world.
But everything else? I love Guns n' Roses, W.A.S.P. and all those bands. I probably get called racist for having GN'R's One in a Million on my playlist in GTA San Andreas and getting a kick out of driving over cops with that song "Police and Niggers get outta my way", it was hilarious considering you play an african american.
But does that make me a bad person or a racist?

I think a lot of those songs were more written to shock people because that's what sells. Controversity creates cash as they say and in the 80's with the USA going apeshit on political correctness and family friendliness, bands just had a lot of fun going controversial or doing silly things (like Warrant's "Ode to Tipper Gore")
If you take songs like "Goin' Blind" from Kiss ("I'm 93, you're 16") serious, than something is seriously wrong with you.

It's also quite silly when all the political correctness and "that's sexist!", "that's racist!" comes from a country that openly believes in fairytale figures like God and follow the Bible, people even swear on the Bible, A plothole filled Novel that is misogynistic, homophobe, racist and downright disgusting, yet that is ok, that is what we believe but go away with you saying you're an Animal and you F*ck like a beast!

What can I say? We're startin' up a posse.

I was wondering, did anyone ever actually get 100% banned/censored as a result of the PMRC? Of course there is the parental advisory sticker--which, who cares. And then some albums like Straight Outta Compton and Nasty As We Wanna Be that had clean versions...but I was never sure if that was a result of the PMRC or if it was in response to major stores opting to not sell the standard record? I know there have been, like, Wal-Mart versions of albums in the past--it's always a bummer to accidentally get an edited version of an album. And either way, none of that stuff is banned or whatever. Was the removal of "Cop Killer" from the first Body Count album PMRC related? I know Ice mentions Tipper Gore on his spoken word thing on Original Gangsta--but that album preceded the BC album by a year? The deletion of "Cop Killer" is really the only lasting kind of censoring that I am aware of, or that has affected me buying an album at some point.

I seem to recall a store owner getting arrested for selling the 2 Live Crew album. Down in Florida maybe? I guess depending on where you lived, it was hard to find the "banned" albums if you solely depended on places like Walmart and such.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

I seem to recall a store owner getting arrested for selling the 2 Live Crew album. Down in Florida maybe?

That sounds right, I feel like I remember that. If that store owner had to spend any time in jail, I bet he's bummed now to know you can order the album from Amazon, and get it in 2 days with free shipping if you have Prime.

ZombieHavoc wrote:

To be fair though--and I am not arguing the assumption you pose as to why Tipper didn't go after the Beatles, sounds ironclad to me--I would assume she did not see the Fab Four as a huge threat to the youth at the time.

My point was that misogynistic lyrics were around long before 80's glam took the ball and ran with it. Rock n' roll in general has been corrupting the youth since Elvis's first gyration on tv.

ShadowAngel wrote:

It's also quite silly when all the political correctness and "that's sexist!", "that's racist!" comes from a country that openly believes in fairytale figures like God and follow the Bible, people even swear on the Bible, A plothole filled Novel that is misogynistic, homophobe, racist and downright disgusting, yet that is ok, that is what we believe but go away with you saying you're an Animal and you F*ck like a beast!

As much as I love your cat avatar, I would only give you some credibility for that comment if it wasn't for the fact that most people who are actively involved in calling out entertainment as sexist, homophobic or racist are often secular people who are involved in so-called 'progressivism'. Ask GLAAD, PETA or most feminists about this and they definitely do not have a traditional take on the kind of values that the Christians do. They can't even accept themselves at times, as even among the LGBT or feminists, there is disagreement for how feminist something is or isn't or even among gay/lesbians as to whether or not someone is too gay or not gay enough. There is a comic written by a lesbian called "Dykes you don't want to mess with" where she makes fun of this kind of attitude in her culture.

Personally, i found those lyrics that encouraged cheating on one's loved one (ie, Rock Me, Wild Child) to be more disturbing, especially when those bands would then turn around and write songs about "evil women" cheating on them!

Now this song is misogynistic, it's also brilliant and cleverly reflects attitudes of the times.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

I seem to recall a store owner getting arrested for selling the 2 Live Crew album. Down in Florida maybe? I guess depending on where you lived, it was hard to find the "banned" albums if you solely depended on places like Walmart and such.

I heard Jack Thompson, a lunatic attorney who got disbarred later on for video game wars, was behind that. He is from Florida.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_(activist)

I wonder what his opinion of metal music is.

As a musician/fan/horn-dog that hit The Strip constantly , the females in their  Barbie hooker ensembles had no issue with what was being sung about.  They were looking just as hard as the boys were for as Bob Seger so blanantly put it "Night Moves".  You could be assured that clubs in and around the LA Basin were gonna be filed with "Bettys" and if you drove up north, the clubs would be nothing but beans n franks in the audience.  I heard worse lyrics coming from metal and thrash bands than what was ever blurted out by some dude in spandex with a 1/2 case of aqua net in his hair.

Fat Freddy wrote:

Quote :

I also feel like their is a bigger issue within: the predatory lyrics/song titles kicking around. "Statutory Date", "Seventeen", "Jailbait" (a buncha times), "Laws Against Love"...off the top of my head anyway. And the lyrics in, I think it was Crue's "All in the Name of Rock"...the part about her being 15 and then "you say illegal, I say legal's never been my scene..."

Let's not forget the Beatles: "She was just seventeen, you know what I mean..."

Although the age of consent in the UK is 16 and McCartney was 20 when he wrote that song.

First world problems.If anything those glam bands loved women enough to sing about them and look like them too!

I dunno about them being misogynist, from what I've heard, bands like Poison actually increased the number of women attending rock concerts.

ZombieHavoc wrote:

To your latter questions, of which I can't answer, since I'm a dude, but I do want to point out that many females did and still do listen to all manner of rap that, as you mentioned, is way more misogynistic (generally speaking). I assume the answer lies in the "some people care, some people don't" area, and that would go for men and women.

To generalize for a moment, the songs the bands geared towards women were the ballads...and they were usually much less sleazy than the other songs on the album. "Cherry Pie" versus "Heaven". Also, some bands went way past any lines more so than other bands. I've never really thought of "Hot for Teacher" as that big of an offender. Sexual innuendos and thinking a woman is hot and sex and all that are not necessarily the biggest offenders. Listen to Alley Cat Scratch's "Love Song". To me, that song basically diminishes any merit the band has (not that they were successful, but as a fan of the genre, you know what I mean). If your average glam metal video sexualizes/objectifies women, then "Love Song" implied they were bags of meat created solely for the pleasure of men.

But when an alternate name for your brand of music is "sleaze metal", then what do we expect I guess, right?

I still like Alley cat Scratch, i'm not going to write them off cause of one song.

ZombieHavoc wrote:

What can I say? We're startin' up a posse.

I was wondering, did anyone ever actually get 100% banned/censored as a result of the PMRC? Of course there is the parental advisory sticker--which, who cares. And then some albums like Straight Outta Compton and Nasty As We Wanna Be that had clean versions...but I was never sure if that was a result of the PMRC or if it was in response to major stores opting to not sell the standard record? I know there have been, like, Wal-Mart versions of albums in the past--it's always a bummer to accidentally get an edited version of an album. And either way, none of that stuff is banned or whatever. Was the removal of "Cop Killer" from the first Body Count album PMRC related? I know Ice mentions Tipper Gore on his spoken word thing on Original Gangsta--but that album preceded the BC album by a year? The deletion of "Cop Killer" is really the only lasting kind of censoring that I am aware of, or that has affected me buying an album at some point.

I read Ice T's autobiography "The Ice Opinion", and from how he tells the story, the record company was willing to let the song stay on the album, but he voluntarily decided to remove it from future pressings of the album.

Required Fields wrote:

MetalGuy71 wrote:

I seem to recall a store owner getting arrested for selling the 2 Live Crew album. Down in Florida maybe? I guess depending on where you lived, it was hard to find the "banned" albums if you solely depended on places like Walmart and such.

I heard Jack Thompson, a lunatic attorney who got disbarred later on for video game wars, was behind that. He is from Florida.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_(activist)

I wonder what his opinion of metal music is.

Ah yes that moron, as a gamer i'm all too familiar with his "video games are EEEEEEVIL" bullcrap(thankfully he got disbarred back in 2008), before he went insane doing that, he went after "offensive" music.

The big complaint I've heard voiced with regard to the PMRC is that, for kids living in more "backwater" areas where the only place to buy music WAS a Wal-mart, they couldn't get access to certain types of music because Wal-mart and their ilk wouldn't stock those records at all.

Granted, they ended up "compromising" with the edited versions down the road, but those are horrible and kind of a non-solution.