Glam metal

I've had these episodes now where we've said, it's not grunge's fault.

Hair metal killed itself.

It was the formula.

It was repeating and repeating.

People were tired of it.

They were yearning for something different.

And hair metal started to become very ballad orientated.

Like when you look at Aerosmith's Crazy Cry and Amazing Trifecta.

Isn't that crazy? Now, we know that they wanted to get out of L.A.

We know the acronym they had for GLAM Metal.

I won't repeat it here.

It shall go into the same unspeakable dungeon as the first four or five Pantera albums.

With just a smile

The pathway that led from newly formed and hard-working band to hair metal stardom was, as was the case with all bands of the era, a winding and much-travelled one.

Its origins came from as early as the mid-1970s, and the many and varied changes to the line-up came to be problematic at times as the band was trying to get itself established.

They released a self-titled EP in 1983 that sold over 100,000 units in the US, and saw the band sign to Atlantic Records, which then saw the release of their debut full-length album, Out of the Cellar, in March of 1984.

He's not good at it.

He's just some kid who's a hair metal guy.

He loves...

I love it.

Yep.

the thing maybe that's most surprising interesting about him is he's a massive fan of 80s hair metal i don't know anyone who who has a more encyclopedic knowledge of you know striper and you know he goes he goes deep um Yeah, I mean, he's an absolute music nerd with lots of, you know, with a really broad taste.

But if people saw Copperline, they probably couldn't imagine him strapping on denim and playing in a hair metal band, but he certainly does.

When you

come to Brizzy, introduce us and we'll go toe to toe.

He's the world's biggest Toto fan.

Whenever I'm driving and he's kind of in control of the playlist, it's just constant Toto.

And he's kind of as nerdy about that as Gareth is about hair metal.

Yeah.

I was trying to think of metal, like hair metal bands that had only one record.

And I don't think I came up with any, honestly, because I was thinking, well, there must be because it was such a...

There was such that short period of time when like everybody had one had a hair metal band.

But honestly, you know, there's probably like a dozen.

But yeah,

Let's see.

I just did a quick Google search at Loudwire.

We have great varieties to look on here.

Hair bands, funk, R&B, surf music, cocktail lounge tunes, Motown, stones, punk, rock, blues.

Okay.

All right.

This is perfect for New Year's Day.

The wheel has landed on hair bands.

Okay.

Loud guitar, spandex, leather.

Mm

... 11 cheesiest hair metal ballads.

11.

Well-

Nevermind dropped the very same day and was about to detonate the mainstream.

Ten was only weeks old, Alice in Chains and Early Broken Ground with Facelift the year before, Hair Metal was dying in real time on MTV, and the classic rock legends of radio and records were being left in the dust.

Then Soundgarden, the band that signed to a major before any of their peers was suddenly the veteran on the scene and about to explode.

They toured this record hard, including a run opening for Guns N' Roses on the Usual Illusion tour.

Unfortunately, my history goes all the way back to high school when I was sort of a nerdy honors kid growing up out here in Southern California.

And I decided that my ticket to cool was to be in a hair metal band with my other nerdy friends.

So we're talking about, you know, 1989, 90, 91, kind of the peak and the glorious tail end of that scene on the Sunset Strip.

And, you know, we were selling out shows at the Roxy and the Whiskey and the Troubadour and a place called Gazari's and all the other kind of haunts of that era right off the Strip.