It fell out of fashion with the rise of grunge, but combined with big hair, flashy costumes and excessive makeup, this sound is raising hell far beyond the Sunset Strip. The international hair metal comeback is in full swing.
The international hair metal comeback is here!
Written by Jon O’Brien, from Chartmetric Blog
In a strange coincidence of pop culture, not one, but two recent TV shows have focused on the spandex-clad, hearty subgenre known as hair metal. First, Paramount+ treated Tom Beaujour and Richard Bianstock’s uncensored history of the genre as a three-part documentary called Nöthin’ But A Good Time. And Peacock is set to release a supernatural comedy-drama about the Satanic Panic during a crazy time when the music of hair metal icons Warrant, Twisted Sister and Mötley Crüe was thought to be a gateway to the devil. Based on “Hysteria”.
Of course, there’s a reason both shows are firmly rooted in the 1980s. The game started in 1991, when MTV aired kids falling in love with Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Authenticity trumps luxury. The aerial lighters, power ballads, guitar pyrotechnics, and hedonistic perversity that defined the past decade were quickly dismissed as cornball relics of a bygone era. In the late ’90s, even hair metal’s undisputed ancestors, KISS, succumbed to angst-ridden rock and, even more improbably, flannel shirts.
But after more than a decade in the musical wilderness, hair metal (also known as glam metal) has made a comeback of sorts, albeit seemingly covered in layers of cynicism.
The Darkness, for example, won three Brit Awards in 2004 and is a catsuit-friendly brand of rock that embraces both the excesses of 80s metal and the theatricality of 70s glam, and is one of the most popular bands in the UK. almost monopolized the coveted Christmas number one spot. Steel Panther scored three straight U.S. Top 40 albums in the guise of a long-lost band from the golden age of Sunset Strip rock. From the Broadway musical “Rock of Ages” to Swedish pop hitmaker and former hair metaller Max Martin’s blockbuster hits such as Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” and Taylor Swift’s “Shake.” “It Off”), everything leant toward this style’s affinity for something bigger. More than life.
Martin’s fellow Scandinavians have also been leaning heavily into this style since the early 2000s. Hair metal revival bands Reckless Love, Crazy Lixx, and Crashdiet have racked up millions of streams, inspiring a new generation to pick up air guitars and copious cans of hairspray.
Swedish Wilderness, whose 2020 sophomore album Ultimate Demise was hailed as one of the best hair metal albums of the 21st century by Crazy Lixx frontman Danny Rexon. Lead single “Cold Words”, a prime example of applying elements of album-oriented rock (AOR), has been played over 800,000 times on Spotify, demonstrating that the once niche genre still has the potential to reach a wide audience. is proven.
And Swedish quintet Nestor are rewarding their commitment with five songs racking up more than 1 million plays on Spotify. The band began its career as an AOR act in 1989 (at the end of the hair metal empire era), but disbanded soon after. But with a new wave, they returned in 2021 with a mission to “preserve heritage and reinvent rock iconography.”
This iconography seems to be meant to intentionally convey a time when MTV was dominated by androgynous axemen. The time-travel video for ‘On The Run’ sees them literally transported back to the late ’80s in a Volvo 240 GLE.
Although bands like Nestor are strongest in their native Sweden, with Scandinavians making up almost 50% of the estimated audience, the hair metal scene is still going strong around the world. From India’s Girlish and the Chronicles and Australia’s Dangerous Curves to Chile’s Exxocet and Germany’s Devicious. Meanwhile, Italian record label Frontiers Music, home to both established artists (Tesla, LA Guns) and emerging artists (Creye, Passion), positions itself as the most dominant label.
Britain, the birthplace of heavy metal, has also produced many revivalists. British rock vocalist Chez Kane is certainly proud of extending her hair metal lineage, drawing on fellow women in the scene such as Lita Ford, Vixen and Hart from the bombastic power ballad era. He cites it as an important inspiration. “I feel like people can categorize music however they want,” she told Hard Rock Heaven while promoting her 2021 self-titled debut album, produced by Rexon. The album produced two songs with over 500,000 streams on Spotify.
Led by hair metal master Rob Wylde (Teenage Casket Company, Tigertails), Midnight City have released four albums since forming in 2017, making them one of the most prolific new acts on the block. It has become. “This is the ultimate ’80s hair metal band,” Wilde insists. , who spent his childhood immersed in Kerrang! I have been waiting for decades for the opportunity to proudly showcase my work in magazines and Metal Edge magazines. “In the early 2000s, hair metal was dinosaur music. Thankfully, there was a resurgence of sorts and we jumped on it.”
The Struts, on the other hand, don’t seem too keen on being lumped together with new hair metal. Guitarist Adam Slack claims it was “never my thing”. Still, he covered Def Leppard’s Prototype Girl’s “Do You Love Me” and professed his love for The Darkness (“In Love With A Camera” effectively became “I Love Me”). (a rehash of “Believe in a Thing Called Love”), supported Mötley Crüe (the infamous savages even told them to tone down their wild partying), and intentionally Whether or not he still manages to maintain the sound and spirit of the culture.
The Struts’ sound also incorporates ’60s rock, ’70s blues, and mid-2000s indie styles, but they also draw on songs like “Rockstar,” “Mary Go Round,” and “I Hate How Much.” It’s hard to deny the influence of hair metal. i want you. “Perhaps this collage of retro references is why the Derbyshire quartet have amassed more than 1.1 million followers across various social media platforms, with over a third of them on Spotify. yeah.
Still, compared to Los Angeles rockers Dirty Honey, who became synonymous with the scene despite their protests, The Struts resemble fully paid memberships in a hair metal fan club. “I hate ’80s hair metal,” lead singer Mark Labelle once said, but their first gig was on the Sunset Strip and they toured with Guns N’ Roses. Despite being the most played song on Spotify, “I’m Gone” (22m) sounds like a lost cut from Appetite for Disaster.
Although no longer the epicenter of hair metal, LA still produces its fair share of enthusiasts. The Classless act is partly due to the fact that drummer London Hudson is a descendant of metal royalty (his father is the one and only Thrash), and has also recorded with both Justin Hawkins and Vince Neil. and is rapidly gaining the most attention. Motor Sister also has Nepo Baby in the form of vocalist Pearl Aday. Pearl Aday is a self-proclaimed “dyed in the wool” hair metallurgist who happens to be the daughter of the late Meat Loaf. And Them Evils racked up 3 million plays on Spotify with “Where Ya Gonna Crash Tonight,” an ode to the tour bus lifestyle that shows the scene hasn’t abandoned its decadent origins. It suggests that.
Thankfully, the rampant sexism that tainted the first wave is firmly in the past. With a full-throttle rock sound that also borrows from punk, power pop, and garage rock, Philadelphia’s Sheer Mag is one of several artists to acknowledge how problematic hair metal’s history is. But as lead guitarist Kyle Seeley told The Fader, its present and future are much more progressive now. “I love hair metal as a genre. I think you can love hair metal and hate the fact that it’s crap.”
Just look at the positive response to Sonja to see how far this genre has come. The Philadelphia band is fronted by Melissa Moore, who was kicked out of her former black metal band Abs for coming out as transgender. “We had to cross bridges and break through gates, and I hope this is the beginning of a process,” she says, adding that her new band will be able to break through such overwhelmingly heteronormative They spoke to Decibel about how they have advocated for themselves in this field. “That subversion makes it purer.”
So, is it possible for hair metal to penetrate the mainstream again? Well, there have been some encouraging signs that we’re moving towards that limit. Kickin’ Valentina, the Atlanta band named after the fetish porn star famous for torturing men in polar regions, topped five Billboard charts with their second album, “Imaginary Creatures.”
Hollywood director James Gunn’s subversive superhero series Peacemaker elevated hair metal what Guardians of the Galaxy did with classic AM rock. “One of the fun things about this show is that we’re able to take music that’s so out of style in America and give it a little chance to shine,” creator James Gunn said on his podcast Podly, featuring music from classic bands such as The Choirboys and Choirboys. Boys, Hanoi Rocks) and their 21st century successors.
Cruel Intentions is one of several organizations that benefited greatly from the cancer exposure. “Jawbreaker,” “Borderline Crazy,” and “Sick Adrenaline” have all received over 1 million plays on Spotify since being featured on the show and on Peacemaker’s official playlist (147,000 likes). Meanwhile, monthly listenership jumped from 9,000 to 38,000, and the number of views on the YouTube channel increased by 1 million.
Interestingly, the Eurovision Song Contest is an event not traditionally known for devil horn salutes, but it’s arguably the one that did the most to put hair metal back on the world map in recent years. 2021 Italian winners Maneskin, who won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 2023, are the most successful exports of all time and self-confessed devotees of hair metal stalwarts Skid Row. There is. In the award-winning song “ZITTI,” you can hear the influence of the LA Hellraisers. E Buoni. ” Since then, Australia’s Voyager, Germany’s Lord of the Lost and Finland’s The Rasmus have flown the flag for the genre, with mixed results.
“It was one of the loudest, craziest eras and scenes in music,” Nathin’ But A Good Time director Jeff Tremaine recently said of the original wave he recorded. spoke. “But this era will probably never happen again.” Indeed, the imperial era of hair metal may be decades behind us. But when it comes to a new breed of acolytes on the Sunset Strip, Hairmageddon may still be on the way.
Edited by Harry Levin, Cover image: Crasianne Tirado
Alana Bonilla on 10/30/2024 in Music Business | Permalink | Comments (0)
Source link
