Glam Metal
Glam metal often known as hair metal, became a distinct sub-genre of metal in the years between the explosion of the NWOBHM in 1980 and the rise of thrash metal in 1984. Throughout the 1970’s both hard rock and heavy metal had usually been cut from the same cloth, which meant that a large chunk of bands had that strong bluesy background, a musical aspect which was certainly much stronger on hard rock bands. Black Sabbath of course had forged probably the first true heavy metal identity, which was further strengthened by the likes of Judas Priest and so forth, also psychedelic rock and progressive rock had their far reaching influences as well (not going to repeat a 1970s history here) now aside from all this, the British glam rock scene of the 1970s which had been headed up by the likes of David Bowie and T.Rex along with an assortment of good to tacky bands, had been a commercial boom genre in the first half of the 1970s especially in the UK. Now some of the scene’s more talented bands like the Sweet and Mott the Hoople (whose albums have been reviewed here) crossed into hard rock territory more often than not and for this reason alone, a large amount of music listeners from this period were equally into both their beloved glam rock bands, as much as they were into the likes of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, meaning that there was often a thin line between rockers and glamsters. This was further strengthened stateside with the theatrical approach of acts like first Alice Cooper and then Kiss, which was further with enhanced acts as diverse as the New York Dolls and Roxy Music. The UK punk explosion of the late 1970s added further fuel to the fire, but the single biggest influence could probably be attributed to the mighty Aerosmith, whose attitude and posturing alone would inspire so many of the glam metal bands of the 1980’s.
In a present day context of the early 1980s, bands who loved all of the earlier acts had the British NWOBHM bands on one side to look to, especially the Def Leppard debut On Through the Night which was a strong glam inspired album and on the other side were the American metal bands led by Van Halen (who were glamorous rather than glam) to aspire to. As for location, I’m not sure if glam metal at this time could’ve taken off in terms of popularity in any other place besides Los Angeles, as the city provided the essential backdrop for the movement and that was sun and fun by the day, with seedy and decadence by night. The Sunset Strip was the place to be for any up and coming glam metal bands at this time and to varying degrees bands like Y&T, Motley Crue, Twisted Sister and Hanoi Rocks were the most important bands for the early days of the genre in the early 1980s. The last two of course were not even west coast bands and Hanoi Rocks not even American, but stylistically they all could’ve been born on the Sunset Strip. Unlike the NWOBHM feature I did in 1980 (see review) I mentioned a bit about the musical style of that movement, but glam metal in many ways had a lower emphasis on an obvious style than the NWOBHM did, sure the music was often sleazy, full of pop hooks and catchy guitar riffs and the movement owed as much to punk as it did to metal, along with having a noticeable frontman which was a prime feature for most of these bands. But musically bands like Y&T, Motley Crue, Twisted Sister and Hanoi Rocks all sounded fairly distinct to one another and had different approaches as well, but what they all did have in common, was a sense of decadent flair and a stylistic approach which grouped them all together and in many ways this diverse yet similar grouping, could also be attributed to the grunge movement much later in the decade as well (another genre of distinct bands but with a common cause) which now leads to the foremost feature of what glam metal was really all about, and that was a genre that styled itself heavily on the aesthetics of the 1970s British glam rock movement and taking elements from all the aforementioned artists above as well, which all culminated into a sleazy, gaudy and sometimes androgenous look for most of the bands, that were just content to really go out and live the rock star lifestyle to the full. So if the NWOBHM had been metal’s masculine side then glam metal would be its feminine side, a fairly logical outcome given the nature of the human species. The genre on the one side would be a huge commercial success throughout the 1980s, where it firstly took on the energy of the NWOBHM and then in just a few years, it would deprive most AOR bands as the principal commercial outlet for the big record labels. It also survived numerous challenges from extreme metal, before finally going into decline with the rise of grunge at the end of the decade. Most listeners often hold nostalgic values for a lot of these bands and more often than not, a vast number of the bands in the genre often put out poor quality material which generally lowered the overall opinion of glam metal as a whole, but a number also put out some really quality material and stuff worth exploring (and most of those should feature on my 1980's lists) On the genre’s negative side though, the above mentioned lower quality material along with the flooding of bands flocking to the glam metal banner would certainly milk the cow dry and certainly didn’t help the genre’s status in many people’s eyes or indeed ears. In fact hardcore metal listeners could never really accept the feminine side of metal provided by this movement and found their own outlet in the extreme metal genres to counter this. As for how glam metal made its big splash, well it was one of its mediocre bands in Quiet Riot who would effectively launch the whole genre from a commercial perspective in 1983 with one well planned swoop or was it just luck?