Originally Posted by Nick1976

So, what about Van Halen? GN'R? Crue? They arguably were good songwriters and musicians and also experimented with different styles.
Everything "Hair Metal" did was first explored by Zeppelin, down to the power ballad structure. I also liked the sincerity and lack of irony in hair metal. When grunge and alternative came in, a sense of irony and we-know-better crept into rock that never really left.

Some ugly classism was present in all this too. Metal was the music of lower-class kids (mostly white guys), while grunge and alternative was music that kids from the colleges "approved" of. So college-educated rock critics, for the most part, dismissed the hair bands and offered high-holy praise for grunge.

But that just means they could relate to the latter better on a more cultural level; doesn't necessarily mean it was better. The dismissive attitude of critics is a large reason the music isn't thought of highly today. I'll grant you that the other big reason is the ridiculous hair and clothes the groups wore. But, then again, when didn't pop musicians trade in ridiculous styles?

Speaking of grunge, its politics might have been more "correct" and the lyrics better. But with a few notable exceptions, the songs themselves were simply not as catchy nor as pop-friendly. Which is why by 1998 we had a new wave of Disney-pop that pretty much wiped rock off the map as a cultural force. Permanently.

IMO the 80s/early 90s was the golden era of heavy metal and glam is the most honest genre in all of metal.

Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien

There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.