Hair Metal
Okay, you want a “painfully long-winded” post from me? Well grab a chair boys 'cuz I found something that pisses me off.
Last night I watched “The 40 Greatest Hair Bands of All Time” on VH1. To be honest, it was pretty cringe-inducing shit, considering that I used to really like some of those bands like Whitesnake and Ratt. Okay, I still do. Sue me. Most of them were one hit wonders like Autograph, Cinderella, Winger, et al. Yeah, I admit, it was a pretty ridiculous genre, with all the bands having their de rigueur HUGE hair, tight spandex and lead singers with falsettoes that could open garage doors and break windows up and down the block. Anybody remember Steelheart or Slaughter, both of whom had leadmen who could peel paint with their voices?
Still though, not all the rock-n-roll made by these guys was bad. Van Halen will always be one of my favorite bands. The Scorpions, too. So it’s butthead music, so what? There's room for that in the world.
But just take a guess who the good folks at VH1 crowned as their greatest hair band of all time? Was it Twisted Sister, you ask, the drag queens from hell? If you said so, that would be a good guess as actually they were number 2, probably in no small part due to the fact that Dee Snyder hosted the show. Was it Diamond Dave and the rest of the Van Halen crew? Nope. Bon Jovi? Nuh uh. Motley Crue, you say. It just has to be Motley Crue, right? Wrong, though they were in the top 10.
No, the group who most epitomized the whole “Hair Band” phenomenon, the group who VH1 thought deserved to stand atop 39 other bands, great and small, was none other than . . . Poison.
Please, somebody kill me.
There was so much wrong with that band, they were so godawfully bad on so many levels that they almost achieved a kind of transcendence. Listening to a Poison song is like watching a John Waters movie; you have to ask yourself if there’s a joke being played that you’re not in on. Did Brett Michaels really think “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” was a good song when he penned it or was that just his tongue-in-cheek way of poking fun at other mediocre songwriters who had to lean on braindead clichés like that to round out their songs. Unfortunately, I think it was the former.
Poison would earn my vote for the worst rock band. Ever. Blessedly though, they're now gone and Michaels now only pops up occasionally, like a recurrent boil on the ass of rock-n-roll, to offer commentary on shows like “I Love the 80’s.”
For some good rock, I just caught the video for “Slither” by Velvet Revolver. For those who haven’t heard, VR is comprised of Slash, Duff and Matt, the sane remnants of Guns N Roses, and Scott Weiland, the very insane former frontman for Stone Temple Pilots. The song is totally fucking cool and comes at you like a fist to the forehead with grit and fury that pretenders like Poison couldn't match if their lives depended on it.
There! I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
Last night I watched “The 40 Greatest Hair Bands of All Time” on VH1. To be honest, it was pretty cringe-inducing shit, considering that I used to really like some of those bands like Whitesnake and Ratt. Okay, I still do. Sue me. Most of them were one hit wonders like Autograph, Cinderella, Winger, et al. Yeah, I admit, it was a pretty ridiculous genre, with all the bands having their de rigueur HUGE hair, tight spandex and lead singers with falsettoes that could open garage doors and break windows up and down the block. Anybody remember Steelheart or Slaughter, both of whom had leadmen who could peel paint with their voices?
Still though, not all the rock-n-roll made by these guys was bad. Van Halen will always be one of my favorite bands. The Scorpions, too. So it’s butthead music, so what? There's room for that in the world.
But just take a guess who the good folks at VH1 crowned as their greatest hair band of all time? Was it Twisted Sister, you ask, the drag queens from hell? If you said so, that would be a good guess as actually they were number 2, probably in no small part due to the fact that Dee Snyder hosted the show. Was it Diamond Dave and the rest of the Van Halen crew? Nope. Bon Jovi? Nuh uh. Motley Crue, you say. It just has to be Motley Crue, right? Wrong, though they were in the top 10.
No, the group who most epitomized the whole “Hair Band” phenomenon, the group who VH1 thought deserved to stand atop 39 other bands, great and small, was none other than . . . Poison.
Please, somebody kill me.
There was so much wrong with that band, they were so godawfully bad on so many levels that they almost achieved a kind of transcendence. Listening to a Poison song is like watching a John Waters movie; you have to ask yourself if there’s a joke being played that you’re not in on. Did Brett Michaels really think “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” was a good song when he penned it or was that just his tongue-in-cheek way of poking fun at other mediocre songwriters who had to lean on braindead clichés like that to round out their songs. Unfortunately, I think it was the former.
Poison would earn my vote for the worst rock band. Ever. Blessedly though, they're now gone and Michaels now only pops up occasionally, like a recurrent boil on the ass of rock-n-roll, to offer commentary on shows like “I Love the 80’s.”
For some good rock, I just caught the video for “Slither” by Velvet Revolver. For those who haven’t heard, VR is comprised of Slash, Duff and Matt, the sane remnants of Guns N Roses, and Scott Weiland, the very insane former frontman for Stone Temple Pilots. The song is totally fucking cool and comes at you like a fist to the forehead with grit and fury that pretenders like Poison couldn't match if their lives depended on it.
There! I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
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