Poll: Hair Metal during/after "Grunge" takeover - who still carried the flame?

All of them were called Heavy Metal. All of them.

 

I may have said this before, but in high school (86-90) the term hair metal was never used. It was the catch-all term "metal," broken down into either "glam" or "thrash/speed metal." With bands in the middle like Priest, Maiden, or Dio, I can't remember what we called, probably just metal. (Nowadays I would say "traditional" metal).

 

Indeed, the idea of Bon Jovi or its spawn Poison being metal is silly.

 

Would you call Bon Jovi, Poison, or Tesla “metal”? I certainly wouldn’t and didn’t back then either.

 

The bands on this list are rock and a few hard rock. At the time metal was for NWOBHM, American thrash and other forms of developing sub-genre's of metal.

This from my perspective taken as lived back in the mid to late 80's.

 

W.A.S.P. are conspicuously absent from this list; although not a 'hair metal' band as such - certainly not from 1989's The Headless Children album onward - but just for the sake of argument on this thread, they continued to put out quality albums during the 'grunge' explosion - arguably their greatest work in 1992's The Crimson Idol - and have continued to do so throughout their 35-year tenure to date... many of those bands from that era have split up, reunited, come and go, with sporadic albums in between, but Blackie Lawless has never stopped making solid-to-great albums and touring... does that count?

Other than that, Motley Crue's eponymous 1994 album with John Corabi is a frickin' masterpiece... one of the best produced albums of any musical genre at any given time and one of the top ten rock/metal albums of that entire decade if not the last three!

And grunge didn't kill 'hair metal'... Appetite for Destruction did; after THAT album, all the assorted hairspray brigade looked like poseurs by comparison; Nirvana et al just nailed the coffin shut upon arrival, but that scene was dying from the moment that AfD went to #1 and hit the stratosphere...

 

Agree. Many of them are essentially just rock-based pop...

 

The term used in the 80’s was either glam metal or pop metal. Hair metal was basically invented after grunge took over and was a derogatory term imo. Now everybody uses that term unfortunately.

 

It may seem silly now because of more extreme metal genres but that’s the way it was back then. A lot of it fell under the same umbrella. There’s always a revisionism that happens.

 

Can I go with '' None above ''

 

Notice it says “the international HARD ROCK and heavy metal magazine”. Bon Jovi was hard rock, sure. So, even on that magazine cover: some are metal; many are not. Bon Jovi is not.

 

Some of the bands on the list had broke up or were inactive for much of the grunge period.

 

Great White put out some good material during those years:

 

RATT too:

 

I was in high school when Bon Jovi started and I saw them as posers for the get-go when they tried to act tough. I never saw them as metal. This was before I ever heard Venom or Metallica. Your mileage may vary; however, and that's cool.

 

You’re right and I felt the same way. But they were featured in metal magazines back in the day along with Metallica, Motley etc etc. That’s just the way it was perceived back then. Nowadays they wouldn’t even be close to being metal.

 

With all due respect, I was 18 or 19 when Bon Jovi hit it big. I was a huge metal fan but never considered them heavy metal. None of my friends did, either. I never considered Van Halen metal nor Poison or Whitesnake. What’s the difference you ask? Too tiresome to get into.

How well received would Bon Jovi had been if they had opened for Metallica? Or Anthrax? Or Slayer? Or Accept?

 

As a much younger kid in the 80s, completely ignorant of genre, my perception was those groups were all sold and presented as heavy metal in the media (especially MTV,) along with older hard/glam rock acts and NWOBHM holdovers. (Van Halen, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, etc.)

Maybe they were saying 'heavy metal and hard rock' and I just didn't pick up on the distinction, but that's not how I remember it.

I did Columbia house at 8 or 9 and you have to pick a category for your album of the month. They didn't have 'heavy metal' so I picked 'hard rock' and the first album I got was Metal Church's Blessing in Disguise.

 

Apologies if anyone's already said this, but a better question might be: "which of these bands were making quality albums before the grunge takeover?"

Less than half, I'd say. And that's being generous!

 

Do you consider all those bands heavy metal now? Because somebody in this thread still does.

 

"Carrying the flame" probably not the wisest move for a hair metaller, given the flammable nature of hairspray they used ...

 

Skid Row's the only one I can spot. Very Metal, especially Subhuman Race.

 

For once we agree...

 

Bon Jovi opened for Scorpions, KISS, Judas Priest
They also played Monsters of Rock '86 with Warlock, Michael Schenker Group, Ozzy and Scorps.