Van Halen - Hair Metal or not?

Eruption, Atomic Punk, and In a Simple Rhyme are pretty heavy, as well.

 

Hair Metal? No. Influenced/Created? Yes.

 

That is true. I know on the whole Bon Jovi deserve to be called 'hair metal' but they weren't as one-dimensional as Warrant or Poison, for example. They did have that Bruce-like element to their sound too; the 'heartland rock' style. So on that one album (New Jersey), you had the textbook power ballad ("I'll Be There For You"), the textbook 'hair metal' rocker ("Bad Medicine"), and also Springsteen-ish rockers like "Born To Be My Baby" and "Living In Sin" that aren't really representative of hair metal, and all were top 40 hits.

 

Hair Metal:



Metal, where your look is more important than your content.

 

IMO Def Leppard was not a Hair Band, and was not regarded as such.

Nevertheless, their album sales in the 90s were clearly not anywhere close to what they sold in the 1980s. Their entire 1990s catalog probably didn't sell as many USA copies as either Hysteria or Pyromania did by themselves.

 

Yes. I agree that if one really examines Great White's music, there is a lot of 70s boogie in it that most Hair Bands did not dabble in. But still, at the time, they were clearly lumped in with the Hair contingent. That's how the mass of rock fans viewed them fairly or not.

Plus, let's face it, "Rock Me" is one of the greatest Hair anthems ever. That song is awesome.

 

"Hair Metal" has become a derogatory term, almost no one wants a band they like to be considered hair metal. Van Halen, Def Leppard, Motley Crüe, these bands are vastly different from one another, both in look and sound. But they all had long hair and played heavier music, and most importantly they sold albums, tickets and merchandise...they made money. It's the money these bands made in the early 80's that spawned the hair metal movement. Van Halen, along with a few others, were the genesis of hair metal, and they certainly capitalized on the genre they helped create. I think they gave hair metal it's California attitude, and they were a huge player. I voted yes

 

Hair metal, baby!



(McAuley Schenker Group's "Perfect Timing", if you're interested.)

 

That's hair extensions metal. I love Schenker but that was not a good look.

 

hair metal was more an 80's invention and proliferated there, VH did their best work prior to that but may have been a progenitor of hair metal due to DLR's image.

 

say what you want...much more fun than the "I'm so sad" 90's

 

The beginning of glam metal? Ok. I thought Queen was there already.

 

I dissent in part and concur in part! I concur that Van Halen was certainly a huge influence on the Hair scene. All the Hair singers wanted to look like Roth and all the Hair guitarists wanted to shred like Eddie. BUT, I totally dissent from the notion that they capitalized on the genre. The Van Hagar incarnation that existed during the height of the Hair scene (1986-1990, IMO) was decidedly NOT a Hair act. They were far more "Adult Contemporary", clearly distinct musically and in terms of their image in videos and the like, from Hair.

Rather than capitalize on that, Van Hagar distanced themselves from it.

 

Van Halen were just ****e cheese hard Rock. Most unimaginative bass player ever?

 

Absolutely not. Hard rock all the way.

 

I agree. Also, they have made great music.

 

There is no such thing as hair metal...
But if you are asking if Van Halen are heavy metal, the answer is YES.

 

Yes, Van Halen was Hair Metal. And Nirvana was Grunge and the Ramones were Punk.

All three spawned a lot of bad music in their influential wake, but that doesn't mean they're responsible for it.

 

No, that would be Nikki Sixx.

 

"In A Simple Rhyme" is a stellar example of the kind of arena rock sound that was big when I was in high school. I have always had issues with that style, but when I hear that song, it just redeems it. Truly a forgotten classic.

 

That is what I thought then. But now, he is a fine bass player.IMO.

 

I don't think VH was "hair metal" but I do think they were a major contributor to the style that spawned the genre (VH in general and Roth in particular).

As to whatever was going on in the early 80’s in Los Angles that spawned the style, I can’t imagine just as I can’t imagine why the guy’s with the puffed up hair got all the girls.

It is interesting that “hair metal” is a double derogatory term. The actual hair metal bands do not want to be referred to as hair metal. Also the “real” metal bands don’t want anything to do with the association.

 

It's kind of hard to judge, as Ed may have been playing bass on some of the songs. A lot of VH bass lines are boring and rudimentary (e.g., Running With the Devil), while others are quite good (e.g., In a Simple Rhyme, Dirty Movies, Push Comes to Shove).

 

Who cares? It's become a recognized genre and term in music and cultural history. It's no different than calling The Association and the like, "sunshine pop"---nobody called it that in 1967 either. Labels and terms always enter the lexicon after the moment itself. Everyone has a gripe about names and terms ---this guy doesn't want it to be called "jazz"; that guy doesn't like "prog" or "yacht rock" or "indie" or "alternative" or "new-grass" or whatever. Rolling Stone had a recent feature on the "Best Hair Metal" bands. The term is out there and has been for a long time. The image of hair metal, such as it was, is inseparable from the music itself. Maybe it's not a "cool" sounding moniker, like "death metal" or "black metal" but most of the time we don't get to choose our nicknames.

 

Add Jim 'Dandy' Mangrum to the list for Dave.