Were Pop-Metal bands more to blame for their own demise, then Grunge?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by The Doctor, Oct 25, 2017.

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  1. Zoot Marimba

    Zoot Marimba And I’m The Critic Of The Group

    Location:
    Savannah, Georgia
    I do think pop metal or glam metal had very much run its course by 1991. Initially you had one crop of bands that felt fresh, exciting, and while not Harvard material, were certainly a fun bit of escapism. Then you more and more batches of these bands, each worse than the last. People got fed up, they got sick of it. And people forget, alternative bands or even just throwbacks like GnR and The Black Crowes were already making a mark before Nevermind. R.E.M. were getting popular, Chili Peppers, Faith No More, Jane's Addiction, Soundgarden to a degree, Nirvana just broke the final barriers.
    But yes, the genre did itself in.
     
  2. sloaches

    sloaches Forum Resident

    I blame Stryper's "Against The Law" album.

    I kid! I kid! :hide:
     
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  3. dmiller458

    dmiller458 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Midland, Michigan
    Dr. Feelgood hit number one and it's certified 6x platinum. Most bands would kill for that kind of downward trajectory.
     
  4. Olias of Sunhill

    Olias of Sunhill Forum Resident

    Location:
    Jim Creek, CO, USA
    Probably true. But as a Motley fan, I thought it sucked.
     
  5. Greenalishi

    Greenalishi Birds Aren’t Real

    Location:
    San Francisco
    Never heard Bowie, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed or Johnny Thunders complaining that disco killed glam. They just moved on.

    Why are so many metal musicians complaining. I don't get it. You don't hear New Orleans Jazz bands pining for a return to dixieland. It's become a thing in the press where they love to blame. Look inside, get up and move on.

    Music like life moves and changes. All art does this. Did Andy Warhol do only one type of art. Were the pop artists only that or did they do many types of art in their life...
     
  6. George Co-Stanza

    George Co-Stanza Forum Resident

    Location:
    America
    Dead accurate.
     
  7. The Doctor

    The Doctor Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Philidelphia, PA
    I view U2 as their own genre of music, to be honest. They're their own subgenre of rock in a way IMO.
     
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  8. Zoot Marimba

    Zoot Marimba And I’m The Critic Of The Group

    Location:
    Savannah, Georgia
    To be fair it is a turd
     
  9. The Doctor

    The Doctor Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Philidelphia, PA
    GN'R is brought up as Grunge victims because their last major output came out the same week as Nevermind, and because of Axl Rose and Kurt Cobain's heavily publicized feud. When a band releases its last album of consequence in 1991, its last album all together in 1993, and then disappears totally, it can easily be spun as "GN'R was killed by Grunge." Also, GN'R responded to Grunge in a very odd way. Instead of stripping things down and competing head to head (like the Stones did with Punk), in 1992, GN'R added horn players, saxophone players, and Vegas-esque backing singers to the band, totaling 12 members vs. Nirvana's 3. The self-indulgent videos became even more self-indulgent. Axl Rose's costumes became even more out of touch and outlandish. As such, GN'R became the poster child for self-indulgence and "corporate rock."

    The reality of the situation is that Axl had wanted to transform GN'R into an industrial rock band similar to NiN even before Grunge was popular, and this led to increasing tensions which broke the band apart.

    But it's much easier to look at GN'R disappearing off the map at the end of 1993 and conclude they were wiped out by Grunge.
     
  10. eric777

    eric777 Astral Projectionist

    Personally, I believe there were many factors that changed music at that time. MTV and the record labels are just as much to blame as anyone else. The industry seemed to stop promoting many of the bands that existed before Nirvana became popular. In hindsight, It almost seemed as if the industry was all to eager to drop hair metal.

    In addition, it appeared that the musical climate was changing even before Nirvana became a hit. The two biggest bands that I recall in 1991 are GNR and Metallica. Both bands were huge that year and Nirvana'a success didn't appear to have any affect on it. Both bands released albums that year that were different from their 80s output. Both made albums that were somewhat more refined. "The Black Album" alone cemented Metallica's status as one of the biggest metal bands in the world.

    I think that music fans and the record industry wanted something different. Eventually it was all going to change anyway. Nirvana just happened to be the right band at the right time to propel the change that was coming anyway.

    Of course, this is all simply my opinion.
     
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  11. DTK

    DTK Forum Resident

    Location:
    Europe
    Def Leppard surely took a well deserved beating by grunge.
     
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  12. tim185

    tim185 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Australia
    I'll just leave this here..

    Pantera-Metal
    GNR- rock/hard rock.
     
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  13. Matthew Tate

    Matthew Tate Forum Resident

    Location:
    Richmond, Virginia

    quiet riot and motley crue were big before TS
     
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  14. Kiss73

    Kiss73 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Scotland
    The scene has gotten so big, self indulgent and extravagant. Sales were through the roof. Stage shows were massive.....it was saturated on MTV and it couldn't be sustained - scenes only last so long and it was naturally going to crash.... similar to the music scene in the 70' and the breakthrough of punk.

    And subsequently only the strongest survive and you loose the peripherals.

    The one thing the grunge scene (and nu-metal) did, was it put a lot of metal bands in a position where they didn't know where to go next musically. Think of the period 1994-2004. How many established pop-metal or metal bands released career defining albums in that period....think Metallica, Black Sabbath, Motley Crue, Megadeth....none of them released bad albums in my opinion, but it was a period where there were definitely uncertain where to go musically. Kerry King of Slayer has openly spoken about the effect this period effected his work.

    So....maybe Axl wasn't so stupid to sit this period out before releasing anything new.
     
    Matthew Tate likes this.
  15. mikedifr0923

    mikedifr0923 Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    Crue only has one album you could attempt to call pop metal (theatre of pain). They were with GnR and Aerosmith by time you got to Dr Feelgood, they became just a rock band. Which is why they were selling out arenas until they retired.
     
  16. mikedifr0923

    mikedifr0923 Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    Thank you, I hate when people call GnR metal
     
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  17. mikedifr0923

    mikedifr0923 Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    They recovered and still have done well though.
     
  18. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    In my observation (I remember the time well), "Pop Metal" was pretty much done before Nirvana and the whole so-called "grunge" thing happened. It had been going for about 6-7 years at that point, and let's face it, it was beginning to look rather cliched about five years in. I don't think it's down to any particular album or division in any band; it was trendy for a long time, but all trends expire.
     
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  19. Spaghettiows

    Spaghettiows Forum Resident

    Location:
    Silver Creek, NY
    Many of the fans of bands like Trixter and Winger transitioned to contemporary country.
     
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  20. Curveboy

    Curveboy Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York City
    Yeah, I remember some MTV special back in the early 90's where some MTV executive laughed at the thought of playing metal videos. Someone made a conscious decision to kill off metal, like DJ's did disco in the late 70's.

    Luckily a lot of bands continue to survive and put out great music.
     
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  21. mikedifr0923

    mikedifr0923 Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    Yeah I always found this funny when Soundgarden and AIC were essentially metal bands behind the 90s production
     
  22. Morton LaBongo

    Morton LaBongo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Manchester NH
    True they definitely beat TS to the punch by a few years. But I think they were (at least initially) legit metal bands, not really pop metal/ hair metal although they did influence that style heavily, particularly Crue. Quiet Riot's Metal Health was a huge smash and one of the first metal albums to get serious mainstream attention, it was definitely the first one I was aware of. TS was hair/pop metal right off the bat. By the time of Girls Girls Girls Crue had become a sort of parody of what they used to be but could still get decent album sales. Riot had dropped off the map by then.
     
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  23. Curveboy

    Curveboy Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York City
    Hardly

     
  24. driverdrummer

    driverdrummer Forum Resident

    Location:
    Irmo, SC
    It seems that by 1990, every pop metal song sounded like Rattlesnake Shake and Unskinny Bop.
     
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  25. Zoot Marimba

    Zoot Marimba And I’m The Critic Of The Group

    Location:
    Savannah, Georgia
    Hey, garbage in, garbage out.
     
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