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. driverdrummer

    driverdrummer Forum Resident

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    Irmo, SC
    The HEAT debut album(Swedish band)is the best thing to happen to pop metal since 1990.
     
  2. Purple

    Purple Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Pantera was a pop metal band.

    Their decision to incorporate popular thrash sounds and growing anger/disaffection among youth was a creative success and pushed them through for another 5-10 years. This is effectively the OP's point, which is the lack of creative direction and quality licks brought an end to most hair acts.. not grunge.
     
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  3. dmiller458

    dmiller458 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Midland, Michigan
    The 80s was a commercial era. Whether it was metal or alt/indie post-punk, almost all the best rock was underground. You didn't hear Maiden or Metallica, Sonic Youth or the Smiths on US radio unless you lived near a college town. But for some budding rock fan living out in Podunk USA? Aside from the various solo superstars they pretty much had two choices - glam metal or new romantic synth-pop.

    When I think glam, I automatically think the UK in the early 70s. Glam metal is more directly influenced by American acts from that same time; KISS, NY Dolls, Aerosmith, etc. The new romantic bands took their sound and image from Bowie and Roxy Music, then commercialized it. It always surprised me that Def Leppard was so much bigger in the US than at home, because they had more in common British bands like Slade, T. Rex and the Sweet.

    So much emphasis gets put on the image that the sound gets overlooked. At its best, glam metal was very good commercial hard & heavy rock. And at its worst, it was just another form of corporate arena rock. Someone mentioned Twisted Sister; the rest of Stay Hungry sounds nothing like the two hits.

    We've seen it time and time again. The first generation bands do all the heavy lifting, the second generation reaps the rewards. By the third, artistic bankruptcy starts to set in.

    When it broke, alternative took over both the rock and the metal mainstreams (though it's strange to think of metal as even having a mainstream. Alternative metal displaced glam every bit as much as grunge did. Alternative rock had it's own inevitable commercialization and re-commercialization, but it happened much sooner. By the end of the 90s, the overlapping post-punk/garage rock revivals and nu-metal took over from grunge and Britpop.
     
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  4. Purple

    Purple Forum Resident

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    Also, Dog Eat Dog went gold in late 1992, while Pull had some moderate success even in 1993. For these 2nd and 3rd tier acts, these were pretty decent outcomes. I've written elsewhere that the misfire of Adrenalize in 1992, coming from an industry leader, likely had negative network effects on the pop metal, glam metal genre. From 1981 (Too Fast For Love) till about 1993 is a pretty long run for a genre to have such wide ranging success, success that still resonates today, as evidenced by the dozens of working hair acts that still move records and sell out the bars and sheds.
     
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  5. Spaghettiows

    Spaghettiows Forum Resident

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    Silver Creek, NY
    Winger was a very talented and versatile band. The musicianship was top notch, probably among the best of the bands of this genre. And Kip Winger's looks didn't hurt them, either.
     
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  6. dmiller458

    dmiller458 Forum Resident

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    Midland, Michigan
    Jimi Hendrix hit number one; so did the Doors, so did CCR. Were they pop? Or were they popular?
     
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  7. anti PC.

    anti PC. Forum Resident

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    Twin Cities MN.
    Ozzy and Megadeth had huge releases in 91 and 92 with No More Tears and Symphony of Destruction . Bands like Metallica and Ozzy stayed pretty big through out the 90's.
     
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  8. Exile On My Street

    Exile On My Street Senior Member

    Location:
    Long Island, NY
    Good post, William. The cover of SFTD was really more of an Axl solo effort than GnR. The band was pretty much done by then and that track was really the final nail in the coffin.

    Flashback: Guns N' Roses Cover 'Sympathy for the Devil'
     
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  9. Huntigula

    Huntigula Idiot Savant

    Location:
    Brighton, MI
    The worst part of it is, for me, that even standard rock acts saw their popularity decline as well. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers released "Into the Great Wide Open" and John Mellencamp had "Whenever We Wanted" both released in 1991, and wound up sinking like a stone.

    I had written a short piece called "1991: AOR's Last Stand" that saw longtime rock bands found on your dial for many years release albums in 1991/92 that went nowhere, and got swept away by new bands and formats.

    As for 80s groups disbanding and disappearing? Simple. Coke turned to heroin.
     
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  10. dmiller458

    dmiller458 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Midland, Michigan
    These bands still had fans, but a rock generation (for lack of a better term) usually lasts only about 4-5 years. Too Fast For Love only peaked at number 77. It took almost three years for it to go gold and another three to go platinum. Glam metal was still underground until Metal Health hit number one.
     
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  11. dmiller458

    dmiller458 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Midland, Michigan
    This thread is about glam metal. They weren't glam.
     
  12. Exile On My Street

    Exile On My Street Senior Member

    Location:
    Long Island, NY
    This is the answer right here!

    Every 5-7 years a new generation of listeners would embrace a new generation of bands. The pop metal bands of the 80's were putting out inferior material while new, fresh ideas and bands were coming of age.

    It's all just the natural cycle of things, at least it was back then.
     
  13. Stone Turntable

    Stone Turntable Independent Head

    Location:
    New Mexico USA
  14. Nice Marmot

    Nice Marmot Nothin’ feels right but doin’ wrong anymore

    Location:
    Tryon NC
    I agree. The teens of the 80s (who listened to pop metal and were really into music) were in their 20s and exploring different music. Country radio was introducing newer artists. Rap was getting more popular. Alternative was on the rise. Metal was building on what thrash started. It was the beginning of the huge genre bending explosion that we're still seeing today and pop metal was at ground zero, because it was so easily expendable. Grunge, on it's own, gets too much credit for killing hair metal.
     
  15. Matthew Tate

    Matthew Tate Forum Resident

    Location:
    Richmond, Virginia

    Thats not true either. Twisted sisters first album is heavier than anything the crue or quiet riot ever did
     
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  16. The Doctor

    The Doctor Forum Resident Thread Starter

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    Philidelphia, PA
    It was probably the last really interesting era for rock music as a whole. I mean you still had NuMetal to come, but...there would never be this major "conflict" between two massive genres or such a level of diversity in mainstream rock again. The early-mid 90s IMO were really the last time also that rock was truly the socially dominant genre. NuMetal was definitely important to teens and young adults of the late 90s and early 00s, but it had to share with Hip Hop and other genres; Rock today is still popular with kids, but even more of its youth market share has been chipped away by pop and hip hop. If you think of youth-led socially relevant popular music as a pie, the mid 1990s were the last time Rock had the largest slice of that pie and didn't really need to worry about competition. It was a period where rock was such a massive and wide genre encompassing numerous very popular subgenres, that it makes discussions of this era interesting.
     
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  17. The Doctor

    The Doctor Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Philidelphia, PA
    That cover is just used as a scapecoat for problems in the band that had been at play since 1990 or even earlier. The track has Axl, Slash, Duff, Matt, and Dizzy, 5/6th of the UYI album lineup on it. Far from a solo effort. The only thing on it which is different is some lead guitar work by Paul Huge. If it has Axl, Slash, and Duff together on the track, for me it's GN'R. It's like saying I Me Mine was a George Harrison solo effort rather than a Beatles song.
     
  18. dmiller458

    dmiller458 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Midland, Michigan
    IMO it's real good commercial hard rock with a distinct power metal vibe.
     
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  19. dmiller458

    dmiller458 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Midland, Michigan
    You must be talking about the US only. From the mid-late 90s, Britpop ruled the UK.
     
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  20. Exile On My Street

    Exile On My Street Senior Member

    Location:
    Long Island, NY
    It is my understanding that Slash is not on that song, Axl overdubbed Paul Tobias over Slash's guitar. Am I misinterpreting that? Maybe both of their solos are there together?

    Either way the final song/mix was not approved by the entire band, Axl made the final adjustments on the song so it was an Axl approved mix, Slash hadn't even heard what Axl had done until the song was officially released. So while most of the band was featured on this song, it was all Axl's vision of how/what he wanted.

    I would bet all of the Beatles were fully aware of how the final mix of I Me Mine sounded prior to release.

    Either way it makes no difference to me. It's a pretty ****ty cover any way you slice it.
     
    Last edited: Oct 26, 2017
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  21. The Doctor

    The Doctor Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Philidelphia, PA
    Slash is on the song, in the right channel of your headphones (as on Appetite, Slash is on the right channel there as well). Paul Huge has some lead lines in the left channel at various points in the song, but they're nothing major; they're also easy to figure out if you listen because his tone is very different from Slash's (the tone is thinner, and sounds a bit cheaper, perhaps because it was recorded so quickly) and his style, while bluesy, is more "90s" than Slash's if that makes any sense. What people get confused on is how Slash words it. Basically, Paul's biggest contribution to the song is during the first solo. Axl overdubbed Paul doing "answer" riffs to Slash's solo. Like, little filler riffs that basically echo what Slash's first solo is playing. It's the same solo, it's just the effect is a "call and response" type of interplay between the two players through the overdub.
    What Paul did was that he doubled the first solo, only with a much louder tune, to bring forth an impression of a ghostly 'call and response', despite both guitarists actually playing the same notes.

    "Paul Huge came in with Axl... Then Axl went in to do vocals, and the next thing you know, there's this "answer" guitar going on during my guitar solo! It's Paul Huge! It really took me off guard. It's not like it was lousy guitar playing or anything; I think it's how it went down." (Slash, Kerrang, 01/95)

    It's pretty ironic though that Slash complained about another guitar player overshadowing his parts when on the Illusion records, Slash, in his own words "doubled up" on Izzy's parts. If you listen to any Illusion song, there's 3 major guitar parts: A very low in the mix simple rhythm part by Izzy; A much louder and more elaborate version of what Izzy is playing as done by Slash; and then Slash's lead guitar. Izzy's guitar contributions to the Illusion records, even on songs he wrote or sings on, were mostly overdubbed by Slash to the point of being almost inaudible. This also happened live. Listen to any UYI show from 1991. You can just barely hear Izzy playing, and sometimes you don't even hear him playing at all. Bear in mind, Izzy was clean by 1990 when the UYI records were recorded. They would mute or lower his amp just to be cruel.

    Izzy: "On the [Use Your Illusion records], I wasn't around for the mixes, and when they finished them you really don't hear my guitar at all. It was just a big Les Paul through a Marshall sound on most of the songs. Live, it got to the point where I didn't even know if the audience could hear my guitar."

    This was a big change to the band's sound, because on Appetite, Izzy and Slash would trade rhythm and lead parts in a way similar to Keith Richards and Mick Taylor in the Stones. It created an awesome dynamic tension which helped fuel the angry sound of that album, as well as gave listeners two awesome players with two very different styles who complemented each other well.

    For example, Welcome to the Jungle, Izzy's parts only:


    Welcome to the Jungle, Slash's parts only
    Welcome to the Jungle - Slash only
     
  22. Matthew Tate

    Matthew Tate Forum Resident

    Location:
    Richmond, Virginia

    twisted sisters first album?
     
  23. Purple

    Purple Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA
    Indeed. This is why I sometimes sigh when the forum dismisses the eighties, yet pine for the return to relevance of rock music. Pop charts of the eighties and early nineties were dominated by rock.
     
  24. Matthew Tate

    Matthew Tate Forum Resident

    Location:
    Richmond, Virginia
    well that's not true.
     
  25. Bingo Bongo

    Bingo Bongo Music gives me Eargasms

    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    I used to like Def Leppard......
     
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