THE BIG BOOK OF HAIR METAL: Even The Kitschiest Rock Has A History
Did any popular music trend fall out of favor asinstantly and completely as hair metal? For nearly a decade, it ruled the roostcommercially speaking in the hard rock world, much to the chagrin of manydyed-in-the-denim metalheads, and it dominated rock radio, MTV and the recordcharts during this time. However, when Nirvana swept in the grunge revolution ofthe early '90s, the Aqua-Netted hair farmers were quickly dumped by theirlabels and relegated to the clubland backwaters of the rock circuit. Only discodied off as quickly and with as much resentment as hair metal - and disco wasable to thrive in the clubs, mutate into new forms and get revived in ways hairmetal has not.
But even the most retroactively uncool of pop culturephenomenons can have a fascinating history behind them - and Martin Popoffmakes such a case for the pop metal of the '80s in The Big Book Of Hair Metal. For this tome, Popoff uses the year-by-year format: after quickintroductory sections on the '60s and '70s, you get a chapter a year for everyyear from 1980 through 1991. The book iscoffee table-sized and benefits from an attractive layout rich with eye-poppingphotos, album covers and ads. The latterelement adds to the engaging quality of the read.
Each chapter takes the form of an oral history fromseveral musicians and other industry figures involved in the hair metal sceneas well as the occasional onlooker from a different corner of the business (themost unique and vicious is alt-rock musician and producer Steve Albini). For example, producer Beau Hill gets deepinto a number of topics like his on/off relationship with Ratt, who seemed toresent him despite his role in their most successful years, and the motivationsbehind using outside musicians and songwriters on particular projects. Labelexecutives Tom Zutaut and Derek Shulman offer an insight into what motivatedparticular signing choices and why particular musicans thrived: Shulman hassome insights on why Jon Bon Jovi became so big and Zutaut offers insight intothe early days of his most famous signing, Guns 'N Roses.
Popoff limits his authorial content to long-paragraphintros and sidebars with date-specific information for each chapter but they'reall worth reading as they set up and discuss a number of interesting trendsthat occured during the hair metal era. For instance, the US Festival's"Hard Rock Day" in 1983 was a Beatles-on-Ed-Sullivan moment in termsof kicking of the genre's era of pop culture dominance and the rise of Guns 'NRoses and their grittier, rootsier strain of hair metal gave rise to a subgenrewithin the subgenre known as "dirty hair metal." A particularlyinteresting running theme is how established bands would take on hair metalstylings to stay current: the Scorpions and Kiss are obvious examples but otherinteresting ones include Journey circa RaisedOn Radio and even southern-rockers like Blackfoot and Molly Hatchet.
In the usual chronicle-of-a-music-genre book, theclosing years of a major era are less interesting than the beginning and middleyears but The Big Book Of Hair Metaloffers an interesting exception to that rule. Popoff points out how some bandsrallied with strong albums late in the day and how later signings wouldintroduce other elements (blues, funk, power pop, even prog elements) into themix. You also get some frank testimony on the boondoggle that was Moscow MusicPeace Festival - there's a pretty scathing eyewitness account from EricBrittingham of Cinderella - and the specific factors that led to Wingerbecoming a pop culture punchline despite best-selling albums and the presenceof serious musos in the band.
Perhaps the most important material in the latter partof the book is the discussion of the high cost of being part of the hair metalscene. There is plentiful discussion of how music videos became a budget-eatingline item for bands and how so many bands ended up with little money despitecommercial success due to the blockbuster costs of recording, touring and allthose music videos. As a result, the book paints a predatory picture of musicbusiness practices, particularly when different band members reveal how quicklyand cruelly the labels dumped them after grunge became the hot new sound.
In short, The Big Book Of Hair Metal is not only an entertaining read but an important look at a time that rock histories usually shrug off as silly. Sure, you'll experience a certain amount of ego in these pages - the members of Motley Crue and Poison have a high opinion of their work and, on Poison's part, more than a little defensiveness - but such moments are balanced out by insightful, likeably down-to-earth commentary from musicians in bands like Dangerous Toys, Warrant and Britny Fox. Most of them obviously enjoy the chance to speak their minds in a sympathetic forum. Combine that with Popoff's savvy insights about the era and you have a winner for anyone interested in hard rock anthropology.