Metal Rules! an article by Wendy C.

Emotions churning, I log on to LIVE 365, where a sub-channel—manned by a mysterious person with the handle “masmith”—called Rusty Metal Radio harkens back to the heyday of heavy metal mayhem by spinning out such classics as “Over the Mountain” by none other than the king of reality TV, Ozzy Osbourne (formerly the King of Darkness). I am transported to those tumultuous teen days when I was 14 and I wished Ozzy were my dad. Or so I told my best friend Marci. In reality, he scared me so bad I don’t think I wanted much to do with him except hear him sing. But as I got older (15, 16), Ozzy did impress me as being one of the few true metal heroes while I continued to worship the ground that many a sleazy hairy metal icon walked on. They all had that certain way of pulling off teased tresses, pouty lips, and spangle bracelets while still managing (or so I somehow thought) to look manly and sexy. Eventually I came to the realization that this brand of pop music was little more than a calculated farce, a big money-women-and-wine-generating machine that chewed us fans and spit us out. When being a fan’s band, all about the jeans-not-spandex (‘cause that is what their fans wore) and no-makeup, no love songs, was what Metallica thought made the most monetary sense, they did it with gusto. They were heroic, true-blue, the real deal.
Then came Nirvana. As a flannel brigade came to steal the show away from flashy guitar rifts, pyrotechnically enhanced stage shows, and songs about having “Nothin’ But a Good Time”, all eyes were on the “alternative” end of the spectrum. No longer were fans and industry folks interested in the latest schlock ballad from Warrant—they wanted the latest theme angst anthem from the dark suicidal minds of Seattle residents. Warrant found themselves unhappily out of a their ingenious way of making bimbos swoon even as they paraded themselves around in white leather. No longer did Kelly Bundy wear her usual video vixen clothes on “Married With Children” (a show whose following was probably made up of the same crowd that had filled arenas for the likes of Anthrax in the past) but quickly began to go the 90s equivalent of slutty: Melrose Place chic. She’d wear jeans and loose blouses a la Sydney Andrews, and sometimes even a baby dress or two, minus Courtney Love’s smeared makeup. It seemed everyone was abandoning metal, jumping ship while it was still feasible to say you never had anything to do with it. For those who were irrevocably involved, like my former pin-up boys in the bands, the backlash was so harsh you would think they were accused murderers. Even OJ doesn’t have it so bad.
In their defense: they saw a good thing and went into it full-steam-ahead. They had probably been big fans of both Ozzy in his Black Sabbath days and the New York Dolls and Alice Cooper in the glam-rock days. That was probably a great way to experience the rock ‘n’ roll fantasy. Being depressed and brainy was probably no fun and all these guys wanted was to have fun the All American way. I think to myself that I just can’t blame them, really. So it was tacky. And maybe goofy. So what? We enjoyed ourselves, we were entertained.
Metallica must have sensed the fall-out would be huge. Already in the same year Nirvana released “Nevermind”, their smash breakthrough album, Metallica was enjoying the success of their first more-commercial (and more commercially promoted) effort, the so-called “Black Album”. I thought it was okay but deep down I knew it kinda sucked. Where was the mayhem? Where was the speed metal? It was all gone in favor of a more polished, acceptable format. They never got swept up in the death of hair metal wave. Instead, they became icons of a new generation of metaldom that had crossed paths with “alternative” flavors to form Nu Metal—a genre I detest.
I got over hair metal at the time that it was beginning to destroy itself with its excesses anyway. There was a whole new crop of bands that all sounded alike and just tidily fit into the formula. Most wanted a piece of the action- the groupies, the adoration, the glam life style. They had nothing real to offer.
They were not Guns ‘N’ Roses. When G’N’R was hitting the club circuit in Hollywood, my mama was a little too afraid to let me go see bands by myself, so I never caught them. Still, I collected the free black-and-white rags that record stores had at their doors and saw reviews for the band. Pretty soon, because of their EP, they were getting noticed by the color, $3.99- a pop legitimate magazines like Hit Parader and Circus. They were being touted as the next big thing and with good reason. They were.
Everyone who was interested and was around in those days remembers that famous Poison vs. Guns ‘N’ Roses feud. I believe it all started when Slash tried out for Poison but did not fit their pretty-boy image. One of the first pictures of Axl Rose to circulate widely was one in which he wore his hair teased up (like in the “Welcome to the Jungle” video) and had on leather pants with the words “Glam Sucks” down the leg. It seemed rather hypocritical coming from a guy in lipstick. But Axl and the rest of the Gunners turned out to be a whole lot different from their peers. They had this gritty street passion and real innovation that stood them out. In 1986, when the Long Beach, CA radio station KNAC started playing the Guns ‘N’ Roses tunes “My Michelle” and later “Rocket Queen” I knew that these guys were special. They just weren’t putting out all that schlock rock like Def Leppard had started to. (For those of you who can appreciate their younger years, I am sure to agree with you on the genius of “Pyromania” and even “High and Dry” but by the time I was a full-fledged metal head, they had descended to the likes of “Hysteria”).
I think MTV hurt metal much more than it helped it. When it was still “underground” it was all about being a headbanger. When it became the latest trend on MTV, it became about a look, a pose, a whole tightly packaged promotion. No one seemed to care anymore—save for Guns ‘N’ Roses and perhaps the speed metalers—that the music was second. Even in the case of the Roses, when they got airplay on MTV for “Welcome to the Jungle” they began to change. By the time MTV made “Sweet Child O’ Mine” a bona fide hit, the song had been playing on KNAC for a year. I had loved the song for obvious reasons but it suddenly became that year’s “Inspiration”. It lost its meaning quickly. I thought Axl looked super-cute in the video, especially the grainy images of him, but it wasn’t what the song had meant to me or spoken to me as a 15-year-old on the school bus with people who didn’t get it.
Pretty soon I gave into it and was just excited to have metal “rule the airwaves” or at least MTV. All my favorite bands were pretty much on heavy rotation. This infuriated “true” metal fans who suddenly started hating the likes of Poison and Winger (probably with good reason) and an all-out war began between “poseurs” and real metalheads who hated any one in lipstick who sang about being in love but worshipped all the ugly guys who howled about hate, misery, and whatever else is bleak and horrible. (Metallica even had a song called “The Thing That Should Not Be”) It took me a couple of years to catch up, but I soon too decided to shun anything “poseur” and was soon giving into the peer pressure of listening to speed metal only. My best friend Marci, who had gotten me into metal in the first place, had a lot of stoner guy friends and I think that as usual, the men were putting it on the women- claiming anything that attracted “a lot of chicks” was fake and worthless. So to show them that we were “for real” we went the speed metal route. It was a farce for me. I wasn’t as into it. I missed Dokken and Def Leppard and Motley Crue and the bands that made sense. I was sick of ugly guys and their ugly themes.
I subsisted on a steady diet of Metallica, pretty much the only band worth listening to in that whole genre. I liked and even respected Megadeth but they were just not as fierce and credible. They were a little sloppy in their delivery- probably due to Dave Mustaine’s critical drug problems. In 1988, when I went to the Monsters of Rock tour, I was proud of every band there (except Kingdom Come). They all rocked but all had a different way of rocking. Dokken at the time were having internal problems but their harmony and melodic rock about heartache was always worth tons of applause in my book. Metallica caused a riot and of course stole the show. The Scorpions were like veteran rockers who showed that you can keep rocking hard through the years. And Van Halen, the headliners, were still heroes for most.
This tour and the bands involved kind of sum up for me the heyday of heavy metal. I know for some the heyday might have been earlier in the decade, like in the first wave of success for metal- when Iron Maiden and Def Leppard were the best bands around. But for me, it is the way that things went down that summer that will forever tickle my fancy. Nothing can ever compare to the roaring of a crowd as “hair metal” kings go through a set of respectable love songs in the key of metal like Dokken did, or the way there is utter pandemonium for a speed-conscious precision band like Metallica, or the glee of surrendering to the Scorpions’ anthems of old, and finally to the good old fun rock masterfully put down by the Van Halen brothers. It was this variety that made me happy.
That is why I hate tuning in to “classic rock” stations hoping to recapture that, because they always fall short. Too much dinosaur rock and no hair metal at all. They are still trying to avoid the infamy. Why can’t they embrace it? And stations that used to cater to a snotty “alternative” (once “new wave”) crowd now play all of Metallica’s old stuff along with the new (crap) to satisfy newbie fans. But this isn’t like tuning into KNAC—not if you must listen to all the new crop of would-be “punk” rockers or yesteryear’s goth and all the other stuff that doesn’t fit in.
Then there’s the nu metal. It’s a continuation of the old- but it is only speed metal mixed with a little rap and a little grunge and it sounds dull, sad, bleak and boring. It sounds the same and it has nothing to offer me. Give me hair, headbanging, fun, nonsense, macho posturing, but not this travesty!
We can never go back in time nor do we really want to. I discovered I had fallen for the image of a lot of these rockers like Motley Crue and that they really weren’t people worth my admiration. (Most of these men I “loved” were misogynistic, homophobic, and probably racist). And when I got free of speed metal and pursued true punk for the first time, as well as the funky fun of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I knew there was a whole new world to explore and was finally led down to indie rock and pop and electronica. But I can never help being excited when I listen to those old familiar chords of songs that will forever be tattooed to my mind the way most of my favorite rockers tattooed their arms. I want to jump and shout, and yes, bang my head. It’s fun, sometimes sad (I don’t mean sad as in “how sad she still likes that crap” but SAD- those days are OVER), but it is something that I can never and will never get away from. Long live AC/DC, Aerosmith (up to “Permanent Vacation”), Angel of Death, Anthrax, Armored Saint, (let’s see how far I get just from memory), Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult, Bon Jovi (though they don’t really count as metal, not even hair metal), Cinderella, the Cult (they played them a lot on KNAC so I have to include them even though they would balk at the inclusion) David Lee Roth, Def Leppard, Dokken, Doro Pesch, D.R.I, Exodus, Fates Warning, Femme Fetale, Great White, Guns ‘N’ Roses, Helix, Impelliteri, Iron Maiden, Joe Satriani, Junkyard, Kix, Krokus, Lita Ford, L.A. Guns, Love/Hate, Manowar, Megadeth, Metallica, Motley Crue, Motorhead, Nazareth, Ozzy Osbourne, Overkill, Poison, Queensryche, Quiet Riot, Ratt, Sammy Hagar, Saxon, Slayer, Suicidal Tendencies, Testament, Van Halen, Warrant, Warlock, White Lion, Whitesnake, XYZ, Yngwie Malmsteem!
You may for the most part be suffering under a great stigma, but you are the beloved heroes of many. Rock on!