Rockissue

What's in a Name? Apparently Everything: Nöthin' but a Good Time: The Uncensored Oral History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion

Tom Beaujour and Richard Blenstock's Nöthin' but a Good Time: The Uncensored Oral History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion, another example of the trend toward oral histories of Rock music—most of which, in contrast, cover Punk scenes—has undoubtedly led many readers to revisit the Hair Metal of the Eighties. Some got to experience the music first-hand. Others like me, too young at the time, only heard the music via M. T. V. and cassettes purchased at stores like Camelot Music. Not the first kid, and certainly not the last, who had Poison posters on his wall, then grew up and left such tawdry things behind, only to make a nostalgic return to the music, I have found upon such rediscoveries that most Hair Metal, if strictly defined as a genre, is—sadly, unfortunately—I swear I want to like it!—forgettable crap: in other words, trashy pop music par excellence offering one-hit wonders like Europe's ‘The Final Countdown’ and Autograph's ‘Turn Up the Radio’, and responsible for at least one classic Eighties blockbuster album, Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet. Beyond the impressive determination (if not consistent musical results) on display in the career of Mötley Crüe, Hair Metal can reasonably be said to have played a major role in derailing the development of Rock-and-Roll as a popular music that achieves the historical significance and artistic stature previously reserved for classical and folk traditions. Or, more simply, as one of the big reasons why the Eighties, compared to the Seventies, sucked.

But is that still the verdict in 2021? Sure, it was the consensus in 1992, when the genre abruptly fell off the top-selling charts. The eons that have passed since may have changed things, at least a little. Hair Metal's reputation, after what I call the Alternative Moment of 1992-1994 was taken over by the dreadfully-earnest, pathetically-dour, and sonically-atrocious "Modern Rock" of Creed, the Dave Matthews Band, Linkin Park, Coldplay, etc., has improved, is still perhaps getting better. When the “alternative” was Nickelback instead of Soundgarden, we do not have to wonder why a small-scale revival of Hair Metal was up and running by the turn of the century. After all, some of those involved in the Eighties Metal scenes were having fun at least. Who has fun listening to Matchbox 20? “Fun” is not the right word. Perhaps catharsis, for repressed people who cannot withstand the sheerest hint of faggotry in the music they listen to and succumbed to the terrifying timidity of social behavior and discourse characteristic of the “War on Terror” years and their sister successor: the narcissist no-attention-span neo-tribalist shithole of the "smart phone" age. In these Twenty-Twenties, the Sunset Strip circa 1985 sounds like heaven. (A digression: Who will write the history of mainstream American Rock music across the last four decades? Who could explain the sad devolution from the liberated social mores—granted, only for men—of the Eighties to the anger and angst of the Nineties and Aughts? This story is already topsy turvy: the Hair Metal dudes are like the "Modern Rock" dudes if the latter went to therapy, spent a year or two locked up at the Esalen Institute.)

Having said all that, though, when you listen to Hair Metal, and only listen to it, it is mostly awful. This deficiency, I initially find hard to explain. Why not make a version of Heavy Metal that aimed for a teenage audience of millions and took the Glam fashions of the Seventies to ridiculous extremes? That sounds worth the effort and, potentially, quite amazing. Moreover, in this book the artists come across as serious working musicians. Much emphasis is placed on how band members and their friends would trek all over Los Angeles, putting up flyers and posters to promote their gigs, often papering over or removing those of other bands. Another important narrative relates how long it took Twisted Sister and Quiet Riot to achieve the mainstream success that finally came their way in the years, 1983-1984; as a result, younger bands like Mötley Crüe, whose breakout album Shout at the Devil came out in 1983, would not have to work so long and tirelessly. In other words, this is an inspiring story: artists vindicated after years of obscurity, taking a lascivious and humorous brand of Rock serving as a necessary counterweight to the plain-Jane likes of John Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen to the top of the charts. But then (yes, “but then,” documentarian Adam Curtis's favorite two words) I actually listen to the music. And beyond Guns n' Roses and Def Leppard, the results are spotty. Real spotty. I would put the book down, break out old dusty cassettes by L. A. Guns or Kix untouched since 1991, look up White Lion, Dokken, Ratt, and Great White videos online, straining to remember watching them when I was a wee kid, eager to give them “another chance”, to no avail... always sorely disappointed at how bad the music still is. Slick but bland, the dumbest lyrics imaginable, saccharine ballads that the bands seem obliged to do, melodically dead on arrival. Again, beyond the biggest hits and other instances where the genre's basic ingredients gelled right. WASP's 'Animal (Fuck like a Beast)'—who doesn't love that one?

Perhaps the main problem I had as I read Beaujour and Blenstock's book is that an explanation for Hair Metal's mediocrity does not pop out. Of course, the authors do not consider the music to be mediocre. But a good history nonetheless would indicate to those of us who do consider it such why Hair Metal, musically speaking, flops hard. The only immediate answer seems to come from the continued disputed status of the genre name itself—or, rather, in this case, it not being considered a separate genre, or sub-genre, at all. As the book's subtitle suggests, the authors do not like the term, Hair Metal. They do not use Glam Metal either, even as that has become the officially-sanctioned name. (As if Hair Metal artists were Twenty-First-Century hysterical elite college students complaining about how the words, “Hair Metal,” literally endanger their bodies and only a respectful term could make them “whole.”) In turn, Beaujour and Blenstock, having set themselves up with such a broad topic ("Hard Rock") being covered in minute detail via excerpts from a large number of interviews, have faced criticism and confusion stemming from their choice of which artists to include. Even casual fans can come up with obvious omissions. Night Ranger, for example, would probably not be a major subject in any history of Hair Metal, but their two key albums, Dawn Patrol and Midnight Madness, are fine examples of Hard Rock shading into mainstream pop. In other words, a great deal of the mainstream Rock of the next decade. Most critiques of the oral history, instead, do not understand how Def Leppard only come up a few times, or Bon Jovi are present largely as aiders and abettors of the two key non-L. A. Hair Metal bands, Cinderella and Skid Row. Def Leppard, in fact, are positioned as an established act. This decision is fair. The “Second Wave of British Heavy Metal”, out of which that band emerged, had rather suddenly made a splash right around 1980. I would simply recommend that the authors explain, even if only in a footnote, how Def Leppard branched off from their “Second Wave” peers to make their music more exactly tailored to the mainstream U.S. market. Bon Jovi, on the other hand, were not veterans like Kiss, Ozzy Osbourne, and Alice Cooper, all of whom found a new sense of direction in these years, in Ozzy's case using younger bands as talent pools, and, like Def Leppard, are present in the book as elders pondering their progeny. Bon Jovi started around the same time as WASP or Poison. There is a brief hint about Bon Jovi's early history, suggesting that their namesake always wanted the band to be more of a straight-up Hard Rock band; this is well documented—unsurprising given the prominent family member (producer Tony Bongiovi) who helped along the younger “Bon Jovi.” And of course, Bon Jovi would position themselves as just another “regular guy” Rock band, closer to their fellow Jerseyian Springsteen than to Heavy Metal, in the post-Alternative era. Neither fact justifies the authors' compartmentalizing of the band, especially when they demur from using the term, Hair Metal. Again, if the authors dislike the phrase, why not include Night Ranger and similar acts tightening and toughening the sounds of late-Seventies/ early-Eighties Arena Rock? Indeed, given that the book begins with artists at work in L. A. at the tail end of the Seventies, when—as the authors show—Van Halen's success was interpreted by Metal musicians of that city as a cruel exception, dashing their hopes of easy money, druggy excess, and groupie glory, additional overview of the Rock world in the years, 1978-1982, preceding Hair Metal's glory days would have significantly improved this book. The stories of Twisted Sister and Quiet Riot would be highlighted more. Other bands came together very slowly and fitfully, including Ratt and Great White, a topic discussed at times in the book, especially in Dokken's case, but which could have been emphasized even more, raising the prospect of a history that focuses more on commercial and professional failure than success. The overwhelming obvious influence of Kiss could have been covered in greater detail too.

In short, the authors' distaste for the term, Hair Metal, is ill-advised. The inability or unwillingness to consider the Hair bands both separately and, then, in relation to other Metal genres, hinders any understanding of why most of their music seems so simplistic and uninspired. The answer: unwarranted high expectations due to its astounding, undeserved popular success. We had not seen before a situation wherein many of the highest-selling Rock acts were obviously not committed to changing, revolutionizing even, the music they grew up with. The contrast between Slippery When Wet or Mötley Crüe's biggest hits and, say, the debut Boston album or Fleetwood Mac's Rumours ten years earlier, is striking. The mainstream of Rock-and-Roll in the Seventies had been a world with ample room for homegrown experimentalists, provocative gadflies, and road-tested live bands. The trad sounds of Phil Collins, Huey Lewis, et al., combined with Hair Metal, dealt mainstream Rock a debilitating blow--yes, ultimately killed it: the Alternative Moment was a mirage. Even Def Leppard, willing to incorporate electronic sounds quite effortlessly, took on a traditionalist attitude on the surface. With Guns n' Roses, it was not innovation, a radical new approach, that astounded listeners, but rather a return to “roots,” with many straining to believe that straight-laced Hard Rock/ old-fashioned Metal (with obvious Blues influences—the audacity!) could still sound like a band in a room. A fairly-complex arrangement (a Venn diagram maybe) of Hard Rock, Glam Metal, and Hair Metal, would push some of the Hair Metal bands out of the limelight they never deserved. For all its suggestion of snide condescension, the term, Hair Metal, effectively delineates those artists included in the genre from those not. The term, Glam Metal, is not superior; the Glam influence with many of the later artists largely manifested itself in fashion, cosmetics, and, most of all, the adoption of feminine hair styles. Artists who are definitely or could be considered Glam Rock, like the New York Dolls, or early Glam Metal, namely Kiss, Alice Cooper, and Hanoi Rocks, also influenced Guns n' Roses, who can be defined as a cross between Glam Metal and general Hard Rock. That set-up then makes Mötley Crüe, who were also obviously influenced by Glam Rock, a mix of Glam Metal and Hair Metal. As the years go by, and younger groups like Warrant and Winger come to the fore, the Glam element seems to go missing. What's left is the capitalized Hair, and the Metal stylings stuffed into the square peg of popular music in those late Eighties-early Nineties years when the M. T. V. mainstream in America became unbearably kid-friendly and superficial (see: New Kids on the Block, Debbie Gibson, Milli Vanilli, Wilson Phillips, M. C. Hammer). Thankfully, Beaujour and Blenstock are tougher with these younger artists, acknowledging that there were an excess of bands pursuing the same sounds and fashions but without the authenticity or bravado exemplified only a few years earlier by Poison, perhaps the exemplary Hair-Glam band, the unserious counterpart to Mötley Crüe. As an oral history, Nöthin' but a Good Time gives the reader plenty of entertainment, and it could have done more if its authors had embraced the term, Hair Metal. That is, embrace the reality that dumb fun and superficiality are the qualities that listeners were looking for in the music back then and still look for now, decades later.

The number of reviews of this book available online is astounding, excessive, and ironically an indication of lack of serious criticism. One review, from Zengrrl's Michelle Snow, who notes that during the Hair Metal heyday she ran the Milwaukee-based magazine, Rock Hard Forum, at least offers an important critique: that Geri Miller, of Metal Edge magazine, was not interviewed. Another review, at Cryptic Rock, lists some artists that are excluded and effectively summarizes the book. The long-running Pop Matters offers up an idiosyncratic take on the book and its historical context. Befitting its history, Houston Press, once a printed weekly newspaper, now online-only, provides more background, including quotes from the book authors, and local color in its review. Once again confirming my bias in favor of sources of information that at least started not online or have a non-online presence, the Minnesota N. P. R. station known as the Current has a feature called the Rock and Roll Book Club, presented online and on the radio. Written by Jay Gabler, its review is more substantive than the numerous reviews found at blogs, e-zines, and other websites. Of these, none are of any value to the reader. Several positive reviews are so short the authors cannot effectively explain why they're giving a positive review: 2 Book Lovers Review; Thunder Bay Arena Rock; Sleaze Roxx; Rewind It; Pencil Storm; New Noise; Maximum Threshold; Metal Sludge; Lovely Bookshelf; Culture Sonar; Clutter. A negative review at the once-printed e-zine Screamer apparanetly stems from the reviewer not understanding the oral-history format.

For more of a profile of the two authors, the New Jersey Arts organization has an extensive article that accompanied an online talk presented by the Hoboken bookstore Little City Books.

–Justin J Kaw, October 2021