The '80s: Was It Just Hair Metal, or Were a Few of Us Actually Listening?

The pervasiveness of media has become such that our memories are becoming devalued. Shared collective experiences ossify, and history is no longer rewritten. Instead, it's rerun, on basic cable, every day of the year.

These thoughts come to mind after a recent experience watching a VH-1 retrospective on the music of the ‘80s. The first half-hour, at least, was devoted to a procession of hard rock and hair metal bands. Now I can handle giving some props to Van Halen or Def Leppard, who did put out some find radio fodder in their time. But to give the likes of Motley Crue or Ratt any air time, or more to the point, to treat them as contributors in any way, shape or form is ridiculous.

In the last four years of the ‘80s, I worked at a chain record store. Not the proudest work experience of my life, but I can't change that now. Anyway, this store was located in Downers Grove, Illinois (subject of Emo Phillips' song "Downtown Downers Grove"), which, I learned, was considered a ‘metal town.' (What that did to property values, I do not know). And the staff was comprised mostly of teenagers whose hair was mostly held in place with hairspray and whose musical taste was mostly defined by such luminaries as Warrant, Danger Danger, Tora Tora and Winger.

And folks, let me tell you, I had the misfortune of being force fed some of the most loathsome music ever produced in rock history. Now, I'll concede one point and one point only. Almost every hair metal band had one song that was designed to get on the radio, and that song would sometimes have a melody, a hook and a cool lead guitar line. In fact, I'll aver that "Fallen Angel" by Poison is pretty much perfect power pop, White Lion's "Wait" was one well-constructed song, and, despite the fact that I would fell ill just by looking at Taime Downe, the cloying frontman whose androgyny made him look like the living embodiment of one of those big-eyed kids you see in velvet paintings, Warrant's "Down Boys" is great to sing along to.

Correspondingly, every hair metal band had at least one turgid power ballad that had all the appeal of water torture, with piss substituted for water. Once you got past the radio rocker and the power ballad(s), the basic hair metal album was comprised of three types of songs: the songs written before doing coke, the songs written while doing coke, and the songs written after doing coke. All of these songs were recorded before, during and after doing coke.

The songs were these odd combinations of laziness and egotism, as the most basic combinations of notes and chords were set to tempos that either plodded or boogied lifelessly, with periodic bursts of shrieking guitar or shrieking lead vocalist. These songs were songs only in the sense that they took a form of a song, with verses and choruses and such. But the sheer cynicism that these performers had in unleashing torrents of such unoriginal and uninspired music is galling. Add the chronicles of vacuous partying and rampant sexism – hey, what's there not to hate?

Yet, thanks to MTV and VH1, who jammed this crap up our asses back in the ‘80s, we are now apparently married to this stuff. Try this out – talk to a less musically wise co-worker or pal about ‘80s music. More than likely, they'll immediately talk about some hair metal artist. If not immediately, wait a few minutes, it'll come up. I don't see this changing. Now that this televised history has been committed to tape and film, we're probably stuck with it.

This bothers me, because the ‘80s, particularly the first half of the decade, were an incredibly fertile period for rock, where artists tried different styles, indie music gained an American foothold, and traditional musical styles were polished off and made to shine anew. In the meantime, the threads of post-punk were lengthened further, and although R & B was beginning its seemingly slow death, rap was an exciting new musical force.

Only portions of this legacy are being honored. Even then, the shit is going to rise to the top. Take rap – any VH1 take on the genre in the ‘80s will have to trot out M.C. Hammer and Vanilla Ice. This would be like doing a ‘60s music retrospective and devoting substantial time to Freddie and the Dreamers and Bobby Sherman.

Under these conditions, it's hard to imagine that punk would have ever been remembered. Think about this – in the 900 part History of Rock and Roll documentary that has made the rounds on VH1, TLC and PBS, there is a significant chunk devoted to punk. Granted, some of the CBGB's crowd (Blondie, Patti Smith, Talking Heads) had commercial success, but The Sex Pistols and Ramones did not make a true commercial impact. By contrast, it's hard to imagine that I'll see an ‘80s retrospective that recognizes the contributions of Madness (criminally underrated band), The Jesus And Mary Chain, the first true alt-country wave (Jason and the Scorchers, The Blasters, The Long Ryders), influential acts like Big Black and Cabaret Voltaire...you get the point.

It's not that all that stuff should be recognized based upon my deluded, idealized notion of rock history – it's that MTV has frozen memories to the point that there may be no chance for revision. Back when I worked at the record store, while my ears tried to ignore the Slaughter album mewling out of the speakers, I'd tell my younger co-workers how this music would be forgotten in 20 years. I'd use the example of Grand Funk Railroad – a band that scored 10 consecutive gold or platinum albums, and whose impact on rock history has been boiled down to one great rocker ("We're an American Band") and a few fluffy top 40 singles, while their successful but lame bluesy hard rock has disappeared into the fog.
Sadly, it looks like I was wrong. The lowest common denominator has gotten the upper hand. Yeah, I know that part of the nostalgia for this stuff is grounded in an ironic sensibility. But going to see Motley Crue even devalues irony – laughing at something that is bad because it aspires to be good has its charm (like an Ed Wood movie, say what you want, but Wood had ambition, or an early Sting album), but laughing at something that is bad because it is a piece of shit due to nothing more than a parallel lack of talent and effort – what's the point? It's the entertainment equivalent of going to a grocery store in the ghetto (‘hey, I just paid four bucks for a gallon of milk – cool") or sitting in some overbooked HMO PCP's waiting room.

Well, I better end here – I gotta get tickets for Dawn Wells (Mary Ann of Gilligan's Island) in The Vagina Monologues.

Column note: Last month, I wrote that I was going to do a column on the ethics of CD burning. I'm still working on the column, so I would love any and all opinions on the subject from you folks out there in front of your PCs and Macs. Write me at mike_bennett@fufkin.com.

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