Ick

The Grunge Gold Rush Followed the Hair Metal Gold Rush Part I

I had to smirk when I read this article about how once Nirvana exploded with tons of sales, the record labels went scouring for similar bands. At the time, many people seemed to treat that action like it had never been done before, but it had. I lived through the record companies doing it the previous time - I call it "the Los Angeles hair metal explosion" that followed the success of Quiet Riot's "Cum On Feel the Noize" in 1983ish. Soon after that, Dokken, Ratt, Poison, LA Guns, BulletBoys, and other CA bands emerged. Not to be outdone, Bon Jovi, Cinderella, and Britny Fox emerged from the East coast.

Nowadays, there is an authentic disdain for many of those bands. What irks me is when people grumble about how those bands were not talented. I never agree with those statements. Granted, Poison's "Talk Dirty to Me" is not Chopin, but neither is AC/DC's "Back in Black" or Van Halen's "Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love." The point is that those aforementioned bands that grew to popularity in the 80s metal movement were musicians. White Lion's Vito Bratta constructed awesome guitar riffs; Ratt's Warren DeMartini did as well.

Usually what happens is that fans who make generalized statements about an entire genre of music didn't grow up listening to it. That's why I think I have more patience with those bands than with the 90s Alternative / Grunge movement. In 1991, I was a senior in college and by spring 1992, Nirvana was a 'thing' that was followed by Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam. I can wholeheartedly deny ever spending as many hours with Soundgarden's "Louder than Love" as I spent with Ratt's "Out of the Cellar" and that's really okay. Alternative / Grunge bands were just too trippy for me - too out there. I wanted Pearl Jam to make tunes like "Even Flow" and "Alive" instead of "Jeremy" (which I still consider to be an awful tune) because that was what I was used to hearing from bands. Smashing Pumpkins didn't do anything for me until they released the tune with the "Today is the greatest day" lyrics; I'd deny I ever purchased "Siamese Dream" but it came with the CDs I purchased in Indy from the fireman - can't say his name.

Continued in Part II

Did you know

Did You Know? The iconic arcade game “Pac-Man” was released as “Puck Man” in Japan due to the titular character’s hockey puck-like shape–but when released in English speaking countries, it was changed to Pac-Man so that the arcade cabinets couldn’t be easily vandalized into displaying something obscene.

From howtogeek.com

80s

Okay... definitely, I consider myself a child of the 80s. It's what I grew up with. There was, of course, a lot of good music in that decade and a lot of not-so-good. I know some of it was good because the classic rock station played both "Home Sweet Home" and "I Wanna Rock" while I was at the North Liberty pool today. Both Motley Crue and Twisted Sister are artists that survived that decade and now their songs are considered "classic rock." The same station played Foghat's "Slow Ride." It was fun to be walking up to the water slide and have Alex and I both air guitaring to it. They also played "China Grove" (the Doobie Brothers) and Led Zeppelin's "Dancing Days." Anyways, the 80s were a lot of fun. Karen's brother plays in a band that plays a lot of 80s music - I know I've written about him previously on this blog - and I found the perfect shirt: http://tinyurl.com/58ovw2 but it got taken down, for whatever reason.

http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=TO&Product_Code=WON-80s&Category_Code=WON is the original link.

Apologies to my friend John to whom I sent this link prior to verifying it still existed.