Well now, we continue our discussion of heavy metal and talk about what happens when heavy metal really hits the big time. And for the most part this happens in the second half of the decade. Now, when I say that I want to re, remind you that a lot of the groups that I talked about in the previous video had pretty good commercial success. I mean some, you know, groups are, that have become pretty famous and, and infamous even now like Motorhead didn't have you know, a lot of commercial success in this country. But some of the others like Van Halen and others, they, they had some pretty good success. But it wasn't really a heavy metal movement or, or there weren't wasn't kind of a move toward that in the industry. But in the second half of the 1980's, things really begin to pick up for heavy metal. what interesting is some of the groups that, that help fuel the rise of heavy metal, are groups that most heavy metal fans don't even really think of as being heavy metal anymore. But at the time, they sort of, they were the ones who open the door through, which the other groups that are typically now thought of as the heavy metal bands were able to enter. and those two groups are Bon Jovi and Guns and Roses. Bon Jovi coming out of New Jersey led by lead singer John Bon Jovi and and guitarist Ritchie Sambora had a number one album in 1986 Number six in the UK with Slippery When Wet. The album had many of the features of the heavy metal rock that we were talking about from the first half of the decade. now Bon Jovi has subsequently not been thought of particularly as a heavy metal group, but in the day, at that moment, 1986-1987, when they were all over MTV. And this album was all over the radio and they were having, you know, big hits of three, three big hits on that record. You Give Love a Bad Name, a number one hit. Livin' on a Prayer, a number one hit. Wanted Dead or Alive, a number seven hit. Talk about that kind of saturation with this style. It really began to create a kind of a momentum, for heavy metal that later groups were able to, were able to, exploit. And in the, in the wake of Slippery When Wet. After all the success that that, that came with that. you get this group out of LA. Guns n' Roses made up of, of lead vocalist Axl Rose, and guitarist Slash and this 1987 album, Appetite for Destruction. A lot of industry insiders have said that's the album that really tipped the balance after. After Guns n' Roses, then things really started to head in the direction of what they were doing. And again, a lot of heavy metal fans would say that's not really heavy metal. But it was perceived as such at the time and opened the door for a lot of these other groups. Some of the groups we talked about in the last video had their greatest success in the second half of the video, in the second half of the decade. In the 1980s, after groups like Bon Jovi and Gun and Roses had, sort of, opened up the market for them to be able to to, to sell more records and to play bigger venues, and, and that kind of thing. Appetite for Destruction, as I said a number one album here. And three big singles on that, Welcome to the Jungle, a number one hit, Sweet Child o' Mine, a number seven hit, and Paradise City, a number five hit. Still, on FM classic rock radio across the United States. It's difficult to go very long listening to the record without hearing one of the tracks from that Appetite for Destruction record. It was just a monster in many ways. It was kind of the, The Rumors of it's day in, in 1987. So, you've got Bon Jovi in 86 Slippery when wet so they're opening up the door and after that you've got Guns N Roses in 1987 with Appetite for Destruction. we get Headbangers Ball debuting about the same time on MTV playing nothing but heavy metal videos. And now there's kind of a craze for heavy metal created by the success of these two groups. we probably should say something about, what are often called the L.A. Hair Bands. [LAUGH] These are these are bands that are sort of glam influenced. In the use of clothing, very, this is, this is probably where the spandex thing, and the sort of feather boas. And the Leopard skin vests, and all this kind of stuff starts to, to show up. Makeup, and I don't just mean like sort of make up to accent their eyes, but I mean makeup, like women's make, heavy makeup. used and teased hair. I mean it's what's called big hair. Instead of letting their hair sort of, their long hair sort of flow down, it all sort of gets teased up. It's a distinct look. It celebrates less glamour than a kind of a cheap kind of glamour more associated with like strip clubs and cheesy bars, right. That's sort of what they were embracing. They weren't doing it because they didn't know how to do. The other more sophisticated glamour thing. They were embracing this element of the low life, the low night life you know, you know this is, this is, this is really what these, what these bands were standing for. Motley Crew was an important early one in this in this L.A. Hair Band kind of crew. But the band that maybe took it to the its furthest extreme was a band called Poison, who in 1986 had a number three album with Look What the Cat Dragged In. that album has got a tune on it called, Talk Dirty To Me was a number seven hit and it's kind of, of, it's, it's a good representative example of what a lot of this hair band stuff was. It's a compact form, it's not a long extended kind of tune. It's got a virtual, virtuosic, virtuosic guitar solo, but it's not a big, long solo, it's virtuosic but it's compact. its sexist lyrics really kind of typify LA hair bands. The kind of sexually predatory kind of lecherous kind of attitude. it almost exaggerated, sort of cartoon proportions kind of characters look after all the name of the song is Talk, Talk Dirty to Me. And then following up on that, a number two album from 1988 called Open Up and Say. Ahh! Right? that album featured on it, to Every Rose Has Its Thorn, a number one hit, which is this sort of prototypical power ballad. The power ballad in heavy metal really sort of arises out of the late 70s. You could say, in some ways that a song like, Boston's More Than a Feeling is a kind of prototypical power ballad too. But here it, it starts to get in the second half of the 80s, every metal band has got to have that one tune. Where the guitarist pulls out an acoustic guitar or a 12 string, they start to sort of, you know, sort of pick some open chords. You know, kind of a Stairway to Heaven kind of moment, you know. And the lead singer sort of shows his sensitive side. Yeah, I may pursue women and drink hard, but heck, I'm a sensitive guy too. And so they sort of do that whole sensitive guy thing for a minute. Maybe at about the middle of the show, or about two thirds of the way through as a kind of way of creating a point of articulation, settling the whole thing down. And then the show would continue with up tempo things and it would drive for the big, big grand finale. Anyways, this power ballad thing, you find it again and again, in heavy metal music and Every Rose Has Its Thorn is kind of like the prototypical power ballad. The interesting thing about the glam elements of a group like Poison was that, in spite of the fact that they dressed up almost as if they were trying to dress up like women to be, it was almost like they were in drag. It had the effect of actually attracting more women, somehow, and they were, they actually had a pretty strong, sort of female following despite the fact that intuitively you would say that probably is, is not maybe what they were intending. But anyway this L.A. Hair Band thing very big in the second half of the 1980s. And oftentimes when people make fun of heavy metal, the big sort of big heavy metal, the stadium heavy metal from the second half of the 80s. What they're really making fun of are the hair bands because they think bits of it were, were ridiculous. But really no more ridiculous in terms of outfits and the various kinds of things that these guys did then David Bowie or Alice Cooper or even the Beatles putting on the outfits for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. There's long history in all of this stuff. So, it really depends on what the context you understand it in. other big L.A. Hair Bands that we might want to mention groups like Warrant, Winger and Skid Row were all part of this LA hair band. So, we've now talked about the second half of the decade but there's a part of the heavy metal story that we've left out so far that we're going to get to now and that is the idea of ambitious heavy metal. Their were musicians inside of the heavy metal movement who didn't think so much of all of this sort of dress up and showbiz kind of thing. They wanted to make music that was just good music that was serious. That almost recaptured the hippy aesthetic and it served its purpose. And it's too this ambitious metal that we turn next.
