With that said, I also totally get why the genre is mocked so frequently. It's not the deepest music in the world, and the clothing surrounding it tends to look a bit silly in retrospect. That's probably why the movie Rock Of Ages struggled to find an audience at the box office this summer. The preferred look of modern musicians contains considerably less spandex than it did back in 1987.
But why does so much of what hair metal offered seem so silly and dated today? After all, just about every other music genre that was ever relevant has seen some sort of revival in recent years. Psychedelic, punk, post-punk, new wave, all genres that began more than 30 years ago that still exist among contemporary artists. And yet, you rarely see modern bands that want to bring back the sound of 80s pop metal, and the few who do always do it with a strong hint of irony and self-cosciousness. Why does no one want to unabashedly pay tribute to the poddle-haired Gods of yore?
Because grunge came and made all of that look like a giant joke.
It's a part of rock legend that the release of Nevermind came and killed off all the Trixters and Bulletboys of the world in one fell swoop. While that's not completely true, it's certainly not entirely false either. Grunge did play a big hand in killing of hair metal, but no so much in terms of music. Popular music styles are constantly shifting. A few popular grunge bands would never be enough to eliminate the love of big dumb riffs, and bigger dumber choruses. No, what grunge killed was the concept that hair metal thrived on more than any other music genre: the concept of the Rock Star.
From the 50's onward, the notion of a rock n roll musician as a God who was far above the rest of grew larger and larger. They were the kings of kings, they did the best drugs, they had sex with the most beautiful women, and whatever they wore onstage looked awesome simply because they were wearing it.
The fame of Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder, and Chris Cornell destroyed that concept once and for all. They were ordinary guys who just happened to be really good and singing and playing guitar. Obviously, there had plenty of musicians before this who we could say similar things about, but these guys were so popular, and such a stark contrast to what had come just prior. It completely changed the perspective. The notion of the Rock n Roll Sex God suddenly seemed absurd and childlike. Hair metal died not because we stopped appreciating the form, but because the purveyors of it seemed more like clowns then Gods.
But the real key here is that we can never go back. Over the past 20 years, America has decided that we like our rock n roll frontmen to be more like everyday humans than mythical conquerors. Anytime a band - or especially a lead singer seems too detatched from the rest of us, it's a serious turn off. Bands like The Darkness carry on the tradition of rock bombast to a certain extent, but they do it with a wink that let's us know they're just kidding. Bands like Kiss are Grandfathered in because their legend has to live in, but any new bands showing up to party in leather pats and assless chaps will be met with thorough derision.
Hair metal bands killed themselves through their own pomp, drug abuse, and creative stagnancy.
It was trendy to wear hair metal t-shirts ironically, five or six years ago.
Most of the big hair metal bands go on package tours and still sell out amphitheaters every summer.
All chaps are ass-less. That's why they are chaps.
Having been in the middle of the hair metal thing I'm of the belief that it imploded with the glut of bands who laid siege to the LA strip to "get a deal". It became next to impossible to distinguish between bands as 1) they all had that same poodle hair, leather, and spandex, 2) bands traded members quite often, (especially bassists and drummers), which, 3) led to the music becoming formulaic. Guitar players stole licks from other guitar players. The lead singers stole moves from David Lee Roth (who stole his moves from Jim Dandy though at least DLR put his own spin on it).
I knew the end was coming once they started the “pay to play” policies. In many ways the club owners had little choice as they had like 150 bands, (that is no exaggeration), applying for 3 choice performance slots on a given Saturday night. So if you thought your band had the following then you could buy the slot and sell the tickets. However, most bands could not. In any case the market became saturated and MTV helped accomplish that.
So when "grunge" arrived it was simply an alternative that people gladly embraced because they were sick of all the hair and makeup. (I know I was). Some claim that grunge was a "response to the excesses of the LA metal scene" and maybe it was. However, all excess eventually leads to demise so whether Grunge was there or not, LA metal would have tanked anyway.
The VH1 Behind the Music episode on RATT probably tells the story better than anything I've seen although, even years after their heyday, the band members very much appear to be clueless, (or in denial), about the reasons behind their decline. It wouldn't have mattered, for example, had Robin Crosby cleaned up or not. The clock was ticking on glam metal and they seemed to be the last to know it. To be fair that could have been selective editing by the show's producers, which evidently was a general problem with that series. In any case there seems to be something of a Summer circuit for these bands but its kind of sad since lots of these events are of the "Chili Cookoff" or "HotRod CarShow" variety. Additionally, most of the bands have only one or two original members or have splintered into factions. For a while, Stephen Pearcy had his own band whose set list was RATT songs. But hey - I can't blame them for trying to earn some money off the "glory days". It was fun while it lasted but let’s allow it to die with some dignity, (if it ever had any).
its good to see a hair metal fan come so close to understanding why it failed... hair metal devalued the whole idea of a rock star because suddenly a million untalented-uncharismatic glory hounds had a nice safe template to ersatz "rock stardom" without taking the risks, and actual rock stardom should be a risk. a serious risk, of fucking your life for good... a formula for rock stardom kills it dead, it needs to be heroic. cobain was a better example of a rock star than 90% of those 80's rockers could even imagine themselves being