The Beginners Guide To Hair Metal 

just caught Michael Monroe the other week here - hes still got it - even played the sax

Growing up in the late 80's in NZ I remember calling it glam metal.

loved the intro. to this video, where its like you just happened to be reading a book on Hair Metal and someone came by to record you out of the blue. I actually have 4 out of the 5 introduction albums that are good to start off your hair metal collection with. My sister as well liked all these bands, which shocked me at the time as I thought my tastes were so cutting edge. 😅 Just been on Trade Me as well, seeing you selling the family jewels?. Rare stuff. Did not make too many distinctions at the time as thought all these bands were metal.

Deezer has two playlists on its platform : One is called "Hard Rock Party", the other is called "Hair Metal". Both playlists have more or less the same bands. Hard Rock Playlist has 95K followers Hair Metal playlist has 5K followers. This is just an example to show how the "hair metal" term stigmatises these bands and how most people don't wanna associate with it - even tho they might have enjoyed those bands if they were presented under a different light

Man it was a great music scene. NWOBHM to early American heavy metal that started to wear a bit too much makeup then the thrashers coming along swearing at the bands that made the scene a bunch of posers. It became elitist, thrashers, speed, crossover, death, doom. Then grunge. In the 80’ I had a lot of ‘glam’ but alongside thrash and speed. But also new wave, reggae and punk. The glam bands sold record’s because they had talent. I use to read metal mags and would check out the influences. I have a great collection of cooper, zeppelin, Aerosmith, Hendrix, purple etc.

Yeah back then they were just called hard rock bands not hair metal and I agree GNR is hair metal specially in their appetite for descttuction, if you watch their welcome to the jungle music video you can see Axl Rose with the hair metal look.

I've written about this before, but let me make a few points here again: 1- In the 80s a lot of bands from the Cure to Overkill to Poison to Tina Turner had bighair. It wasn't limited to one genre, it was the style of the times. 2- When you describe a genre, one should understand roughly how it sounds: if everything from WASP to Extreme to Poison to Lizzy Borden is "hair metal", it means that term is useless since it doesn't tell anything 3- "Hair Metal" term is popularised during the grunge era to make 80s bands look lame and ridiculous. Thats why only 80s and early 90s hard rock bands are called "hair metal" even tho you can name a ton of 70s bands with bighair. 4- As Sebastian Bach has said it will never be cool to be "hair metal", it will never be cool to say you like bands that care more about their hair than their instruments. It stigmatises 80s Hard Rock bands as lame and ridiculous music. There's a reason why that derisive term was popularised by MTV in the mid-90s so that people wouldn't see 80s Hard Rock as a legitimate music form and they'd listen to Alternative instead. 5- I'm proud of 80s bands having wildhair styles, it was a middle finger to the 'Moral Majority' of its day. But *reducing* it to bighair and calling it "hair metal" is a completely different thing. Its disrespectful to a lot of hard working musicians. 6- As I've said "hair metal" sounds lame and ridiculous and most people don't wanna associate with something that sounds lame and ridiculous. It stigmatises these bands as lame fringe music. Thats why when "Stadium Tour" was announced, they were advertising it as "Rock'n Roll Show", they weren't calling it "hair band show" Sorry just noticed your video, I had to vent a bit;) There are a lot of talented 80s musicians out there who don't get any respect because of this bullshit "hair metal" term. Thankfully I see younger people adopting "glam metal" term which's the correct term for this music. Cheers

In Canada, the term Hair Metal came in around 88-89... the term "hair metal" was meant as an insult mostly since thrash was becoming more and more popular... Hair Metal is NOT a genre of music.. but it's meant to describe a style of music with a certain a look.. nowadays, I use the term Hair Metal as a badge of honor... Back then, we called Hair Metal bands either rock, hard rock or even heavy metal... But because of all the MILLION sub-genres that now exist, it makes sense to add hair metal... (glam metal and pop metal did not exist either back in the day) - Again, I'm talking here in Canada with my friends... not sure about the rest of the world...