Hardrock bands' transitions into the grunge era...

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

I was listening to a few albums yesterday from the mid and late '90s by "hair bands" that I haven't listened to for a while, so which bands do you think moved into the grunge era (say 1993 onwards) well, and which ones sucked?

I think there were some bands who did a really good job of adapting and updating their sound to the fit into mid-90s era while still writing great songs, keeping a hard rock edge, and not sounding like they were trying to be Pearl Jam. Some of the albums I reckon that did a good job of that were:

Pink Cream 69 - Games People Play (1993)
Motley Crue - Motley Crue (1994)
Winger - Pull (1993)
KISS - Carnival Of Souls (1997)
Harem Scarem - Mood Swings (1993)
Vain - Move On It (1994)

Some of the albums that didn't pull it off though and totally sucked I think were:

Motley Crue - Generation Swine (1997)
Pink Cream 69 - Change (1995)
Pink Cream 69 - Food For Thought (1997)
Warrant - Belly To Belly Vol. 1 (1996)
Dokken - Shadowlife (1997)
Vixen - Tangerine (1998)
Danger Danger - Dawn (1995)
Skid Row - Subhuman Race (1995 - sorry Spawn, I can't even listen to it, I tried so hard!)
Def Leppard - Slang

But then the best stuff I think was the bands who totally ignored the mid-90s music scene and didn't add any influence from that into their sound. That's not to say they didn't still progress forward, or that they were stuck in a timewarp, but to progress forward you didn't necessarily have to incorporate elements of the music that was popular in the mid-90s, you could make it sound more AOR, or bluesier, or more metal, or just keep it the same even and still progress in terms of songwriting, production or musicianship. For example:

Vince Neil - Exposed (1993)
Cinderella - Still Climbing (1994)
Poison - Native Tongue (1993)
Slaughter - Fear No Evil (1995)
Slaughter - Back To Reality (1999)
Pink Cream 69 - Electrified (1998 - kept this sound till now still! This was a new start for them)
AC/DC - Ballbreaker
Spread Eagle - Open To The Public (1993)
Every Mother's Nightmare - Wake Up Screaming (1993)

There was also tons of new bands coming out aruond 1993 though who did total almost super-glam albums haha like Big Bang Babies, Bang Gang, Erotic Suicide, Alleycat Scratch, Sic Vikki, etc which was good. And most of the European bands and AOR stuff didn't change at all and kept doing awesome melodic hard rock right through the grunge era till now.

I wanna hear Ratt's 2 albums they did in 1997 and 1999 to see what they sounded like, but I don't have very high hopes for them!

Thoughts & comments on this topic?

 

[spawn]

Warrant - Belly To Belly Vol. 1 (1996)
Skid Row - Subhuman Race (1995 - sorry Spawn, I can't even listen to it, I tried so hard!)
Def Leppard - Slang

Well, we have been through the Subhuman Race thing too many times, I think it kicks ass, not as good as the first 2 of course, but still great!

Warrant released Ultraphobic which was a good album, nothing like their glam stuff though, you would hate it, but quite good hard rock, especially Undertow and Followed, those 2 songs rule. Belly To Belly IS pretty crap though

Slang is a brilliant album! :Spin:

I dont think Carnival Of Souls is very good at all, REALLY boring... I keep meaning to listen to it again, but I packed it so I cant

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

I don't think Carnival Of Souls is great or anything but its not bad. Songs like Jungle, Rain, Master & Slave, etc really rock. I think the reason I like it is simply because I like anything that features Paul Stanley singing. I just love his voice...

Yeah I deliberately left off Ultraphobic because I honestly can't remember if its good or not and will have to give it another listen to decide. Just because it isn't glam doesn't mean I won't like it (I like Motley Crue's self titled album). Warrant were never really glam anyway, just a good hard rock band with the glam image and party attitude. But if its anything like Belly To Belly I'll hate it.

 

[spawn]

I have Belly To Belly and Ultraphobic, Ultraphobic slays it

 

[Sydo]

Dysfunctional by Dokken deserves to be listed in the good section.
It's fantastico.

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

I haven't heard Dysfunctional properly yet I checked out Shadowlife though because I heard how bad it was so I wanted to see for myself. Pretty bad. Hehe.

Do you think the title of Belly To Belly had any connection to Jani's weight gain?

 

[mattt]

'Motley Crue' is freakin awesome! 'Generation Swine' isn't a bad album

 

[Goreripper]

Yeah Motley's self-titled is a killer album.

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

That it is It's not Motley, but it rocks! Shouldn't have been self titled I don't think haha, self titled to me implies "This is Motley Crue..", they should've named it after a song on it or something! But its a great album, and Hooligan's Holiday is one of my favourite Motley songs!

I think Generation Swine has no direction at all though (and crap production too). It doesn't know whether it wants to be rock, electronic, punk, glam, alternative, metal, industrial... its all over the place and doesn't have any consistency throughout it. Nothing kinda fits together on it. That'd be ok if the songs were great at least but they aren't..

 

[Spiff]

Nikki says on the notes in the remastered (or whatever it was) version of Motley Crue that they should have changed the name of the band after Vince left. Something like that, anyway.

 

[TRrEiTxIxRiE DTrash]

Yeah it would've been a good idea I think. Great album, but not Motley.

I notice as well on Loud As F@*k there are only 2 songs off Motley Crue, but 6 off Generation Swine, and everybody including the band themselves like Motley Crue alot more. I think its because Loud As F@*k focuses on Motley as Vince, Tommy, Nikki & Mick. Which is probably why there is also only 2 songs off New Tattoo on it. Every other album has 5-7 songs off it on there.