Seems pretty obvious this has all been a farce. Almost 300 posts of nonsense responded to with irrelevant hair metal videos.
FUCK YOU! When I found out Jani Lane was dead I was horrified. He was one of the best writers and vocalists and Warrant will live on forever for those of us who know what real music is and how rock has to have soul and melody. I truly believe Jani Lane suffered from depression and possible Bipolar disorder. He showed so many signs of it. His weight would go up and then it came down. You could see he was hurting inside. Jani just self medicated like a lot of people who are afraid of the Stigma of mental illness. He was one of the big voices of Rock History. I think it was Sebastian Bach that said it perfectly about the music "business". They love you when you are on top but when you slip and aren't a superstar anymore you are cut off. I paraphrased there a bit but that was the jist of it. Warrant is as metal as Anthrax.
Rock was never better then at the 80s/early 90s when Heavy Metal bands were ruling the world. Music is shit these days.....talent is minimal at very least. Shitty talentless Nirvana somehow destroyed rock music. SHitvana was just the record companies pushing a new sound to exploit brainwashed top 10 idiots to buy more albums. Of course many people think Shitvana was anti mainstream but how in much of an error are they.
Trust me any 6 month old guitar player can play any Shitvana song ANY!!! and probably compose a shitty chord proggresion of their own with that skill. I like to see any shitvana fan play something that takes some skill other than power chords and nasty monotone vocals with pathetic loser lyrics. Nirvana got famous because the loser, middle class my parent don't pay attention to me and i hate the world tweens and "Young adults" related to Kurt Cobain's pathetic lyrics. How can they relate to sex,drugs and rock n roll if they lived in the suburbs and got picked on in highschool for being retards right? like their hero. i can go on and on but you get the point. I tell these Nirvana fans if they are so great, then why did they come up with a type of music (grunge) that any schmuck can do. Minimal lyrics and also dull lyrics and lack of melody.
Grunge didn't kill anything. The music labels forced it down everyones throats and told everybody it was cool. Which is something they could do then as all people had was radio MTV/VH1 and music rags. And not something they could do now. There is no grunge left... it's all post-grunge, and that shit is ridiculous... has been since the late 90's and early 2000's. Glam Metal is pretty much my favorite style of metal mainly due to how great the guitar parts were. That's one thing that's always boggled me when people scoff at it, whether they be thrash fans or not, was how one could possibly snuff these guitar wizards like Vito Bratta of White Lion, Reb Beach of Winger, George Lynch of Dokken/Lynch Mob and dozens of others. I also happen to enjoy bands like Pantera, Iron Maiden, Megadeth and especially Metallica, especially since Metallica happens to be one of my all time favorite bands. WASP wasn't really glam, they were shock rock, and aside from Electric Circus and TLC they were a metal band. Go give a listen to their catalog from '89 forward, Headless Children, Crimson Idol, KFD, Unholy Terror, Dying for the World, Dominator, Neon God I and II, and Babylon are kickass metal albums with a touch of prog. They have more in common with Maiden and Megadeth than Motley Crue and Poison. Most important of all is that those girly looking boys in drags could fucking shred and write amazing songs. Lead guitar players like Warren DiMartini (Ratt), George Lynch (Dokken), Snake Sabo (Skid Row), Carlos Cavazo (Quiet Riot), Randy Rhoads (Quiet Riot, Ozzy), Vito Bratta (White Lion), Mick Mars (Motley Crue), Reb Beach (Winger) etc., are fucking GUITAR GODS and were hugelly influential on upcoming guitar players (even for thrash metal shredders of the era). Go listen to those early Dokken, Wasp, Ratt, Motley, Def Leppard records. Beautiful arragements, cool as fuck heavy riffs, pounding drumming. Come on! Glam Metal (besides the looks) was AMAZING! Shitty grunge came along and killed good music. Dokken, musically lyrically are far superior than any grunge band ever. Hey everyone, let's write 3 chords and write songs about how we are a bunch of whiney pussys. Let's all whine & bitch. Then ultimately shoot ourself. Only bad that was any good at all was/is Alice In Chains!! Even then it was more just their first album: Facelift. Grunge sucked ass! I remember when it first came out and I was like "These guys only know how to play 3 chords. Motherfuck'n lame!" It was boring and shitty back then and it's just as boring and shitty now. In fact it's probably even more boring and shitty now than it was back then. The only reason Grunge became popular is because of posers like Kurt "Oh! I'm so depressed and in emotional pain even though I'm a millionaire" Cobain. Fuck'n hack!
There's a difference between being inspired by something and just plain ripping something off. At least with Glam Metal each band tried to put their own spin on things. Cinderella sounded more bluesy than say Dokken who had a more traditional metal sound, while Warrant had a more poppy sound. With Grunge, they all sound exactly the same. Same Eddie Vedder singing style, same poorly tuned guitars, same generic power chords.
Grunge is just another dumb label that mass media seems to assign and require for everything. All those bands (MLB, Pearl Jam, AIC, etc) were nothing more than glam/funk/hair bands that rode the wave of attention that Nirvana (a non-Seattle band) brought, and proceeded to completely change their sound and image to assimilate. Talk about zero musical integrity.
In general, MLB is considered a grunge band, but every time I listen to them all I get is glam rock/80s hair metal vibes. A couple songs could be considered grunge I guess, like Stargazer... but I really don't see what makes this band "grunge" as the primary genre of music they fit into.
If you consider grunge a scene and not a genre, then I guess the fact that they are from Seattle and have Gossard/Ament among the members could qualify them. The transition from Hair metal to grunge was pushed strongly by the record companies, and most were eager to kill Glam and bring in Grunge bands. The reason for this is many of the metal bands sold millions of albums in the 80s/early 90s, and when it was time to renew their contracts, the record companies were going to have to give them record contracts worth millions because these glam bands had proven they could sell lots of records. When these glam bands were living in the gutter and they got their first record deal, they were lucky if the got $200,000. For example, Motley Crue renewed their contract in 1991 for 25 million dollars. The record companies figured they could sign a grunge band from the gutter for $200,000, and get a good 4 or 5 albums out of them before they had to renew their contracts and give them the big bucks. Then they could drop all the Glam bands they did not want to pay large sums of money to and could write them off as losses on their taxes. "Hair Metal" never deserved to get pounded. Those bands had talented musicians who actually practiced and played cool, catchy songs with balls and energy. Musicianship in popular music went down in many ways after the 80's, all the way to the pathetic state that it is today. At least hair metal was fun. The thing that sucks about grunge is that its after-effects still permeate rock music today. It sucked out all the energy that made rock music exciting. Modern rock bands still take themselves too seriously because of grunge, with the depressing songs, somber lyrics, boring vocals, and bland rhythm sections . Its like bands are afraid to just have fun and rock out with a catchy tune laced with piercing vocals, crunchy riffs, and blazing solos. JanI Lane was a fucking awesome songwriter, if people only know him because of Cherry Pie is because they are some incultural idiots than don´t know s hit about music. Uncle Tom's Cabin rocked (and was a true ballad by definition, as opposed to what became known as a ballad). It's still one of my favorite songs today. Cherry Pie? It was catchy and cool and all of that. But Uncle Tom's Cabin--that was a real song.
Jani at his peak was definitely amongst the best. Few singers interacted with and bonded with the crowd as he did. He used to tour main floor on a bouncers shoulders singing with the people. The best. RIP. Grunge destroyed people's perception of music. Warrant is one of the most underrated bands of the 80s/early 90s. Shame cherry pie became Jani's namesake... they really were great. Grunge was nothing more than a certain way of dressing that the bands had that had people finding a word to describe the way music had progressed..You ask any band that was labeled a Grunge band and they will say they didn't name theirselves Grunge. Warrant and Skid Row had some of the best songwriters ever.... Jani, Snake and Rachel were some of the best songwriters of all time. How do you know when an artist has true talent? When they sound just as good live as in the recorded version. Ahhh the good old days of my youth when artists were actually real musicians not the lip synching demons you have dominating the music biz today. Kids today don't know what real music or Rock N roll is. The industry didn't want really talented people and the industry knew that if didn't sabotage these bands somehow they'd have to re-negotiate all the contracts and pay higher royalty percentages as the bands careers blossomed so they killed the scene. The corporate monster that is the music industry exploited its workers & fired them after making their profit.
Motley Crue are so underrated. The first two albums and Dr Feelgood are classics.Theatre Of Pain and Girls, Girls, Girls have some very good songs as well. Special mention to the John Corabi era Motley Crue album, that is a gem but for me not really a 'crue' album. If I were to pick one thing about Motley that's underrated is Sixx's songwriting. There is a great pop element in the early stuff (i.e. hooks and melodies), but it still feels "dangerous." The first 2 records are just brimming with energy, great tunes, hooks, and arrangements. I think the reason so many non hair metal fans hate bands such as Motley Crue, Bon Jovi and Def Leppard is because they were such phenoms and have enjoyed HUGE success. They (non hair metal fans) didin't like the music to begin with, and then had to watch the aforemetioned bands sell 10 million albums (or more) each, and get non-stop play for a full decade on most radio stations and MTV. I'm sure it was frustrating.
Personally, I cannot stand Grunge and my life music life was hell for about 3 or 4 years in the early to mid 90's when that stuff was all over the place. 1993 through 1996 seemed like a three-year funeral to me. In my opinion, the beginings of the so-called "hair-metal" revolution began in 1981(ish) when Ozzy and Randy released those two perfect albums. "Kickstart My Heart" is a great single. The Crue are rock legends! Motley Crue had the songs, the image and the attitude, and certainly deserve consideration as a great hard rock band. Things like massive popularity and substantial extra-curricular activities work against them when being viewed by critics. I enjoy their comically off-base covers... "Anarchy," "Street Fighting Man," "White Punks on Dope" and "Helter Skelter."
The Crue definitely have the rights to the 80s rock throne, or at least share it. There were few bands as big or bigger than them at the time. Maybe Ozzy and both Van Halen lineups. Some people like Dee Snider talk about Twisted Sister like they were KI$$ and simply owned the 80s. After their two big hits on MTV, the band put out two more records that they were so embarassed by, there are no tracks from them on their greatest hits record. This is a band that had a grand total of 5 records and broke up by like 1987! Personally, bands like Hanoi Rocks and the New York Dolls influenced the genre almost on image alone. I have tried countless times to listen to Hanoi Rocks and just don't like them. Their bad production could be part of it. Gotta love the NY Dolls, but after seeing the Bob Gruen DVD, I've learned that they were a pretty horrible band live and for any older folks out there that crap on Crue and Poison and other bands that were inspired by the Dolls simply because they don't like the music or the image, at least the bands from the 80s could actually play.
People rip on Mick Mars, but I must say out of the entire 80s genre, he's one of the few players that had his own sound and style. While everyone else is trying to do third generation Eddie Van Halen warmed over (which I am not knocking), he really had his own thing going on likely because he was much older than most of them and had different influences. Saying he is bad is like saying the Ramones were bad because they weren't great musicians. I will give them credit for getting back with Vince in 1997 and making a big enough splash that people cared enough that they could do a decent arena tour. They were even one of the first bands that would post photos on their website from the concert that evening. This was in 1997 when most bands probably barely had websites and digital cameras were not easy to come by. Definitely ahead of their time in that regard.