Post by blackjack on Nov 29, 2017 2:44:08 GMT -6
As much as I detest the internet for what it did to my industry, formerly a trillion dollar industry (that number was taken from a Paul O'Neill of TSO interview conducted several years ago - RIP) the music industry has been absolutely decimated by this "gift to humanity" that would connect the whole world and improve our quality of life has instead taken away more than anyone would have dreamed possible.
Do you realize how incredibly unnatural it is that our nation's biggest export along with movies - music, especially rock 'n roll ever since the debut of Elvis Pesley and Jerry Lee Lewis in the 1950's, then the tis to the dizzying heights of stardom achieved by the Beatles and The Rolling Stones in the 60s - a musically groundbreaking decade culminating in the most celebrated party in the history of rock 'n roll - Woodstock! Every generation wanted...and got..their own heroes, their own idols, and as great as The Beatles and The Stones were, a new generation was fascinated by the way the greatest rock musician ever to hail from Seattle, Washington - Jimi Hendrix - was absolutely revolutionizing the way the electric guitar was played and even revolutionizing what was a state of the art performance when he set his beloved guitar on fire and the crowd went absolutely insane!
The next generation had their own legendary heroes of the 1970s rock music scene with legendary bands as diverse as Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, KISS, Fleetwood Mac, Black Sabbath, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Pink Floyd, Queen, and Judas Priest
Just as in the past, each decade brought new rock stars for the kids coming of age in that decade and the 80s continued the tradition with U2, Bruce Springsteen, Journey, Heart, Foreigner, The Police, and of course it was the decade when heavy metal absolutely exploded along with what was the new standard for state of the art guitar playing. That really began 2 years before the 80s began when a family of Dutch immigrants with the last name Van Halen arrived in California and their boys Eddie and Alex formed what was to be the prototype for the new state of the art hard rock band, particularly because of Eddie's two hands on the fretboard style of playing, complete with fluid legato runs, turbocharged tremolo picking, and a style using the vibrato bar that made the locking tremolo systems made by companies such as Floyd Rose and Kahler in the 80s an essential component of the type of guitar now in demand by the hottest hard rock/heavy metal guitarists around.
The pop metal and glam metal bands of the 80s have gotten a bad rap from music critics over the last ten or twenty years because...of all things...having too outrageous of an appearance! NEWS FLASH TO CRITICS - rock music by its very nature is outrageous! So much fuss has been made abut the hairstyles worn by most pf the members of these bands, particularly the volume of their hair. They apparently just had too much hair to be taken seriously by the critics. The level of disingenuousness displayed by the music critics when they look back at the role the pop metal and glam metal bands played is downright pathetic. They can moan and complain all they want about the haircuts the members of these bands had but Robert Plant had lots and lots of long, full, blonde hair and it never hurt his credibility! Furthermore it wasn't just the appearance of these bands; it was the outrageous lifestyles they led, case in point: Motley Crue. A writer for Rolling Stone by the name of Neil Strauss wrote a biography of Motley Crue entitled "The Dirt" and after reading about the absolute decadence of their lifestyle, the drugs, the booze, the groupies, and stunts they'd devise to make sure they had the hottest (literally) stage show such as the part of their show where Bassist Nikki Sixx would be set on fire from his boots up with the flames rising dangerously high and close to his long hair and even his face, these were clearly the new bad boys of rock 'n roll.
Whereas Motley Crue had the most badass image in rock with some very catchy songs and some cool riffs, their closest competition - Ratt - had a lot of similarities to Motley Crue along with one very crucial difference - their two guitar attack led by Warren DeMartini on lead guitar and Robbin Crosby on rhythm and lead as well. DeMatini in particular was an extremely talented player who along with Dokken's George Lynch showed that there was genuine guitar virtuosity to be found in pop metal and glam metal if you just kept an open mind and open ears. Of course there were still the genuine non-pop heavy metal bands such as Judas Priest (who had just gotten bigger with the advent of the 80s and their landmark release "British Steel"), but there were also a lot of new heavy metal bands that had a wonderful combination of heaviness, virtuosity, and melody coming from England known as the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal led by Iron Maiden and Saxon. Then there were the American equivalents of the new Wave Of British Heavy Metal led by such legendary bands as Dio and Queensryche as well as the new style of heavy metal known as thrash metal. The leading proponents of thrash metal were a band of young men originally from Los Angeles known as Metallica. Despite their being too heavy and uncommercial to get played on the radio or to the signed by any major record label,this didn't deter them from their goals. They signed with Megaforce Records and released "Kill "Em All" In 1983.. This record couldn't be found in any of the major record store chains but did we need the internet to find out about Metallica? Hell no! We had heavy metal magazines ranging from Circus and Hit Parader to Kerranf and MetalForces.. Metal Forces had polls as to who the best heavy metal band in the world was at that time and month after month, Metallica would capture the top spot. Clearly their readers were the hardcore, very knowledgeable heavy metal fans that were Metallica's first and most loyal fans. All we had to do was go to an import record store and there we found not only "Kill"Em All"but other thrash metal yes such as Megadeth's "Killing Is My Business And Busines Is Good" and Slayer's "Show No Mercy." Again the cycle of new forms of rock music providing new rock stars and heroes for each new generation of fans was counting to turn.
To Be Continued
Do you realize how incredibly unnatural it is that our nation's biggest export along with movies - music, especially rock 'n roll ever since the debut of Elvis Pesley and Jerry Lee Lewis in the 1950's, then the tis to the dizzying heights of stardom achieved by the Beatles and The Rolling Stones in the 60s - a musically groundbreaking decade culminating in the most celebrated party in the history of rock 'n roll - Woodstock! Every generation wanted...and got..their own heroes, their own idols, and as great as The Beatles and The Stones were, a new generation was fascinated by the way the greatest rock musician ever to hail from Seattle, Washington - Jimi Hendrix - was absolutely revolutionizing the way the electric guitar was played and even revolutionizing what was a state of the art performance when he set his beloved guitar on fire and the crowd went absolutely insane!
The next generation had their own legendary heroes of the 1970s rock music scene with legendary bands as diverse as Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, KISS, Fleetwood Mac, Black Sabbath, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Pink Floyd, Queen, and Judas Priest
Just as in the past, each decade brought new rock stars for the kids coming of age in that decade and the 80s continued the tradition with U2, Bruce Springsteen, Journey, Heart, Foreigner, The Police, and of course it was the decade when heavy metal absolutely exploded along with what was the new standard for state of the art guitar playing. That really began 2 years before the 80s began when a family of Dutch immigrants with the last name Van Halen arrived in California and their boys Eddie and Alex formed what was to be the prototype for the new state of the art hard rock band, particularly because of Eddie's two hands on the fretboard style of playing, complete with fluid legato runs, turbocharged tremolo picking, and a style using the vibrato bar that made the locking tremolo systems made by companies such as Floyd Rose and Kahler in the 80s an essential component of the type of guitar now in demand by the hottest hard rock/heavy metal guitarists around.
The pop metal and glam metal bands of the 80s have gotten a bad rap from music critics over the last ten or twenty years because...of all things...having too outrageous of an appearance! NEWS FLASH TO CRITICS - rock music by its very nature is outrageous! So much fuss has been made abut the hairstyles worn by most pf the members of these bands, particularly the volume of their hair. They apparently just had too much hair to be taken seriously by the critics. The level of disingenuousness displayed by the music critics when they look back at the role the pop metal and glam metal bands played is downright pathetic. They can moan and complain all they want about the haircuts the members of these bands had but Robert Plant had lots and lots of long, full, blonde hair and it never hurt his credibility! Furthermore it wasn't just the appearance of these bands; it was the outrageous lifestyles they led, case in point: Motley Crue. A writer for Rolling Stone by the name of Neil Strauss wrote a biography of Motley Crue entitled "The Dirt" and after reading about the absolute decadence of their lifestyle, the drugs, the booze, the groupies, and stunts they'd devise to make sure they had the hottest (literally) stage show such as the part of their show where Bassist Nikki Sixx would be set on fire from his boots up with the flames rising dangerously high and close to his long hair and even his face, these were clearly the new bad boys of rock 'n roll.
Whereas Motley Crue had the most badass image in rock with some very catchy songs and some cool riffs, their closest competition - Ratt - had a lot of similarities to Motley Crue along with one very crucial difference - their two guitar attack led by Warren DeMartini on lead guitar and Robbin Crosby on rhythm and lead as well. DeMatini in particular was an extremely talented player who along with Dokken's George Lynch showed that there was genuine guitar virtuosity to be found in pop metal and glam metal if you just kept an open mind and open ears. Of course there were still the genuine non-pop heavy metal bands such as Judas Priest (who had just gotten bigger with the advent of the 80s and their landmark release "British Steel"), but there were also a lot of new heavy metal bands that had a wonderful combination of heaviness, virtuosity, and melody coming from England known as the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal led by Iron Maiden and Saxon. Then there were the American equivalents of the new Wave Of British Heavy Metal led by such legendary bands as Dio and Queensryche as well as the new style of heavy metal known as thrash metal. The leading proponents of thrash metal were a band of young men originally from Los Angeles known as Metallica. Despite their being too heavy and uncommercial to get played on the radio or to the signed by any major record label,this didn't deter them from their goals. They signed with Megaforce Records and released "Kill "Em All" In 1983.. This record couldn't be found in any of the major record store chains but did we need the internet to find out about Metallica? Hell no! We had heavy metal magazines ranging from Circus and Hit Parader to Kerranf and MetalForces.. Metal Forces had polls as to who the best heavy metal band in the world was at that time and month after month, Metallica would capture the top spot. Clearly their readers were the hardcore, very knowledgeable heavy metal fans that were Metallica's first and most loyal fans. All we had to do was go to an import record store and there we found not only "Kill"Em All"but other thrash metal yes such as Megadeth's "Killing Is My Business And Busines Is Good" and Slayer's "Show No Mercy." Again the cycle of new forms of rock music providing new rock stars and heroes for each new generation of fans was counting to turn.
To Be Continued