Hair metal, glam metal, etc. You know, Poison, Ratt, Motley Crue, Warrant, Trixter, all those guys. We all know how Nirvana came along and wiped them off the map, but how did they take up so much of the map in the first place?
I was at a sociology conference once, and one of the sessions had to do with music and popular culture. One of the presenters quickly mentioned, in the preliminary lit review section of his presentation, that the reason that hair metal got so big is because the advent of video games (Nintendo, etc.) made it so that a lot of indie record companies went under. Teens only had so much disposable income, so they spent their money on video games that they otherwise would have spent on below-top-40 rock records. As a result, hair metal became the hugest genre among that age group.
I don't know where the guy got that bit from, and his thesis had nothing directly to do with hair bands or the 1980s (it was an abstract statistical analysis of consumer behavior), but I was like "huh!" I suppose that's not the whole truth and that there's more to it, but I wonder.
I was 11 in 1990 so I don't remember what was going on behind the scenes, I only remember that that's what they'd show on MTV all day, with a few British new wave videos thrown in here and there, maybe the B52s and REM, but for the most part, AquaNet reigned supreme.
You might want to ask over at https://www.reddit.com/r/metal101
Let me give you my theories.
Hard Rock and Heavy Metal took a big hold on the US mainstream early on. Black Sabbath and Deep Purple were stadium acts in America after all. Then American bands like Montrose, Kiss and Van Halen came up with something that ditched a lot of the blues elements in favour of something punchier.
Musically Hair Metal was the logical extension of that sound, incorporating elements of US Hard Rock, British Glam Rock (Slade and The Sweet were respected rock bands in the US), British Heavy Metal and a bit of punk attitude. (Plus blatantly cribbing from Journey when it came to the ballads.
Now why was it so popular:
Describing Hair Metal as Pop with rock guitars isn't that much of a stretch,.
Once hair metal bands realised that mad hair and colourful outfits made them stand out from all the aging rock bands wearing t-shirts on MTV they went for it big time. The fact that British New music bands were wearing some interesting outfits accelerated this trend.
Culture Music reflects its era. 80s America was all about having fun, especially if you were young, white and male so people wanted music that was exciting and fun and a little bit anti-establishment Have you noticed how many rock videos from that era involve the band showing up somewhere dull or oppressive and shaking it up? Twisted Sister made their career on videos like that.
MTV. During the early days, MTV and Hair Metal had a great thing going on. MTV got exciting videos that weren't too artsy and Hair Metal bands got exposure. At one point MTV had to institute the "Crue Rule" to limit the amount of time Motley Crue got played per day. Right to the very end MTV was crucial to any hair band's success.
Looks Originally "Hair Metal" was an insult. it described a particular sort of band getting attention in the late 80s. Carefully coiffed hair, magnificent cheekbones and ripped t-shirts showing off toned torsos. Take a guess as to the target market.
Basically Hair Metal attracted HM's traditional young male audience and managed to cross-over to appeal to young women too. A lot of this was deliberate.
[Here's a picture of Whitesnake in the early 80s] ( http://cache1.asset-cache.net/gc/109172053-whitesnake-posed-in-london-in-february-1981-gettyimages.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=R4V%2FQay2ANwpmCZhkZDSEtZmFklefQKQ1jaHa5LIxwQ5JGm8MINDw5SkQ%2F6Y5ui%2BK8GFk7DM8bCANRztGKEkMQ%3D%3D)
[Here's the same band in 1987] (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wcUyhk2VHe8/TIkTFxceM-I/AAAAAAAAAFw/CNcFjdmEWkU/s1600/Whitesnake+in+1987.jpg)
Which is why Poison were always a much bigger band in America than Motorhead.
Motley Crue made money. Ratt made money. Poison made money. As long as the LA scene kept the record companies happy, the record companies were happy to hang around The Rainbow looking for the next gang of hairsprayed wannabes and MTV would give them a platform for their video.
Of course, eventually, ,the whole scene started to get stale. By about 1990 Hair Metal was like a 10th generation Xerox of itself. All the bands looked the same, made videos that looked the same, got their clothes from the same places and their hair done by the same people. It got a bit boring and once people got bored, hair metal was in trouble.
Suggested reading:
Motley Crue - The Dirt.
Louder than Hell - The complete oral history of heavy metal.
Or watch The Decline Of Western Civilisation II - The Metal Years.
In the Billboard Top 100 for 1988, there's a grand total of 4 hair metal bands (Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Poison and of course, Guns N Roses). By 1989, it has shrunk to 2 (Poison and Bon Jovi) and in 1990, surprisingly, there's not even one hair metal band in the Billboard Top 100. Hardly pre-dominant, wouldn't you say?
Still, glam/hair metal was huge for a major part of that decade and one can probably attribute its success to pop-like accessibility (simple lyrics, "bright" production values, videos).
Teens only had so much disposable income, so they spent their money on video games that they otherwise would have spent on below-top-40 rock record
How does that explain the incredible growth of Rap music (and R&B) in that same decade?
One big answer to why hair metal was so popular in the 1980s, in a nutshell, is probably MTV. MTV is widely seen as one of the dominant influences on pop music in the 1980s. An oral history of MTV, I Want My MTV by David Marks and Rob Tannenbaum, does portray MTV as moving in a hair metal direction in the 1980s. I Want My MTV quotes Dee Snider of Twisted Sister as saying: "MTV needed acts that knew how to present themselves in a visually interesting way. And they noticed metal bands: “Oh my god, these bands are very theatrical.” Anyone who wasn’t theatrical was done. Videos inspired a resurgence of metal—heavy metal has never gone away, but it had a really big moment in the ’80s. Metal owes MTV for that. But MTV owes metal."
However, there are some complications. Firstly, the golden age of metal was a bit earlier than the late 1980s - it was the mid-1980s when MTV discovering metal happened. When Guns 'n' Roses came to prominence in 1988, for example, they were seen at the time to be injecting life into an increasingly moribund genre.
In terms of how popular metal actually was, the Billboard Top 100 mentioned by /u/celebratedmrk is an imperfect measure. Quite notably, the arrival in March 1991 of the 'Soundscan Era' - a new system when actual sales in certain stores were measured, rather than relying on the word of the retailers, appeared to show that less-straight-pop genres like hip-hop and metal had previously been under-represented. It may have been the case that there were metal songs that didn't quite receive their due, chartswise. A lot of metal bands were focused on albums rather than singles, and might be underrepresented on a singles chart (Metallica didn't release a single until 'One' in 1989). Guns 'n' Roses Appetite For Destruction has sold 18 million copies in the US. In the 1980s, was difficult for any song to get to the top of the Billboard charts unless it crossed over to mainstream pop radio, because the Billboard Top 100 in the 1980s was heavily influenced by radio airplay on mainstream pop radio as well as pure sales (however, if I remember correctly, being on high rotation on MTV didn't count towards the Billboard Top 100). And so metal is probably somewhat under-represented on Billboard in the late 1980s in terms of its popularity. The wikipedia page for Metallica's 'One' suggests that 'One' was the most-requested song on MTV at one point. However, it also only got to #35 in the singles chart. Instead, 'One' was good publicity for the album it was from: ...And Justice For All has sold eight million copies in the US.
However, /u/celebratedmrk is absolutely correct to suggest that while metal was big within a certain world, it was only one genre among many. There tend to be more 'rock' historians than 'pop' historians - 'rock', in general, being the kind of pop music that aimed at American or perhaps British teenagers and young adults who are male and white. People reading rock history books - which would typically discuss the popularity of hair metal followed by grunge - get an accurate view of what was popular amongst white male teenagers and music critics in the US, but a misguided view of what was actually popular amongst the broader population at the time.
Put it this way: Bob Stanley's excellent 2013 British-focused history of pop, Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story Of Modern Pop, basically covers the era when sales of physical discs were recorded on the charts (the mid-1950s to 2000ish). And it covers hair metal in one chapter out of sixty-five. Other genres that get full chapters that cover the late 1980s period include American heartland rock (e.g., John Mellencamp), synth pop (e.g., the Pet Shop Boys), hip-hop (e.g., Run DMC), indie (e.g., The Smiths) and Chicago house/techno (e.g., Carl Cox). And Michael Jackson in general gets his own chapter, and Prince and Madonna share a chapter.
Edit: as to the specific hypothesis the sociologist presenter was putting forth, about indie record companies going under because of video games, I'm not sure what evidence they presented. But they may have a misunderstanding about 'indie record labels'? The current ecosystem of indie record labels like Sub Pop, Matador, Merge, Drag City etc which focus on 'indie music' was in its infancy in the 1980s. There were plenty of independent labels in the 1980s and smaller majors that were putting out music intended for the charts, rather than stuff that sounded like the Smiths, and that includes metal - e.g., Slayer came out on Def Jam, which was then an indie label.
Hey, thanks guys!
Regarding the sociology conference presenter: it was years ago, but I think he was just citing someone else during the intro section of his spiel. No idea who, and I'd have to track the guy down to find out.
