Grunge vs. Hair Metal
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GenX'er here, never was into hair bands. I was a 120 Minutes guy. Did like some grunge in the 90s.
I am convinced if Courtney Love doesn't blow Kurt Cobain's brains out, Alice in Chains is recognized as THE grunge band. Nirvana is right up there with The Beatles in most overrated band category
Not sure why either felt the need to bring each other down though. Both Motley Crue and Pearl Jam are great in their own space
Gen Xer, hated Poison, Winger, Warrant. Skid Row was OK, Loved AC/DC and Judas Priest, but Ministry and Smashing Pumpkins turned the tide for me. Nirvana helped a little
It really was the best time to be alive on the music scene.
Born in "71.. I was at a prime age to grow up with hair metal and loved it. Crue, Poison, Ratt, Whitesnake, Skid Row all were great. I kinda turned to metal though around '86 when Master of Puppets came out. Changed my life!! Then it was Metallica, Megadeth, Testament, Slayer, etc...
When Pearl Jam 10 came out... grunge took over. Their best album in my mind. AIC, Soundgarden, Nirvana (to a lesser extent), are still my favorites to this day.
Is it OK to like both? I was a huge Bon Jovi fan in the 80s, then when I hit my teenage years it was all Grunge.
Pearl Jam has been my favorite band since the day I came home from school in junior high and saw the video for "Jeremy" on MTV.
Pearl Jam are musicians and songwriters, Motely Crue were performers and partiers.
Off topic, if anyone else here plays guitar and wants to hear some awful guitar tone, listen to CC Deville from Poison. It's unlistenable.
Pearl Jam has been my favorite band since the day I came home from school in junior high and saw the video for "Jeremy" on MTV.
Pearl Jam are musicians and songwriters, Motely Crue were performers and partiers.
Off topic, if anyone else here plays guitar and wants to hear some awful guitar tone, listen to CC Deville from Poison. It's unlistenable.
1991 was a watershed year. Smells Like Teen Spirit was a powerful tune, but when either of these two came on the radio it lit the hair of my neck on fire.
You basically touched on the two best examples of bands to come out of each genre unscathed. Bon Jovi almost invented the big hair 80's style and Pearl Jam was a huge piece of the beginning of grunge. I would argue that they are really the best and maybe only examples of bands of each genre having continued success at a high level in terms of radio play and concert attendance. GnR and bands like Motley Crue still play big venues, but bands like that haven't had chart success in forever. Same could be said about grunge bands, but they don't even play those size venues. Dave Grohl is kind of an outlier. The Foos kind of came out of grunge and still hit the charts and play huge venues. Maybe Green Day made it out, but bands like Alice in Chains, STP, etc. were almost nostalgia acts when they were still active with original members. Sure, they were putting out new music, but nobody was playing it, buying it or going to shows to hear it.
Being the age that lived through it, it still marvels me how the entire rock music industry in '91 shifted emphasis in six months to grunge/alternative and by the start of the second year most of those 80's bands had no airplay at all, despite more than a decade of proven staying power for many of those bands.
Seemed to be more a look and attitude than a sound. Hair bands were singing about getting loaded and laid while grunge guys were singing they were too loaded to get laid.
Part comes down where you place certain bands. Bands like Van Halen, Aerosmith, and several other bands embraced the hair metal genre.
Decade of decadence and nevermind albums both had equal playing time in my 82 cutlass supreme
Gotta call BS right there. Song themes for hair bands were never much deeper than a short-lived mud puddle. Grunge bands covered some pretty deep and dark topics that touched quite a few fans. Guys like Layne Staley, Curt Cobain, Chris Cornell, Mike Starr, Scott Weiland and Andrew Wood carried those dark thoughts around until they couldn't any more.
