Never mind investment bubbles - the bubble that damaged me most was the hair metal one of the late eighties. After New Wave and the sexually ambiguous melodies of Kajagoogoo and Haircut 100, hard rock struck back with a vengeance via all kinds of pseudo-manly bands, waving their guitars like giant - guitars.

As hair metal grew in popularity, clones of clones of clones emerged - all  rock decedents of Van Halen and Bon Jovi in a cheap attempt to make a quick buck, hence inflating a head-banging bubble that could only collapse due the weight of the metal contained within.

It got so bubbly that musicians who had nothing to do with metal got in on it - my only explanation for Bad English and Tom Waite. There was a definite formula involved, as the “Chinese restaurant” method of band names worked well - endless permutations of animals and adjectives: Whitesnake, White Lion, Great White, White Leppard (no, sorry I made that one up). Mix in a lead singer that could scream and hit those high notes, a lead guitarist that could spray notes like napalm, a drummer with one arm, and you had a good shot to blast past the power ballad IPO.

So here are a few eighties hair metal videos that scarred me for life. I can’t watch a single one of these without bursting into tears or laughter at my wasted teenage years.

Whitesnake: Here I Go Again

The vision of Tawny Kitaen peforming interpretive dance gymnastics on cars stuck in traffic did a number on my formative years. Later in the video she tries to crawl out of a moving car wearing a turquoise bathrobe. If that wasn’t the ultimate fantasy of a teenager trying to get his driver’s permit, I don’t know what is. The music now sounds like a super commercial Led Zeppelin but who cares, for a time David Coverdale was the luckiest man on earth.

Def Leppard: Pour Some Sugar On me

There was a month in 1987 when Def Leppard had forty-five hit singles on the charts simultaneously, all from their kajillion-platinum album Hysteria. The hair metal formula was finely honed by this point, to where one could borrow from The Archies and still have a hit. The uber-commercial, multilayered, and processed “Mutt Lange” sound was then grafted onto Shania Twain, who not coincidentally, also does interpretive dance in spandex.

Great White: Once Bitten Twice Shy

An Achy Breaky Heart lyric: “My, my, my, once bitten twice shy.” The most obvious rhyme in the universe; so annoyingly hooky I’ll be unable to forget until death. The video is a rock star fantasy - get a band together to jam in a warehouse and gorgeous women ride in on motorcycles to sing backup. Much better than Poison’s Something To Believe In where the lead singer must sit on a block of ice.

November Rain: Guns and Roses

This was pinnacle of hair metal moxie, fame, epic aspirations, and pointlessness. Slash stands alone in a desert to play a guitar solo, there’s a supermodel in a wedding, and Axl plays a piano backed by a whole orchestra and a few religious symbols. I don’t need to hear any more GnR songs after this one - the idea exhausted; the wad blown - this is the Boo.com of hair metal.

Lita Ford: Kiss Me Deadly

The success of this song proved women could rock - which wasn’t too hard since most of the guys had perms, sang really high, and were wearing tights anyway. But none of them had knee guards and crawled around on an icy floor while a wind machine doubled as a blow dryer - so that’s how their hair got so high. Oh, but now I know where Poison got the ice blocks.

Winger: Seventeen

I save the best for last. Kip Winger played the bass guitar, sang, and danced. He spends most of this video spinning around, doing high kicks, and trying to keep the strands of his torn-up shirt from falling off, while demonstrating a most economical one-handed bass style. Now if Winger could have hired Tawny Kitaen to do interpretive dance in this video; hair metal might have lasted until 1996.

Oh, and before I forget:

Poison: Something To Believe In

 Please subscribe to the Webomatica RSS Feed!

Categories: General, Humor, Music :: Tags: Def Leppard, Great White, Guns and Roses, Heavy Metal, Lita Ford, Poison, Videos, Whitesnake, Winger :: Trackback URL
Previous Post: iPhone Price Drop: The Aftermath
Next Post: Book Notes: Big Secrets
Related Posts: Video Break: Heavy Metal and Jan Terry :: Music :: Music Notes: Guns N’ Roses Chinese Democracy Leaked Tracks :: Yahoo! Music: Moderate Thumbs Up ::