sMoRTy71.com: Bands not in the Hair Nation

Monday, January 30, 2006

I've been listening to Hair Nation (Sirius 23) religiously since joining Sirius before Christmas. For the most part, I love the channel. It allows me to remember music that I loved when I not only had hair, but lots (and lots) of it.

The biggest complaint that I have is that their definition of "Hair Nation" seems a bit loose. Pretty much any band that played hard rock / heavy metal in the 80's is fair game. IMHO, hair metal is a very specific subgenre and should be a bit more exclusive.

Hair metal includes:
- Poison
- Bon Jovi
- Cinderella
- Skid Row
- Def Leppard
- Ratt
- Motley Crue
- Dokken
- Winger
- White Lion
- Britny Fox
- L.A. Guns
- Faster Pussycat
- Guns N Roses
- Bulletboys
- Bang Tango
- Roxx Gang

Hair metal does NOT include:
- AC/DC
- Scorpions (not even that annoying ballad where they whistle)
- Tesla
- Ozzy Osbourne (only the "Ultimate Sin" album comes close)
- Dio
- Van Halen (with Sammy Hagar)
- Black Sabbath
- Rainbow
- Saxon
- Stryper

Unfortunately, some of the bands in the NOT list, especially AC/DC, Van Halen and Scorpions, are in heavy rotation on Hair Nation. I guess I'll have to suffer through the "Winds of Change" and "Signs" in order to get "Girlschool" and "Wait."

¶ 3:00 PM

Comments:

man Sirius sounds really cool - shame we don't get it in the UK,anyone know if we can -

posted by

TheSiDog : 3:47 AM

You're telling me Stryper isn't hair metal? Hell yeah thay are: CHRISTIAN HAIR METAL!

posted by

Scott : 9:39 AM

A little story about White Lion:
20 Years Later, White Lion Fails to Change the World

posted by

Christopher : 4:14 PM

I don't know how you can say Telsa isn't "hair" metal...apparently you only heard the "5 Man Acoustical Jam" CD???

posted by

Christopher : 11:29 AM

Christopher:
You're the second person to call me out on that one.

My justification for excluding Tesla is that they didn't really do anything with their hair (at least not anything good).

As for the music, after Mechanical Resonance, which is a good album, they really sounded more like a hard rock/southern rock hybrid.

And if you put them next to some of the prototypes for the genre, like Poison or Bon Jovi, the differences, in terms of look and music, are pretty dramatic.

I'm not a Tesla hater, for the record. I just think they're outside of the hair metal genre.

posted by

sMoRTy71 : 1:24 PM

Dude, if thats your argument then PLEASE take my favorite band of the era off the list...

GN'F'N'RS!!

They are not "hair metal", they are blues/rock'n roll!

I think you need to redo the entire list, and use the cheesy butt metal rock sound (that I still dig)...like...

Poison
Warrant
Steelheart
White Lion
Winger
Whitesnake
Blue Murder

etc...

Agreed? REVISE REVISE REVISE!!

:-)

posted by

Christopher : 9:55 AM

Damn! You got me with the GnR comment.

I always include GnR because I prefer the subgenre (which may not really be an official subgenre) of "crotch rock."

I'm not sure what my definition of crotch rock is; however, GnR is in there. So are Van Halen (with Dave), Bulletboys (which want to be Van Halen with Dave), L.A. Guns, Faster Pussycat, etc.

Maybe I'm just trying to use my hair metal definition as a way to exclude bands I just don't like that much? I must admit that I am not a big fan of the Scorpions or AC/DC.

Either way, I agree that GnR isn't technically hair metal; however, I would hate to eliminate "Appetite" from the Hair Nation playlists (although, I could live without anything after GnR Lies).

posted by

sMoRTy71 : 10:27 AM

Lets just agree that any band from 84' - 94' is a Hair band, cause thats when they all grew their hair...and there are sub genre's in there for "crotch", "cheese butt metal" etc...it gets more grainular...deal?

Its all Hair Metal though, till Grunge came along...

posted by

Christopher : 4:21 PM

Are you right in the head? AC/DC rocked the cradle every night just as well as if not better than Poison and Bon Jovi!

posted by

Anonymous : 9:55 PM

Anonymous, I excluded AC/DC because they aren't *hair* metal. Hard rock? Sure. But I don't consider them in the same group as Poison, Bon Jovi, L.A. Guns. Roxx Gang, etc.

Without arguing about the sound of their music, we can disqualify them because:

1. They never did anything ridiculous with their hair

2. Brian Johnson wore a hat because he didn't have any hair

posted by

sMoRTy71 : 8:59 AM