Rick Beato video on corruption and the downfall of Rock after '96

[BDG135]

https://youtu.be/reesdiAbvk4?si=qaqtjYgahA-2HcdV

In this recent video, Rick Beato and his guest point to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 as a catalyst to the Clear Channel takeover of radio. This gave fewer program directors more control and local DJs had less power to break an artist. He also goes into producer/managers making the artist rent their gear. The recording industry did a lot of corrupt things for decades, but that doesn't necessarily mean it caused the death of a genre. Did the industry destroy Jazz? The internet was going to change everything anyway. It's worth checking out.

[diablomozart]

rick beato is cool in my book...and he's right on a few points...but every generation wants their "own music" and not what their parents listened to...did that law make things better or worse? not sure...but blaming it all on that is like blaming grunge for the death of hair metal which, towards the end, became almost a parody of itself...the business, in what little knowledge i have, is based around money and finding "the next big thing" at which point every other company wants their version of that big ting hoping for equal returns on something that may be no better than a bad photocopy of the original...d.m.

[Zinny]

You can compare the radio situation with Sootify’s playlists they promote heavily. Millions of people are subscribing to these and get new music fed to them. Curated by someone, somewhere at Spotify.
Never ever do they add new rock on these major playlists. For rock you need to actively search for it. It’s not highlighted on their front page.

[FreddyFender]

The genre is obsolete. Too expensive to make it, the return on investment isn't there.

Kids used to take making rock and roll as seriously as a boxer takes his shot at a world title fight. Nowadays, the money is gone - there ain't no title to win, nor the money, fame, and glory that comes with it. So why get up and run every day?

People will always like Led Zeppelin the way they'll always like Miles Davis.

but rock and roll has had it's time. Be glad you were there for it.

[SterileEyes1]

Tom Petty’s “The Last DJ” album is pretty much about this. Centered around the late/great Jim Ladd, but also the situation he found himself in during this era.

I think what Rick talked about here in the mid/late 90s ——> the advent of autotune —-> Napster (also briefly discussed here) ——> singing shows like The Voice and American Idol killed rock n’ roll.

Combo of radio becoming homogenized and audiences growing to expect and demand that music be both flawless and free.

I always think of The Black Crowes and System Of A Down as examples of bands who were invested in (both by Rick Rubin). Each were developed for a few years before they made their first albums, so by the time they did, they were pros. There’s no incentive for that anymore and no incentive to invest in album production either.

Almost everyone uses the same sampled drum sounds and grids/autotunes/melodynes everything, and what sucks is it’s what most audiences are demanding now anyway. One of the consequences is it makes it real cheap and convenient for rookie bands and hack musicians to make perfect sounding albums. Then some of these newer guitar-oriented bands get on late night TV and you can tell their ‘live performance’ is as bush-league and fake as the album they’re promoting.

I tell myself we’re in a new disco era and will be embarrassed by all the cheap fakery someday. Or maybe I’m just getting old.

[Tommy2Tone84]

rick beato is cool in my book...and he's right on a few points...but every generation wants their "own music" and not what their parents listened to...did that law make things better or worse? not sure...but blaming it all on that is like blaming grunge for the death of hair metal which, towards the end, became almost a parody of itself...the business, in what little knowledge i have, is based around money and finding "the next big thing" at which point every other company wants their version of that big ting hoping for equal returns on something that may be no better than a bad photocopy of the original...d.m.

I’m going to push back on this a little. Was the end of the 80s and beginning of the 90s really all that bad?

From 1989 to 1991

Skid Row released two excellent and extremely solid albums.

GNR released Lies and UYI (I found the double album cumbersome but the public at large seemed to respond to them very positively)

Cinderella released Heartbreak Station

LA Guns released Cocked & Loaded and Hollywood Vampires

Poison released Flesh and Blood

Enuff Z’Nuff released their solid eponymous debut and their excellent sophomore follow up

Winger released In The Heart of The Young

Ozzy released No More Tears.

Van Halen released For Unlawful

Metallica released AJFA and TBA

Jellyfish released Bellybutton

King’s X released Nebraska and FHL

The Cult released Sonic Temple and Ceremony

Whitesnake released Slip of The Tongue. Aside from two songs, it’s an album I always liked

Queensryche released Empire

Aerosmith released Pump

Motley Crue released Dr Feelgood

Faster Pussycat released Wake Me When It’s Over

The Black Crowes released SYMM

Bryan Adams released Waking Up The Neighbors

Damn Yankees released their eponymous debut

David Lee Roth released A Little Ain’t Enough

Steelheart released their first album which is just as good or better than many debuts
from the genre


There are many others I could list. I never agreed that the quality of 80s pop, rock and metal had generally gone down.

The majority of those albums are solid as f*ck

[diablomozart]

a lot of those albums aren't "hair metal"....while i agree most of those were solid releases you failed to mention a lot of the newer bands (b list? c list?) at the time like sleez beez, tiger tailz, etc that attempted to follow the hair metal blueprint...there was a lot of, shall we say, redundancy in the scene and that is what i was referring to...the big names had solid output...as for the black crowes? i bought van halen tickets from chris robinson when he worked at turtles on johnson ferry rd (i went to wheeler hs they went to walton hs), and saw them when they were mr. crowe's garden...the change between that and what brendan o brien did with them at triclops was nothing short of astounding...d.m.

[Love_Industry]

the business, in what little knowledge i have, is based around money and finding "the next big thing" at which point every other company wants their version of that big ting hoping for equal returns

True but the game changed with the internet. First with P2Ps like Napster and Kazaa, then with streaming. The business lives in the now, the listener has close to 100 years of recorded music to choose from. That's the competition.

The argument that nobody listened to 1940s music in the 80s keeps popping up but did we even have the choice? Radio, MTV and record stores all pushed new music. You had to get the knowledge and actively seek out 40, no even 10 year old music in the stores if the band wasn't Zepoelin, Floyd or at least Kiss and albums still in print. Now you can stumble upon a random AOR semi-hit from 1982 on Spotify, and it takes about as much effort to check out some obscure 1970s album track as the new Megan Thee Stallion single.

Not sure how many 80s kids would have listened to Artie Shaw over Van Halen or Madonna, but how many of us had even heard that once huge artist and noticed brief his mid 80s return?

[Brainy Lane]

Not sure how many 80s kids would have listened to Artie Shaw over Van Halen or Madonna, but how many of us had even heard that once huge artist and noticed brief his mid 80s return?

Excellent point. Movie soundtracks were really our only exposure to older songs. They usually ended up being hits again.
Stand By Me
You Lost that Lovin Feelin
Twist and Shout
And the entire The Dirty Dancing Soundtrack

[Bono Nettencourt]

Yep. And Big Chill, Top Gun, Platoon, FMJ, etc.

[Tommy2Tone84]

a lot of those albums aren't "hair metal"....while i agree most of those were solid releases you failed to mention a lot of the newer bands (b list? c list?) at the time like sleez beez, tiger tailz, etc that attempted to follow the hair metal blueprint...there was a lot of, shall we say, redundancy in the scene and that is what i was referring to...the big names had solid output...as for the black crowes? i bought van halen tickets from chris robinson when he worked at turtles on johnson ferry rd (i went to wheeler hs they went to walton hs), and saw them when they were mr. crowe's garden...the change between that and what brendan o brien did with them at triclops was nothing short of astounding...d.m.

On the contrary. I would argue the large majority of them are. The ones that aren’t could be KX, although they got tagged hair metal and toured with alot of hairbands, Metallica obviously, and Jellyfish.

Acts like Bryan Adams and The Black Crowes weren’t but had a cross over audience. I saw Bryan Adams on the Neighbors tour. It was sold out and trust me, the majority of the fans were 80s rock fans.

I mentioned Steelheart and Enuff Z’Nuff. Nobody gave a shit about Tygertailz or the Beez. Beez were good. What about London Quireboys? People drool over themselves when their name comes up here.

Brendan is top shelf. A producer worth their salt could really help make a band. I have always felt KISS lacked a good producer on their first two or three albums. Had an Eddie Kramer, Jack Douglas or Roy Thomas Baker (who, like Douglas most likely would’ve refused) produced their first two, I feel the public would’ve at least taken them gold at the time.

[GreatWhiteSnake]

You can compare the radio situation with Sootify’s playlists they promote heavily. Millions of people are subscribing to these and get new music fed to them. Curated by someone, somewhere at Spotify.
Never ever do they add new rock on these major playlists. For rock you need to actively search for it. It’s not highlighted on their front page.

Not true. I get a Release Radar playlist from Spoitfy with new releases from artists I follow and similar artists on my front page every week. Then the Discover Weekly playlist feeds me stuff it thinks I might like and it's usually right. I love them both and thanks to DW found my favorite newish band Electric Mary...

[Tommy2Tone84]

I was aware of and listened to a lot of older artists. I also sought them out or traded records with friends. I started getting into UFO in the late 80s. They were never very popular.

[diablomozart]

a lot of those albums aren't "hair metal"....while i agree most of those were solid releases you failed to mention a lot of the newer bands (b list? c list?) at the time like sleez beez, tiger tailz, etc that attempted to follow the hair metal blueprint...there was a lot of, shall we say, redundancy in the scene and that is what i was referring to...the big names had solid output...as for the black crowes? i bought van halen tickets from chris robinson when he worked at turtles on johnson ferry rd (i went to wheeler hs they went to walton hs), and saw them when they were mr. crowe's garden...the change between that and what brendan o brien did with them at triclops was nothing short of astounding...d.m.

On the contrary. I would argue the large majority of them are. The ones that aren’t could be KX, although they got tagged hair metal and toured with alot of hairbands, Metallica obviously, and Jellyfish.

Acts like Bryan Adams and The Black Crowes weren’t but had a cross over audience. I saw Bryan Adams on the Neighbors tour. It was sold out and trust me, the majority of the fans were 80s rock fans.

I mentioned Steelheart and Enuff Z’Nuff. Nobody gave a shit about Tygertailz or the Beez. Beez were good. What about London Quireboys? People drool over themselves when their name comes up here.

Brendan is top shelf. A producer worth their salt could really help make a band. I have always felt KISS lacked a good producer on their first two or three albums. Had an Eddie Kramer, Jack Douglas or Roy Thomas Baker (who, like Douglas most likely would’ve refused) produced their first two, I feel the public would’ve at least taken them gold at the time.

i would guess we categorize things a bit differently...i never considered vh, gnr, aerosmith or a number of others as hair metal...they may have used similar productions but a lot of them were already big names before the advent of what i call hair metal lol...motley was hair metal who tried the grunge thing with corabi (i liked it and seeing them at the roxy in atlanta was very cool), vh? kinda the archetype but different...whitesnake tried to become hair metal but unsure how to really classify them as they started out as a bluesy kind of thing...bryan adams i always considered pop...wasp? def hair metal if a little darker than most...jellyfish...songwriting geniuses that never got their due...i guess i think hollywood strip 80's when i think of hair metal...heard the name of the london quireboys but have never heard them,perhaps i should?...my point was, if sleez bees and tiger tailz were the newest bands coming out as hair metal, we had little to look forward too (even roxy blue was a shameless copy of van halen) which is why i used the term "photocopy"...don't get me wrong, i liked hair metal but was also listening to metallica, megadeth, queensryche, crimson glory etc at the time...as far as rock as a whole? you're right...the big established names were still going strong and releasing quality material...

someone above made a valid point though...the internet and file sharing...that really changed the whole thing...you could listen to something first instead of buying an album after hearing a single only to find the rest of the album wasn't...well...as good as the single...i don't know all the causes...i should probably ask my friend, he worked at triclops and worked on an an aerosmith and a smashing pumpkins record (his stories about their drummer are hilarious)...he might have better insight, but we've never really talked much about it...he despised hair metal preferring things like metallica, al dimeola and frank zappa...god he was a great guitarist until ms took away his ability to play...d.m.

edited to add...when someone mentions hair metal the first band to pop into my head is actually poison...that's hair metal to me

[diablomozart]

I was aware of and listened to a lot of older artists. I also sought them out or traded records with friends. I started getting into UFO in the late 80s. They were never very popular.

my first time hearing metallica was ride the lightning...on a walkman a guy brought in to school...during lunch...i wasn't exactly sure what i was hearing but i liked it lol...friends were a great source to turn us on to new music...hell i picked up live like a suicide on cassette at record bar before appetite came out while looking for import wasp records...i know we can't go back but man what a time to be a teeager...d.m.

[Chip Z'Hoy]

In this recent video, Rick Beato and his guest point to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 as a catalyst to the Clear Channel takeover of radio.

It seems like all the criticisms of Bill Clinton are weird, dumb shit and never stuff like RUINING ROCK MUSIC.

[Tommy2Tone84]

a lot of those albums aren't "hair metal"....while i agree most of those were solid releases you failed to mention a lot of the newer bands (b list? c list?) at the time like sleez beez, tiger tailz, etc that attempted to follow the hair metal blueprint...there was a lot of, shall we say, redundancy in the scene and that is what i was referring to...the big names had solid output...as for the black crowes? i bought van halen tickets from chris robinson when he worked at turtles on johnson ferry rd (i went to wheeler hs they went to walton hs), and saw them when they were mr. crowe's garden...the change between that and what brendan o brien did with them at triclops was nothing short of astounding...d.m.

On the contrary. I would argue the large majority of them are. The ones that aren’t could be KX, although they got tagged hair metal and toured with alot of hairbands, Metallica obviously, and Jellyfish.

Acts like Bryan Adams and The Black Crowes weren’t but had a cross over audience. I saw Bryan Adams on the Neighbors tour. It was sold out and trust me, the majority of the fans were 80s rock fans.

I mentioned Steelheart and Enuff Z’Nuff. Nobody gavet a shit about Tygertailz or the Beez. Beez were good. What about London Quireboys? People drool over themselves when their name comes up here.

Brendan is top shelf. A producer worth their salt could really help make a band. I have always felt KISS lacked a good producer on their first two or three albums. Had an Eddie Kramer, Jack Douglas or Roy Thomas Baker (who, like Douglas most likely would’ve refused) produced their first two, I feel the public would’ve at least taken them gold at the time.

i would guess we categorize things a bit differently...i never considered vh, gnr, aerosmith or a number of others as hair metal...they may have used similar productions but a lot of them were already big names before the advent of what i call hair metal lol...motley was hair metal who tried the grunge thing with corabi (i liked it and seeing them at the roxy in atlanta was very cool), vh? kinda the archetype but different...whitesnake tried to become hair metal but unsure how to really classify them as they started out as a bluesy kind of thing...bryan adams i always considered pop...wasp? def hair metal if a little darker than most...jellyfish...songwriting geniuses that never got their due...i guess i think hollywood strip 80's when i think of hair metal...heard the name of the london quireboys but have never heard them,perhaps i should?...my point was, if sleez bees and tiger tailz were the newest bands coming out as hair metal, we had little to look forward too (even roxy blue was a shameless copy of van halen) which is why i used the term "photocopy"...don't get me wrong, i liked hair metal but was also listening to metallica, megadeth, queensryche, crimson glory etc at the time...as far as rock as a whole? you're right...the big established names were still going strong and releasing quality material...

someone above made a valid point though...the internet and file sharing...that really changed the whole thing...you could listen to something first instead of buying an album after hearing a single only to find the rest of the album wasn't...well...as good as the single...i don't know all the causes...i should probably ask my friend, he worked at triclops and worked on an an aerosmith and a smashing pumpkins record (his stories about their drummer are hilarious)...he might have better insight, but we've never really talked much about it...he despised hair metal preferring things like metallica, al dimeola and frank zappa...god he was a great guitarist until ms took away his ability to play...d.m.

edited to add...when someone mentions hair metal the first band to pop into my head is actually poison...that's hair metal to me

Motley Crue were hair metal but Queensryche and GNR were not? What brand of spray paint are you huffing and where can I get some?

All three bands were glam AF. I wouldn’t consider GNR a metal band though. Queensryche, during their glory days were full
on metal. Motley were more or less a metal band on SATD. I’d say they were close on TFFL. GNR came out in summer 1987 but didn’t really start to avalanche until the early part of 1988 when they released Sweet Child of Mine. Jungle did well though

When Prince Coverdale and Princess Sykes joined forces they became a hair metal band. WS87 is a fully blown, Infusium conditioning, Conair drying hair metal masterpiece, even if they were not quite as glam as Motley Crue and GNR.

Aerosmith tried a reunion record with their same, old tired, coked out 70s formula in 1985 on Done With Mirrors.
It epically failed. After that brick wall, Kalodner made them start writing with the likes of Desmond Child, Jim Vallance and Holly Knight. They became a hairband for nothing more than working with Desmond.

Poison were a metal band? They were a pop rock band at best. On any number of songs they were a flat out pop band not too different from Bryan Adams only nowhere near as good, with the exception of having impressive sales.

Jellyfish were also a straight up pop band only coming more from a late 60s and early 70s sensibility.

So Trixter..they weren’t from Hollywood or even the West Coast. They weren’t a glam band either. Were they hair metal?

What about Firehouse? They were from the South, North Carolina I think. Were they hair metal?

What about Winger? They were about as far away from LA LA land as you could get. Were they hair metal?

There were a lot of interesting and exciting bands coming out in 1989-1991. Not all necessarily glam, Vain, Steelheart, D-A-D, The Black Crowes (if you want to start talking about being derivative), Kik Tracee, King’s X (technically 1988), Enuff Z’Nuff, Extreme (They were from Boston. Are they hair metal?), Living Colour, Spread Eagle, Tora Tora, Quireboys, Saigon Kick, Jellyfish, Thunder, Electric Boys, Dogs D’Amour,

I love it how most of these bands, not all but most, get trash talked by hair metal fans (like how you shit talked Roxy Blue above) but you all went out in 1992 and bought Jackyl’s laughable first album until it went platinum.
Roxy Blue sucked and lacked originality but Jackyl…….that shitty lumberjack song. That’s where it was at for the general rock album buying public?

Megadeth were a weak imitation of Metallica. They were Metallica lite. Like a case of shitty lite beer that won’t get you drunk.
They rode Metallica’s coattails all the way to platinum succcess. Dave in his wettest of wet dreams couldn’t touch Metallica or Anthrax for that matter imo.

[Tommy2Tone84]

I was aware of and listened to a lot of older artists. I also sought them out or traded records with friends. I started getting into UFO in the late 80s. They were never very popular.

my first time hearing metallica was ride the lightning...on a walkman a guy brought in to school...during lunch...i wasn't exactly sure what i was hearing but i liked it lol...friends were a great source to turn us on to new music...hell i picked up live like a suicide on cassette at record bar before appetite came out while looking for import wasp records...i know we can't go back but man what a time to be a teeager...d.m.

You were ahead the curve then. I might’ve seen some small blips of Metallica in magazines prior to
Master of Puppets but never heard them until then.

I knew who GNR were but never heard their music until AFD came out

Dude, that point in time was the best! I’ve wanted to go back since 1990.

[Tommy2Tone84]

In this recent video, Rick Beato and his guest point to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 as a catalyst to the Clear Channel takeover of radio.

It seems like all the criticisms of Bill Clinton are weird, dumb shit and never stuff like RUINING ROCK MUSIC.

Those two clowns act like everything was hunky dory prior to 1996 and Clinton signing the TCA. In reality artists had been getting hosed for years. Decades. I guess they forgot about the big uproar Prince caused with his record label in the early 90s or that Tom Petty filed bankruptcy to get out of a shitty deal a decade before. I’m sure that was all Bill Clinton’s fault too.

[Anthrax442]

I just looked up this guy's credits on wiki, he's an absolute nobody/never was. How in the hell does he have 4 Million subscribers?!?

Please someone explain why I should care about his opinion, I'm being serious. Clearly I've missed something.

[Bono Nettencourt]

In this recent video, Rick Beato and his guest point to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 as a catalyst to the Clear Channel takeover of radio.

It seems like all the criticisms of Bill Clinton are weird, dumb shit and never stuff like RUINING ROCK MUSIC.

Those two clowns act like everything was hunky dory prior to 1996 and Clinton signing the TCA. In reality artists had been getting hosed for years. Decades. I guess they forgot about the big uproar Prince caused with his record label in the early 90s or that Tom Petty filed bankruptcy to get out of a shitty deal a decade before. I’m sure that was all Bill Clinton’s fault too.

I think he was talking more about how it ruined rock radio, and radio in general. Stations went from a top 40 to a top 20. An already bland medium got even blander.

[SterileEyes1]

I just looked up this guy's credits on wiki, he's an absolute nobody/never was. How in the hell does he have 4 Million subscribers?!?

Please someone explain why I should care about his opinion, I'm being serious. Clearly I've missed something.

He knows his shit and people notice. Simple as that.

The video being discussed here should be evidence enough, and it’s not their ‘opinion’, these are facts. Important ones. As rock music fans, it can’t be a bad thing that stuff like this is being amplified and discussed to 4 million people?

This is probably the video that got me into him. He shows how a ton of hugely popular albums mixed by Andy Wallace have the exact same bass drum and snare drum samples (~5:30 mark if you want a quick example).

https://youtu.be/F916ioSWdts?si=wEh9eNxQZxrGKetD

I don’t watch everything he does, but if it’s a topic or a band that interests me, I’m never disappointed.

[diablomozart]

On the contrary. I would argue the large majority of them are. The ones that aren’t could be KX, although they got tagged hair metal and toured with alot of hairbands, Metallica obviously, and Jellyfish.

Acts like Bryan Adams and The Black Crowes weren’t but had a cross over audience. I saw Bryan Adams on the Neighbors tour. It was sold out and trust me, the majority of the fans were 80s rock fans.

I mentioned Steelheart and Enuff Z’Nuff. Nobody gavet a shit about Tygertailz or the Beez. Beez were good. What about London Quireboys? People drool over themselves when their name comes up here.

Brendan is top shelf. A producer worth their salt could really help make a band. I have always felt KISS lacked a good producer on their first two or three albums. Had an Eddie Kramer, Jack Douglas or Roy Thomas Baker (who, like Douglas most likely would’ve refused) produced their first two, I feel the public would’ve at least taken them gold at the time.

i would guess we categorize things a bit differently...i never considered vh, gnr, aerosmith or a number of others as hair metal...they may have used similar productions but a lot of them were already big names before the advent of what i call hair metal lol...motley was hair metal who tried the grunge thing with corabi (i liked it and seeing them at the roxy in atlanta was very cool), vh? kinda the archetype but different...whitesnake tried to become hair metal but unsure how to really classify them as they started out as a bluesy kind of thing...bryan adams i always considered pop...wasp? def hair metal if a little darker than most...jellyfish...songwriting geniuses that never got their due...i guess i think hollywood strip 80's when i think of hair metal...heard the name of the london quireboys but have never heard them,perhaps i should?...my point was, if sleez bees and tiger tailz were the newest bands coming out as hair metal, we had little to look forward too (even roxy blue was a shameless copy of van halen) which is why i used the term "photocopy"...don't get me wrong, i liked hair metal but was also listening to metallica, megadeth, queensryche, crimson glory etc at the time...as far as rock as a whole? you're right...the big established names were still going strong and releasing quality material...

someone above made a valid point though...the internet and file sharing...that really changed the whole thing...you could listen to something first instead of buying an album after hearing a single only to find the rest of the album wasn't...well...as good as the single...i don't know all the causes...i should probably ask my friend, he worked at triclops and worked on an an aerosmith and a smashing pumpkins record (his stories about their drummer are hilarious)...he might have better insight, but we've never really talked much about it...he despised hair metal preferring things like metallica, al dimeola and frank zappa...god he was a great guitarist until ms took away his ability to play...d.m.

edited to add...when someone mentions hair metal the first band to pop into my head is actually poison...that's hair metal to me

Motley Crue were hair metal but Queensryche and GNR were not? What brand of spray paint are you huffing and where can I get some?

All three bands were glam AF. I wouldn’t consider GNR a metal band though. Queensryche, during their glory days were full
on metal. Motley were more or less a metal band on SATD. I’d say they were close on TFFL. GNR came out in summer 1987 but didn’t really start to avalanche until the early part of 1988 when they released Sweet Child of Mine. Jungle did well though

When Prince Coverdale and Princess Sykes joined forces they became a hair metal band. WS87 is a fully blown, Infusium conditioning, Conair drying hair metal masterpiece, even if they were not quite as glam as Motley Crue and GNR.

Aerosmith tried a reunion record with their same, old tired, coked out 70s formula in 1985 on Done With Mirrors.
It epically failed. After that brick wall, Kalodner made them start writing with the likes of Desmond Child, Jim Vallance and Holly Knight. They became a hairband for nothing more than working with Desmond.

Poison were a metal band? They were a pop rock band at best. On any number of songs they were a flat out pop band not too different from Bryan Adams only nowhere near as good, with the exception of having impressive sales.

Jellyfish were also a straight up pop band only coming more from a late 60s and early 70s sensibility.

So Trixter..they weren’t from Hollywood or even the West Coast. They weren’t a glam band either. Were they hair metal?

What about Firehouse? They were from the South, North Carolina I think. Were they hair metal?

What about Winger? They were about as far away from LA LA land as you could get. Were they hair metal?

There were a lot of interesting and exciting bands coming out in 1989-1991. Not all necessarily glam, Vain, Steelheart, D-A-D, The Black Crowes (if you want to start talking about being derivative), Kik Tracee, King’s X (technically 1988), Enuff Z’Nuff, Extreme (They were from Boston. Are they hair metal?), Living Colour, Spread Eagle, Tora Tora, Quireboys, Saigon Kick, Jellyfish, Thunder, Electric Boys, Dogs D’Amour,

I love it how most of these bands, not all but most, get trash talked by hair metal fans (like how you shit talked Roxy Blue above) but you all went out in 1992 and bought Jackyl’s laughable first album until it went platinum.
Roxy Blue sucked and lacked originality but Jackyl…….that shitty lumberjack song. That’s where it was at for the general rock album buying public?

Megadeth were a weak imitation of Metallica. They were Metallica lite. Like a case of shitty lite beer that won’t get you drunk.
They rode Metallica’s coattails all the way to platinum succcess. Dave in his wettest of wet dreams couldn’t touch Metallica or Anthrax for that matter imo.

actually i never bought a jackyl album, although i used to see them on drunken binges at charlie macgruders and would run into jesse at blockbuster every so often...before you ask, yeah he was pretty much always on 10 personality-wise kinda ike the stories you hear about dlr...

i liked winger, still listen to them, but they were weird, half bubblegum pop with the other half kinda progressive (state of emergency, hungry, the rainbow in the rose)...saw them on the pull tour at the cotton club...they were stupidly good live to the point that i wondered if they were using backing tracks
extreme-they were funky, pornograffiti was a great guitar album, never thought of them as hair metal, they had their own thing going
trixter and firehouse-actually saw both live when a stripper i was dating drug me to the warrant blood sweat and beers tour...trixter was forgettable, firehouse was great but i never liked their hit song, bill leverty is an extremely nice guy btw...warrant was surprisingly good
faster pussycat-saw them at the metroplex in atlanta (same place i saw anthrax on among the living tour)...enjoyable show, actually sounded better than the record
poison-addressed them in other thread...not my taste but they put on a great show
babylon ad-only ever heard the one song (something about bells),,,wasn't interested enough to check out anything else
kik tracee-great lead singer, never played atl as far as i can recall
motley crue-saw them on the satd tour, they never topped that for me even though i saw ggg, top, new tattoo tours...always a good time from what i can recall even when i drank too much
queensryche-even they have admitted the image change on rage was a serious mistake...sounded great on that tour though, likewise on mindcrime, empire and promised land tours...lost interest around hear in the now frontier
gnr-never thought they were hair metal-more like an aerosmith kind of group...they were a mess opening for motley crue on the ggg tour...i guess you could say i saw them one and a half times as the second night the show ended early when axl got into a fight (all i remember is hearing "you're fucking dead" the mic hitting the stage and axl jumping into what i believe was the security at the front of the stage)
aerosmith-while toys is my favorite album (yes i'm old) i actually liked done with mirrors...while they did go more poppy they still delivered live at least they did when i saw them (get a grip tour lakewood amphitheater...me and my friend were shocked at how tight they actually were after seeing videos from earlier tours where they were a drugged out mess) btw i was either 8 or 9 when my older brother and dad took me to the champagne jam but i remember very little about that show except that the cars sounded really good
roxy blue-i won't deny their talent but to try and say they didn't want to be van halen? come on lol


as for metallica, megadeth and slayer...i had friends who turned me on to them (i was listening to def leppard, ratt, queensryche, etc at the time)...i never liked slayer's albums but live they were great (i feel the same about motorhead...you didn't truly understand motorhead until you saw them live)...anthrax i picked up spreading the disease because i liked the album cover (same with crimson glory transcendence) those were nice surprises...sorry i liked megadeth since peace sells, lost interest around risk...but no i wasn't ahead of the curve until my friend todd introduced me to metallica (funny thing is? i met them on the justice tour, i worked at a cd store and the wb rep would get cool things like backstage passes and tickets to metallica and king diamond...james and kirk are actually very nice and much more "normal" than one would expect...at least they were then...i never would have known james liked lynyrd skynyrd and going fishing if i he hadn't told me lo)...live like a suicide was just another "hey new band let's buy it and give it a listen" kind of thing...that's just what we all did back then...if it looked cool, buy it and find out

as an impressionable teenager who had just started playing guitar (and before that's where all my money started going lol) me and my friends (mostly other guitar players and social misfits) would all go to the record bar or camelot, find albums with what we considered cool covers (that looks metal let's buy it lol) and all listen, sort of a communal/social thing and of course to have new songs to try and figure out and steal licks from...honestly? i really miss those days...sure we bought tons of clunkers, anybody remember a band called obssession? we do lol...but still it was a great time to be a teenager...randy rhoads was my first guitar hero followed by lynch and then sykes and vai...we all ended up having very different styles, todd released an acoustic michael hedges style album called reaching and worked at triclops...he was the one that brought ride the lightning into school that day lol and i still remember listening to wrek waiting for a track to be played off master of puppets before it released...a lot of great memories...me and mark still write and record becuase it's fun for us, julian got married and moved to ecuador and is very happy and still plays but mostly acoustic these days

here's the thing, even in our little group we never agreed what was metal (except for judas priest,dio and iron maiden)...metallica, testament, etc were just thrash to us, at the time we didn't really classify def leppard or bon jovi as metal but the girls at the time certainly did...even to this day i can't actually define metal (i don't even know what to call what me and mark do...creative loafing called it goth metal which made us laugh...i just call it dad-metal lol) as there are so many sub-genres that, these days, i just don't worry about it...i either like it or i don't...your mileage may vary...but thanks for making me take this trip down memory lane...for years i avoided thinking about those years as i hated high school and didn't have fond memories but i realize i had a pretty interesting childhood after all, not sunset strip cool but still pretty cool...d.m.

btw i used to buy guitars from butch walker at famous bargain music, he worked there in between southgang and marvelous 3...the last time i saw him around the release of letters, i took my girlfriend at the time to meet him, he signed her cd then looked at me, stopped and then said '"charvel jackson dude" and we both laughed...it's been an interesting life for sure lol

[diablomozart]

oh the funny thing is? even after living in atlanta (actually marietta) for all these years, i had never heard of rick beato until i saw a youtube video...in one of them he named his old band and it sounded vaguely familiar...we ran in different circles so i never met him or if i did i don't remember him...d.m.

[Bono Nettencourt]

DLR is only "on 10 all the time" in interviews - in public, he goes out alone in a ball cap and does regular guy shit like going to stores and doesn't attract attention to himself.

Agree w/ you about Sobersmith - while the albums got wussier, their concerts got better and better. Saw all 3 big tours and they were some of the best concert memories I have. They played Seasons of Wither on the GAG tour and it blew my mind.

[diablomozart]

don't get me wrong...jesse is actually a very nice guy...he's just a bit on the gregarious side and very animated...and i can't believe anybody would bother to read all that lol...d.m.

[ijwthstd]

I just looked up this guy's credits on wiki, he's an absolute nobody/never was. How in the hell does he have 4 Million subscribers?!?

Please someone explain why I should care about his opinion, I'm being serious. Clearly I've missed something.

He hasn't heard of you either

[Anthrax442]

I just looked up this guy's credits on wiki, he's an absolute nobody/never was. How in the hell does he have 4 Million subscribers?!?

Please someone explain why I should care about his opinion, I'm being serious. Clearly I've missed something.

He hasn't heard of you either

Touche. The whole point was, I was trying to figure out if this guy was actually some super well known dude in certain circles, and it just hadn't translated into being well known before the youtube channel.

[Mister Freeze]

Man, you guys love to shoot the messenger, don't you?

[Velvis]

You can compare the radio situation with Sootify’s playlists they promote heavily. Millions of people are subscribing to these and get new music fed to them. Curated by someone, somewhere at Spotify.
Never ever do they add new rock on these major playlists. For rock you need to actively search for it. It’s not highlighted on their front page.

I am not saying you are wrong and I am not a heavy spotify user so I may have missed it but I dont think I have ever noticed a front page to spotify. If I recall when I first installed the app they ask for bands you like.

Where are the promoted playlists?