What's the biggest "What if...?" in the history of hair metal?

[CrankerBait]

What if MTV hadn't gotten behind hair metal like they did?

What if GnR hadn't imploded in the early-90s?

[GoodJudge]

What if UYI had been a single album? Has anyone thought about that?

[Love_Industry]

What if GnR hadn't imploded in the early-90s?

GnR and Mötley releasing classic sounding albums when Adrenalize and Get a Grip still had singles on MTV and the bands were on tour would have been a game changer. Grunge would still be what it was but those 93-early 94 albums and then VH's Balsnce in 95 would have extended 80s metal as a commercial force almost until the VH and Kiss reunions in 1996.

What about Judas Priest completing and releasing a Stock-Aitken-Waterman cowritten and produced album instead of Ram It Down in 1988?

[Chip Z'Hoy]

What if UYI had been a single album? Has anyone thought about that?

Hold on, those songs won’t fit on a single album. You’d have to get rid of some of them. But which ones?

[kc primo]

What if CC DeVille released Needle Park back in 1993 and we actually got to hear new Poison tunes with Spike on vocals?
Or what if Steven Adler didn’t get fired and did the Illusion records?

[soulonfire]

What if Randy Rhoads had stuck with Quiet Riot and never joined Ozzy? Ozzy picks up Lynch and Dokken ends up with a different guitarist? Does Quiet Riot become successful earlier or do they just toil in the underground? If Metal Health never happens, does hair metal blow up as much as it did?

What if Jani stayed in Florida?

What if Nikki actually died from that OD?

What if Tuff released their album in '88 or '89?

[Bono Nettencourt]

What if Randy Rhoads had stuck with Quiet Riot and never joined Ozzy?

We'd never know who he was.

[kanister]

What if Bon Jovi had released SWW with the planned beach girl record sleeve? The album might have lost half of its potential listeners,

[Earl Skakel]

Serious
What if Ace and Peter never left KISS, could they have carried KISS into the 80's glam era?

Fun
What if Stevie Rachelle never took that towel picture, would I still think he was as straight as a circle?

[Tommy2Tone84]

Hate to be the bearer of bad news. It was 1988/1989. The peak of Hair Metal. It didn’t do much. So, no…it just wasn’t meant to be.

It was released in late 1989. It was 1989/1990.

[FreddyFender]

What if Kiss had been able to write good songs??

[BlackdogRDC]

What if Lynyrd Skynyrd had not got on that plane?
What if Randy Rhoads had not got on that plane?
What if the Eat Em and Smile line up had stayed together?

[rubysdad]

What if Rik Allen hadn’t drove drunk?

[Bono Nettencourt]

Hate to be the bearer of bad news. It was 1988/1989. The peak of Hair Metal. It didn’t do much. So, no…it just wasn’t meant to be.

It was released in late 1989. It was 1989/1990.

Yep. It wasn't released at the peak, but during the oversaturation that led to the decline and fall. But, to Mato's point, it was a major label release. It got pushed. There were videos. If people wanted to buy it, they would have. They didn't.

[HoldenSSV]

Yep. It wasn't released at the peak, but during the oversaturation that led to the decline and fall. But, to Mato's point, it was a major label release. It got pushed. There were videos. If people wanted to buy it, they would have. They didn't.

The video was cheesy and lame and everything wrong with hair metal, and the song really isn't anything special. Fly High Michelle is a better song.

[woblinweebles]

Yep. It wasn't released at the peak, but during the oversaturation that led to the decline and fall. But, to Mato's point, it was a major label release. It got pushed. There were videos. If people wanted to buy it, they would have. They didn't.

The video was cheesy and lame and everything wrong with hair metal, and the song really isn't anything special. Fly High Michelle is a better song.

Some band, Aerosmith, IIRC, was supposedly interested in taking them out on tour as an opener based on their music until they saw the video for "New Thing."

[Tommy2Tone84]

Hate to be the bearer of bad news. It was 1988/1989. The peak of Hair Metal. It didn’t do much. So, no…it just wasn’t meant to be.

It was released in late 1989. It was 1989/1990.

Yep. It wasn't released at the peak, but during the oversaturation that led to the decline and fall. But, to Mato's point, it was a major label release. It got pushed. There were videos. If people wanted to buy it, they would have. They didn't.

That is completely accurate. I’m not sure if their debut was released in ‘85, ‘86 or ‘87 if they would have sold well. They had all the right elements and players. They were musically better than the Kix’s, Poison’s, White Lion’s, Warrant’s and Slaughter’s. But I’m not sure their Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band meets 80s Day Glo Glam would have ever appealed to a mass audience. Donnie had that John Lennon thing going. Not only in his physical looks but how he sang. Their first two releases are as good as any hairband AFAIC.

Then you have a band like Whitesnake who toiled around practically in obscurity for years, who finally hit pay dirt with their seventh or eighth record and their 14th lineup change.

[Tommy2Tone84]

Yep. It wasn't released at the peak, but during the oversaturation that led to the decline and fall. But, to Mato's point, it was a major label release. It got pushed. There were videos. If people wanted to buy it, they would have. They didn't.

The video was cheesy and lame and everything wrong with hair metal, and the song really isn't anything special. Fly High Michelle is a better song.

New Thing, the song and the video isn’t any cheesier than the type of shit KISS, Alice Cooper, Motley Crue, Quiet Riot, Twisted Sister, David Lee Roth, Dokken, Poison, Kix, Warrant etc were doing at the time. Half of those bands I mentioned above coasted by on cover songs.

[DangerZone]

What if Waylon & Buddy Holly switched seats

[Rocker4Real]

What if John Bush would have joined Metallica? Would James and Lars kick him out after 1 album?

[LAglamrocker]

What if ..Gerri Miller had Only Fans in 1988

[daveg]

What if Sleek did a terrible job at cleaning up the water on stage, and Poison ended up all too injured to ever play again....

[Bono Nettencourt]

Yep. It wasn't released at the peak, but during the oversaturation that led to the decline and fall. But, to Mato's point, it was a major label release. It got pushed. There were videos. If people wanted to buy it, they would have. They didn't.

The video was cheesy and lame and everything wrong with hair metal, and the song really isn't anything special. Fly High Michelle is a better song.

Some band, Aerosmith, IIRC, was supposedly interested in taking them out on tour as an opener based on their music until they saw the video for "New Thing."

I believe it... i didn’t know anything about their music when I saw them, but all I could think was "who the fuck are these green Day-Glo geeks?" Whoever greenlit their "look" should've been shot. Even for the time, they were WAY over the top.

[FreddyFender]

Post-GNR, most bands looked tougher and edgier. Enuff Znuff looked like, as Bono said, a buncha day-glo clowns. But that aside - no one wanted to hear their songs. They released two albums on major label before grunge hit - got a big push, videos on mtv, critics liked them - but both records flopped.

They're another one of those bands that musicians, wannabe musicians, and Japanese people like, but the general public won't touch with a ten foot pole. Just because you're talented doesn't mean people wanna hear your songs.

I mean fuck, the single off their second album is an anti-racism, anti-violence anthem. WHO was that for?

[Bono Nettencourt]

Their 2nd album hit a whopping #143 on the Billboard charts... even Tuff laughs at that.

[LurkingAtWork]

They had a big push from Stern too, he loved them and promoted them a lot.

[windycitycane]

What if Paul Stanley didn’t tell Jon Bon Jovi to contact Desmond Child?

There would potentially be no hair metal genre?

[Bono Nettencourt]

They had a big push from Stern too, he loved them and promoted them a lot.

Letterman too, oddly enough

[Inessence]

What if Paul Stanley didn’t tell Jon Bon Jovi to contact Desmond Child?

There would potentially be no hair metal genre?

Underrated comment.

[pieceofme]

What if Paul Stanley didn’t tell Jon Bon Jovi to contact Desmond Child?

There would potentially be no hair metal genre?

Underrated comment.

Not really considering it was already around pre Slippery When Wet.