DLR Van Halen was never glam in my book. It was Helloween cleverly disguised as T-Rex.

Mostly not, although the "Diver Down" and "1984" albums definitely had a glam feel.

I always think of Tesla as about halfway between glam and the black crowds.

Anyways early van halen is better than most things in my book

The Black Crowes. I really liked their first album. But I can't really care about them anymore.

Just before grunge broke, people were ready for bands that had no 'hair & makeup' identity, and whose sound was "back to roots". It gave us Black Crowes, but unfortunately, also the acoustic ballads of Mr. Big and Extreme, and MTV unplugged.

Tesla for some reason didn't benefit from the post-glam phase that came with grunge. Bands like Collective Soul Asylum or Crash Test Dummies would thrive, but Tesla's sound wasn't as radio friendly. Also, because they had had ballads, god forbid, they were identified forever with the hair bands. But their ballads had nothing in common with Cinderella-type power ballads. They were more substantial.

I don't think Cinderella really had one style ballad. "Nobody's Fool", "Don't Know What You've Got ('Til It's Gone)", "Heartbreak Station", and "Through The Rain" were all entirely different.

'Heartbreak Station' certainly is more characteristic of late 80s/early 90s hair metal, they toned the "power" aspect of power ballad, and played more bluesy, acoustic, Tesla style. I don't know 'Through the Rain'.

But I think the first two have more contrast .. gentle piano verses, then full on chorus and distorsion, with over the top raspy vocals and drum beats reminding Bonnie Tyler's 'Total Eclipse of the Heart', or Savatage ballads. Those were the two I had in mind.

The second Black Crowe’s record is even better than the first I think.

I like that back to roots late 80s early 90s sound. Despite the shitty ballads Extreme was pretty rad too. Collecitive Soul has some good tunes and was huge in the 90s until they tried to be a shitty boy band with guitars. Soul asylum and crash test dummies I could do without.

Funny you mention Cinderella as I always thought they were pretty misunderstood, more of the bluest sound like some of the above mentioned bands.

'Long Cold Winter' had its bluesy moments indeed.. it was an early move away from typical glam.

I think discusssions about hair/glam metal in general usually suffer from oversimplification. The VH1 "grunge killed glam" narrative is really unjust, sometimes with the addition of the Chris Holmes interview in the "Decline part II" documentary.

I think an important element in the evolution of glam metal is Guns'N'Roses (1987). Whether they were the cause or effect, their introduction on the scene called for a return to more basic rock / blues, less gimmicks, less make-up (though on some early pics GNR wore quite a lot of make ups, but they gradually shedded). Ballad-side, a song like "Patience" was more grown up and adult than most power ballads. Other bands either consciously followed or naturally got to the same place. You can tell for instance, the difference in music and (also look) between Poison's first two albums (1986, 1988), though their first album was more glam (Hanoi Rocks) than metal (Mötley Crüe) influenced.

Of course, not all bands followed the same trends at the same pace; and you had 'Cherry Pie' in 1990, but on the same album you had songs like 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'.

So the relationship between hard rock (or glam/hair metal which was a good part of it) and thrash during the 80s.. really depends on the year (early, mid or late 80s).

[quote="ze_mau"]There´s a locked topic here on "Glam Metal" , but what I´d like to approach is , what where the actual reasons why Glam and Thrash (and basically , all other real metal styles) NEVER got along ?

SweatLeaf95:
I'LL crush your throat you little faggot, I can find you if I FEEL like it.
I was Heavy Metal when you fell out of your mothers ass in 95 would be my guess.
even if POISON touched on Hard Rock that does not make it metal, do you know the difference between metal and hard rock?
I think you don't but there is OBJECTIVE musicological definition.
This entire database is strictly for weak little faggots who have no comprehension of musicology.
In the 1980s when I started listening to metal it was for ruffians, stoners, high school delinquents and bikers. Now its for SHORT-HAIRED TWERPS with high-pitched voices who use their little mousepad as a vicarious boxing ring because they're cowards in the real world.
"YOU'RE NOT IN OUR LITTLE FAGGOT CLUB DATABASE BECAUSE YOU DON'T SOUND LIKE POWER METAL"
"THIS IS A DATABASE ABOUT THE HEAVIEST MUSIC BUT WE'RE MORE CONCERNED WITH GRAMMATICAL ERRORS"
"WE ARE SUCH ANAL RETENTIVE FAGGOTS THAT EVERY COMMENT MUST BE APPROVED BECAUSE METAL IS NOW CONTROLLED BY COMPUTER PROGRAMMERS IN DREAM THEATER LONG SLEEVES"



bands like POISON and WARRANT were not--are not-- metal at all, I mean that on a musicological basis, those bands are barely even hard rock let alone HM, listen to the riffs and beats and vocals, its strait Rock but (nauseatingly) dolled up because the music mob in L.A. insisted the guys wear make-up and lipstick etc, the bands wouldn't admit they were coerced into doing this but this is the truth.
Of course Thrash comes from a mixture of the extreme punk of the earliest '80s and MOTORHEAD which is real amphetamine Biker rock of course and wouldn't be caught dead in faggoty dress.
However, there is one very important entity that must be invoked in this subject, I did not see it mentioned on this thread thus far, maybe I missed it. this band is miraculous for several reasons, not just because they SUCCESSFULLY COMBINED Thrash and Glam, but because --and this is the miracle-- THEY'RE VERY GOOD, certainly the first album is up there in the list of greatest metal albums of all time.
Of course I mean NITRO and "O.F.R"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReoYWEGN7Z4
Fascinatingly, NITRO were also the first band who began invoking "extremes", which is 1989 was NOT on the metal table yet.
Technically NITRO is speed metal mixed with Glam, the difference between Thrash and Speed Metal being that Speed Metal is a kind of Thrash that requires virtuosity...Speed Metalers CAN play Thrash but Thrashers generally CANNOT play Speed Metal, as convincingly evinced by the over-the-top athleticism of NITRO / BATIO / GILLETTE

The Black Crowes were glam? Since when? About a straight up rock and roll band as you get.

kalervon: You do have a good point, you can definitely pick and choose single glam songs as metal and others as not, that "Cherry Pie" vs. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a great example. Although realize that Warrant didn't want to do Cherry Pie, and most of their stuff was more like UTC. And I guess I never really thought of Guns N Roses that way either, but that's an interesting perspective.

Edit: You should totally check out "Through The Rain" since you don't know it. It's off of their final and mostly forgotten record "Still Climbing".

Nevai: Then you need to clean the shit out of your ears. To say that Poison is barely even hard rock is ridiculous. Listen to Look What The Cat Dragged In. Literally one ballad (I Won't Forget You). The rest uses deep distorted riffs on every track. Just because they look like chicks and Bret's voice is very un-metal doesn't mean the music isn't. The title track and "I Want Some, I Need Some" use hard guitar chugging right from the start.

To be fair, even though I'm not into glam/hair band stuff, a lot of the bands didn't really market themselves as metal. I do remember Jon Bon Jovi (whose band was one of the softest of the movement!) seemed to have no problem with his band being labeled metal, at least back in the 1980s. The labeling of the glam/hair bands as metal was marketing put by their label, not the band themselves, in the vast majority of cases.

The same was the case with nu-metal in the late 90s/early 2000s; the vast majority of bands considered nu-metal openly stated they didn't/don't view themselves as proper metal. The promoting of them as metal was mostly from the media and record labels, not the bands themselves.

At the time I think people who were into thrash were also into glam, as far as my friends at least. Both genres have guitar mastery and some level of shredding.