Challenge: Make Glam Metal popular through the 90's

Glam Metal bands consisted of (first wave) Quiet Riot, RATT, Crue etc. who were heavier. It was towards the mid 80's that poppier Glam like Poison & Danger Danger took hold.

Guns N' Roses (AFD era) were pure Sleaze; a grittier, rawer style which evolved from Glam. Think AC/DC and Rolling Stone with some Hanoi Rocks thrown in there. Various Sleaze bands appeared then: Vain, Faster Pussycat, Circus of Power.

Def Leppard and Van Halen (DLR era) however are not Glam. They were Hard Rock with slick production though they did not adhere to the image or aesthetic unlike certain bands like Night Ranger.
 
as I said before, have Thrash/Groove take a bigger chunk of the Lion's share of sales, and also act as a bulwark to Grunge.
 

Heavy

Banned
If you look at some old interviews with glam artists, it frequently seems as though they're asked their opinion on the burgeoning thrash scene (my main reference is an interview with Joe Elliott conducted by Dave Ling in Kerrang! while their Hysteria era was winding down). I think there was a certain assumption that the next big thing was going to be thrash metal, and for a little while, with the release of Metallica's Black Album, that assumption seemed to have been borne out.

Let us propose that, through some series of events, thrash manages to get a little bigger than it was in around 1989 or 1990. Could it co-exist alongside glam?

What if Steve Clark had lived?
 
If you look at some old interviews with glam artists, it frequently seems as though they're asked their opinion on the burgeoning thrash scene (my main reference is an interview with Joe Elliott conducted by Dave Ling in Kerrang! while their Hysteria era was winding down). I think there was a certain assumption that the next big thing was going to be thrash metal, and for a little while, with the release of Metallica's Black Album, that assumption seemed to have been borne out.

Let us propose that, through some series of events, thrash manages to get a little bigger than it was in around 1989 or 1990. Could it co-exist alongside glam?

What if Steve Clark had lived?

Or what if Def Leppard had stuck to their roots as a New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) band? Def Leppard is a really bad example here as they've always tried to keep up with the trends, so they'd have most likely tagged along with whatever was big at the time.

As for making thrash more popular, and thus saving Glam metal, it would require more cross-over between artists and groups. For instance, if Pantera had held onto some of their glam metal beginnings rather than chucking the image completely, or if Skid Row had become bigger. Even so, that's only delaying the inevitable, rather than actually butterflying away the impact of grunge.

In all honesty, I think Ace Venom's heavy metal TL is probably the best bet for this to take place.
 
Getting rid of some of the breakups of notable bands might work as well. If you can somehow keep vince neil in motley crue, keep steven adler and izzy in gnr, and keep CC in Poison (and make sure that the 1991 VMA fiasco DOESNT take place), the bands may have had more of a shelf life (instead of looking like self-parodies).
 
Getting rid of some of the breakups of notable bands might work as well. If you can somehow keep vince neil in motley crue, keep steven adler and izzy in gnr, and keep CC in Poison (and make sure that the 1991 VMA fiasco DOESNT take place), the bands may have had more of a shelf life (instead of looking like self-parodies).

Or, get Guns 'N' Roses to break up earlier, albeit on better terms. Perhaps they decide to go their separate ways after the whole Use Your Illusion record company drama.
 

Heavy

Banned
If GNR split on good terms between Use Your Illusion and Te Spaghetti Incident? (perhaps Axl is asked to tour with Brian May and Rover Taylor after his performance at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert and the rest of the band encourage him to go for it, since they were all big Queen fans, meanwhile forming a Velvet Revolver-type spin-off group, possibly as a heavier proposition than GNR), they could retain considerable good faith in the mainstream cconsciousness and any reunion tour they sought to undertake would be huge.

In the interim, the record company would no doubt be looking for a bankable replacement; I think Skid Row were the closest to GNR aesthetically (though maybe not sonically), they'd had commercial success already and I think they'd been the support act for either part of the Guns N' Roses/Metallica Stadium Tour or the Use Your Illusion Tour, so they might be the best bet.

What if The Decline Of Western Civilisation, Part II: The Metal Years is never produced? It had an adverse effect on the glam scene's already controversial image.
 
I think you're a little hard on Bon Jovi, here. Remember that Bon Jovi opened for the Scorpions in '84 and RATT in '85 (among others); in '87, Cinderella -- the quintessential glam metal band, no? -- opened for Bon Jovi on the Slippery When Wet tour. So I would say that at the time, Bon Jovi was certainly accepted in the hair metal community.

Quintessential 'hair metal' band, you mean.:D

Overall my objection to the attempt at codifying Glam Metal (at least as it's portrayed via that wikipedia article) is that it's a bit too contrarian-cute-screw-all-popular-tastes IMO. It just reeks of modern hipsterism.

Getting him to switch genres strikes me as not implausible, but you'll have to make him fail at producing Prince-style acts as well.

(Surely the little man's production skills are the key here? Because my whole take on this AHC is that it needs a Carlylean Hero to keep some kind of Glam going in the nineties, otherwise the industry doesn't care enough to let OT's bands go on going strong.)

I should point out I see a Glam Prince as being more like a strange riff on very late era Hendrix (when he was trying to introduce funk-rock) and Glam Rock Bowie than any pure Metal, though there would obviously be fusion influences there between the various genres & revivals.

But if hairy Metal won't stand up for this kind of sophistication then I guess I'm sketching out something that's inimical to GM. Does this whole genre even have any time for OTL's In Living Colour or Faith No More? Because a Glam Prince is going to be more like them on steroids than any other acts mentioned here.
 
If you want a Glam-Punk rise, then give some extra weight to Hanoi Rocks (maybe butterfly away Razzle's death?) and it should give some leeway to Manic Street Preachers (Generation Terrorists is pure Clash/GN'R Glam Punk).

One resolution to the Manics related stuff is to not have Richey disappear ,which made their image for the 'general public' (i.e. those not especially popular music savvy) much more of a 'music to self harm to'.

This despite the fact a lot of their back catalogue is rock/punk influenced and turn it up and have a good air guitar moment ... also if some of the rockier /heavier tracks were as well known as their cover of 'Suicide is Painless'

as to the view of none savvy joe public you've got a track (suicide is painless) that 'advocates' suicide(even though it doesn;t really) and then you've got Richey disappeared presumed to have topped himself... (despite no body being found )

Outside that there's lots of what if's about line up changes... breakups and hiatuses for different bands from early periods of Metal (e.g. Bruce D-less 'Maiden ,G'N'R ...) or Bands that had become considered novelty acts e.g. Slade that were still releasing none novelty material e.g. Slade's 'Radio -Wall of Sound' in 1991

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Wall_of_Sound

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvKiObD2pYU
 
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Instead of trying to make poodle rock last, go back to real glam and try again. Real glam is British and not some US wanna be 'bad boys'. Try to get hold of some of the LP's by Sweet, Slade and T-Rex, let alone Bowie and you will hear what I mean. What glam is called in the US has nothing to do with glam.
That said, I have seen bands like Bon Jovi and Alice Cooper, good stuff and very good live. I have also seen Living Colo(u)r and one of the very worse gigs I have ever been to, £20 down the drain:mad:.

But anyway, to keep it alive it has to evolve and every band can have a bad album from time to time, there just seemed to be a whole lot comming out at the same time. That didn't help. Glam and rock in general started to slow down big time by the mid '90's and the rise of things like X Factor have not helped. Everything dies and it was glams time.
 
One resolution to the Manics related stuff is to not have Richey disappear ,which made their image for the 'general public' (i.e. those not especially popular music savvy) much more of a 'music to self harm to'.

Don't lump all MSP fans (including myself) in with the CoR!!! Their early Glam-Punk style could have been prolonged had some form of Glam stayed popular.
 
Don't lump all MSP fans (including myself) in with the CoR!!! Their early Glam-Punk style could have been prolonged had some form of Glam stayed popular.

I'm no fan of the Cult of Richey, and as some one who has several Manics albums you are right in that there is plenty of their work that has a glam/rock/punk aspect to it ...

e.g. Kevin Carter,You love Us, Design for Life ,Everything Must Go Australia,La Trisesse Durera , Found that Soul, The Masses Against the classes...
 
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