COCKYTALK ENTERTAINMENT TOURNAMENT: -- "Hair Bands"

[Spurticus]

Had a suggestion this morning to do another tournament and the suggestion
was to do one for the Best 80s "Hair Bands". We seem to have some
board interest lately with the threads going up to talk about 80s bands, and
it seems like a good opportunity to start this tournament. SO

Starting Monday Morning, I'll begin taking your nominations for favorite
"HAIR BANDS" (aka: Hair Metal Bands, Glam Metal, Glam Rock etc...).
I'm simply going to assume that everyone knows what the definition of
those terms are and have a good idea of who your favorites are. Not going
to go into a long detail to put guidelines for "Hair Metal Bands / Artists", so
the guidelines are limited to your interpretation. After all, these Tournaments
we do is for the members of this site anyway, and whatever you guys
choose is fine. As an example: I would not consider Van Halen to be one
of these "Glam Rock" bands, but they came along at about the same time
as those bands that I DO consider "Hair Metal" artists, so some people here
may consider them to be in this genre. I would have trouble deciding
whether or not Def Leppard was a "Glam Metal" band while some would
think they are DEFINITELY among these types of artists, so the choices
are yours to list as you see them, and all will counted. ... I would say
however, that we should not consider resurgent artists who made comebacks
during that time, and capitalized on the "Hair Metal" craze of the 80s, as
Glam Rock Bands. Artists like Heart, Aerosmith, Kiss, etc... who were 70s
Rock Icons who's careers tailed off at the end of the 70s, then saw a
resurgence in the 80s by altering their music to ride that fad of "Hair
Metal" explosion. (My opinion)

SO, let's just keep it as simple as possible.
Not sure we can get a Bracket of 32 bands out of that genre, so we'll
do a Tournament of 16 artists. We'll start Monday morning with nominations
and ask for your list of your 10 favorite Hair Metal bands (BY PRIORITY).
We'll assign points to the place in your lists and get a seeding based on
number of points. ...... Example:

If your list was something like

1. Motley Crue
2. Def Leppard
3. Quiet Riot
4. Warrant
5, 6, 7 etc.....

We'll give 10 points to your first place vote, 9 to second place, 8 to third
etc.... and keep a total of bands and points. At the end of next week,
we'll add up the points and get a seeding based on the number of points
each band received. There will probably be some tie breaker votes, so
we'll do short polls to break those up and then as soon as we have the
seeded brackets completed, we'll begin the voting for the Tournament.

Starting Monday morning through Friday Night we'll start taking your
lists and compiling the totals. I'll update and post the totals at the end
of the day in the nomination thread.

[spareparts]

In all honesty, I don't know enough about these bands and their music to make a serious choice. I can honestly say I never listen to the stuff and aside from the one or two "hit" songs, I don't know the difference between them

[cocky0]

1. Guns N Roses
2. Def Leppard
3. Motley Crue
4. KISS
5. Poison
6. Twisted Sister
7. Scorpions
8. Ratt
9. Iron Maiden
10. Warrant

[Spurticus]

Originally Posted by cocky0

1. Guns N Roses
2. Def Leppard
3. Motley Crue
4. KISS
5. Poison
6. Twisted Sister
7. Scorpions
8. Ratt
9. Iron Maiden
10. Warrant

I am going to start a thread dedicated to nominations Monday morning
C0, but I'll Copy and Paste this list to that one Monday and start the thread
with it.

[cocky0]

That sounds righteous to me, dude.

[Spurticus]

Originally Posted by spareparts

In all honesty, I don't know enough about these bands and their music to make a serious choice. I can honestly say I never listen to the stuff and aside from the one or two "hit" songs, I don't know the difference between them

I was "OK" with the early stuff (with the exception of Quiet Riot...who many
think was the band that started this wave of music). .... It was different
and like Disco music in the early 70s and Grung music in the early 90s, a
lot of it was listenable. But like Disco, Grung, Punk etc... It just opened the
door to every garage band in America to change to that style and go make
a record and video, and it got overplayed and watered down fast. The
Radio and TV basically killed it off by playing it into the dust.

There were some REALLY good bands that came out of it though. IMO,
Cinderella, Dokken, Skid Row, Queensryche, (early) Motley Crue,
(and a couple of others) put out some pretty good stuff, but the "Wave" that
just got too big, and overplayed also produced some below average / piss poor
cookie cutter music that made me gag. Ratt, Warrant, Twisted Sister, Poison,
Autograph etc..... was just the same old crap with different colored spandex
and sequence.

[Spurticus]

My biggest gripe about all that type music becoming so popular was that
the DJs and VJs of the 80s categorized it as a type of Heavy Metal music.
It was as far from Metal as I am to San Francisco right now, but simply
because it was loud, and the originators of the music wore mostly black
leather / spandex with studs and glitter, they (the music gurus) deemed it
to be a type of Heavy Metal. ......... To me, it was just another passing fad
in the rock music industry that got wore out by the media's fixation of it.
The advent of Video (MTV, CMT, VH1 ....) was kind to Hair Bands, but IMO
was the beginning of the end for True Rock music in general.

[Spur's Addiction]

This will take some thought. I will do my liat later. But just a few off the top of my head.

Queensryches was awesome, Cindarella, G'N'R

Def Leppard was good - But I would call them a mullet band instead of hair b

[warriorchief]

1. Guns N Roses
2. Motley Crue
3. Poison
4. Def Leppard
5. Scorpions
6. Cinderella
7. Quiet Riot
8. Damn Yankees
9. Warrant
10. Ratt

[JerseyBird]

First (or maybe 2nd) point of debate - I don't know if I would classify G N' R as "hair metal" or "glam metal" - IMO they were more of a true Heavy Metal that Spurticus would seem to prefer

[Acockolypse Now]

Iron Maiden was not a hair band.

Guns and Roses was not a hair band.

Dokken.

Dokken was a hair band.

[Spurticus]

Originally Posted by JerseyBird

First (or maybe 2nd) point of debate - I don't know if I would classify G N' R as "hair metal" or "glam metal" - IMO they were more of a true Heavy Metal that Spurticus would seem to prefer

Originally Posted by Acockolypse Now

Iron Maiden was not a hair band.

Guns and Roses was not a hair band.

Dokken.

Dokken was a hair band.

^
Agree. It's just my opinion (and apparently these gentlemen above)
That there were bands just before and during the "coming of the
hair bands" in the 80s that I would not classify as Hair Metal artists.
Van Halen came to popularity in the late 70s and there was nothing about them
that screams GLAM ROCK. There was a term that was thrown around by
Rock Columnist and Editorialist during that time that "kind of" fits VH
brand of rock. They used the term "Guitar Rock". Even though VH recorded
some stuff later on with Eddie doing Keyboards and Synthesizers, they
were basically a heavy R&B Rock band with a west coast spin on their
writing and musical style. .... Guns n Roses (IMO) was the last of the
Good R&B Rock bands. Not just of the 80s, but forever. Since they
broke up in the early 90s (the original band), and the beginning of the
Grung Band invasion, there hasn't been another good Hard Rock / R&B
band or artist that has been recorded and played on the air. I've made
the statement a few times that Real Rock Died along with GnR. The only
"Real" rock bands around now are basically the ones doing Reunion Tours
and TRYING to record that next big Rock Album, but have not found it
yet. ... The Eagles, Aerosmith, Fleetwood Mac, The Stones .... All have
recorded new records in the past few years, but it wasn't even close
to their hayday magic.

Def Leppard is a tough band for me to figure out. They are the one band
that has me totally confused as to what I would call them. They are
a genuine Morph between Van Halen (and R&B Rock) and Poison, which
was Everything that Hair Metal and Glam Rock stood for. I really liked the
music that DL made, but wouldn't classify it as Rock, but I have a hard
time calling them a band that fit the bloodlines of Led Zeppelin, The
Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Van Halen and Guns n Roses ... They're the
Sasquatch of Rock Music.


I've put together my list of Hair Bands that I'm going to post Tomorrow
and It didn't include Def Leppard. I just can't make myself call them a
Glam Rock / Hair Metal band, but I certainly can see how others would
have them listed in their picks for this tournament. If I decided to call
them a Hair Metal band, they'd be near the top of my list. Problem is,
if someone asked me to name the best R&B / Blues based Rock bands
of the 80 and 90s, I don't think I could make myself list Def Leppard
among them either