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Who ended Hair Band craze?


realtree71

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Nirvana gets too much credit. Right before Nevermind broke, bands like RHCP and Metallica were playing award shows and national TV, Pearl Jam was getting attention, and the entire "alternative scene" of bands like Jane's Addiction were getting a lot more attention. Hair metal was already dying. Then, as the final insult, Nirvana came along and gave this entire disillusioned music movement a poster child, and a name.

 

Yes, Nirvana made the strongest impact. Doesn't matter if Nirvana was the best surfer on the wave, surfers didn't drown hair metal. The wave of alternative and folkish rock music drowned it. And much as they get so much credit for the scene they only put 3 albums into, they get so much credit for killing a scene that had spent the last 5+ years dying. Both are unfair, and inaccurate.

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In a more serious note: I (and I must assume a lot of other folks might fit in this category) had pretty much stopped listening to MTV and Top-40 radio by the end of the 80s because of the preponderance of crap. By 1989, I was mostly listening to Alt/college radio stations. Nobody killed Hair Metal -- rather, as some here have opined it collapsed on its own.

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This sums it up:

 

It was 1990 give or take I don't remember

when the news of revolution hit the air

The girls hadn't even started taking down our posters

when the boys started cutting off their hair

The radio stations all decided angst was finally old enough

it ought to have a proper home

Dead fat or rich nobody

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I'm gonna go in a little different direction and say Garth Brooks was one of the ones that started the demise.

 

Without a doubt Nirvana dealt the death blow, and GNR & Metallica helped, but Garth Brooks started making "country" music popular in the late 80s/early 90s and that started to pull a lot of would-be hair band fans in that direction.

 

The people that wanted musicians with pretty hair went the country route and the people that wanted rock n roll went the grunge route. The hair bands were left high and dry in the middle.

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I'm gonna go in a little different direction and say Garth Brooks was one of the ones that started the demise.


Without a doubt Nirvana dealt the death blow, and GNR & Metallica helped, but Garth Brooks started making "country" music popular in the late 80s/early 90s and that started to pull a lot of would-be hair band fans in that direction.


The people that wanted musicians with pretty hair went the country route and the people that wanted rock n roll went the grunge route. The hair bands were left high and dry in the middle.

 

 

Interesting perspective.

 

Garths live shows were HUGE eighties style arena extravaganzas and were a continuation of everything that was already going on in the eighties. I'm sure you are right that at least some of the eighties rock crowd went that direction. Garth was one of the biggest country musicians to ever live during the nineties having tons more sales than any country artist had ever seen before.

 

All those new fans had to come from somewhere.

 

Nowadays, when my country band plays live, and I see all those dolled up hot ass country girls out there line dancing, they remind me of all the hot little mammas that used to crowd the stages at our hair metal shows.

 

Same girls, they are just wearing different clothes.

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Another vote for Nirvana. I remember seeing the video for Smells Like Teen Spirit; and within a couple of weeks ..hair metal was dead. It was that instant. It was no record label conspiracy ; it was just something that happened like Elvis or the Beatles.

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Seems like a lot of the local hair metal acts in Florida, have gone the way of country. Seems weird they would destroy metal and then move on to destroy country too.

 

 

Interesting perspective.


Garths live shows were HUGE eighties style arena extravaganzas and were a continuation of everything that was already going on in the eighties. I'm sure you are right that at least some of the eighties rock crowd went that direction. Garth was one of the biggest country musicians to ever live during the nineties having tons more sales than any country artist had ever seen before.


All those new fans had to come from somewhere.


Nowadays, when my country band plays live, and I see all those dolled up hot ass country girls out there line dancing, they remind me of all the hot little mammas that used to crowd the stages at our hair metal shows.


Same girls, they are just wearing different clothes.

 

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Interesting perspective.


Garths live shows were HUGE eighties style arena extravaganzas and were a continuation of everything that was already going on in the eighties. I'm sure you are right that at least some of the eighties rock crowd went that direction. Garth was one of the biggest country musicians to ever live during the nineties having tons more sales than any country artist had ever seen before.


All those new fans had to come from somewhere.


Nowadays, when my country band plays live, and I see all those dolled up hot ass country girls out there line dancing, they remind me of all the hot little mammas that used to crowd the stages at our hair metal shows.


Same girls, they are just wearing different clothes.

 

 

I agree with you but to hear guys like Hank Williams Jr and others from that time period, you would think Garth ruined country. Once he hit it big nobody like him in the industry because they couldn't sell the records or make the money he was making at the time.

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Seems like a lot of the local hair metal acts in Florida, have gone the way of country. Seems weird they would destroy metal and then move on to destroy country too.

 

 

Really? Are you just guessing or can you specifically name any of these ex hairbands from florida that have gone country and are ruining it?

 

And as far as "going" country, I was born in Lynchburg Virginia, one of the moonshine capitals of the world and my mama was a North Carolina backwoods hillbilly. I grew up in Virginia, Dallas and Florida. And don't under estimate Florida for appreciating country music. As soon as you get away from the coast or the bigger cities, Florida us 100% country music loving rednecks.

 

We have some of the most popular award winning country music radio stations in the country, and just as an ecole, there are four huge county music clubs within about a 30 mile radius of Tampa that on any given night might have close to 1000 people there, that's in each club.

 

We have the single largest country music festival in the southeast, up here in Live Oak Florida at the Spirit of Suwannee Music park called the Suwannee River jam, which we were lucky enoighvto play one of the prime spots in the whole four day event.

 

My very first musical experiences were with country and it is engrained in my roots and although I loved and lived the rock scene, I always remained a country fan as we'll.

 

As far as the band I play in now, ALL if them besides me have been country musicians their whole lives.

 

I don't know who the ex hairbands from Florida are that are now ruining country music are.

 

Do you have some examples?

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