The Five Stages of Grief as experienced by Glam Metal Bands in the 90s. Part 1: Denial (90–91)
The 90s were not very kind to the 80s. Never before or since have I personally witnessed a pop culture shift happen so quickly, and brutally, than that of the Nirvana-pocalypse, of 1991. Where one new form of music, labeled grunge, or alternative rock, knocked another, glam metal, not only down the popular music hierarchy but off…permanently.
And I’m not talking about some flash-in the pan music fad, being eradicated by the next fleeting trend. More like Rome being sacked by the Goths.
Glam metal had started in the late 70s and gained a respectable sized audience in the early 80s, and by the late 80s was easily the biggest version of rock music around. Glam had been so dominant in mainstream rock, for so long by the time the 90s came around, that it just seemed like it was rock and roll now.
And then out of nowhere…
Kurt Cobain and company changed the history of music with one song. Seemingly the entire music-buying audience heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and said, “What the hell have we been listening to?!” at the exact same moment. And just like that, Rock went from fun, and poppy, and cute, to dark, and brooding, and distorted as hell.
Said radio personality, Eddie Trunk of the sudden change: “It was overnight, it was abrupt, it was brutal, it was unforgiving, and it was instantaneous.”
So impactful was this pop-culture shift that other forms of media as well as fashion soon followed suit: clothes, hair styles, movies, TV, all took a radical shift towards the dark, artsy, and stripped-down just after the turn of the decade.
But nothing that makes millions of dollars a year goes out without a fight, no matter how strongly it’s castaway. And like a person coping with a tragedy, the glam bands spent the 1990s going through the 5 stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.
So let’s start with…
Denial (90–91)
When the new decade came to be, the glam dudes had little reason to believe they were on their last legs. Sure, Guns n’ Roses had forced the other bands to strip down their sound, and abandon their teased hair, and spandex in favor of leather jackets, and cowboy boots. And sure, “College Rock” acts like REM, Tracy Chapman, and Fine Young Cannibals, were competing for MTV airtime. But poppy synth rock, and power ballads were still huge.
“Who says the party has to end? We can keep doing this forever, right?”
Though we associate glam bands with the 80s, it’s easy to forget they were still massive in the first two years of the 90s.
Warrent, Poison, Cinderella, Extreme, all had multi-platinum albums in 90, and 91. Firehouse, Tuff, Trixter, Nelson, and Slaughter didn’t even make their debut until the 90s.
And Guns n’ Roses, Van Halen, and Motley Crüe all had multi-platinum releases, and remained some of the biggest concert draws on the planet.
When alt-rock first started showing signs of its infiltration of the airwaves, glam actually seemed to blend with it somewhat. Everyone forgets that Alice in Chains, Faith No More, and Nine Inch Nails, all had pre-Teen Spirit hits (Soundgarden hadn’t broke big yet, but had respectable sales). And many glam bands supported the new sound.
Poison actually took Faith No More on tour, and Soundgarden opened for them as well, in addition to Guns N’ Roses (who also took Nine Inch Nails on tour), and Skid Row. Alice in Chains went on the road with Van Halen, Extreme, and Poison (wow, looking back Poison may have actually been the new sound’s biggest ally early on).
Some glam guys openly endorsed the new sound as it approached, with Axl Rose, and Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx both openly promoting the grunge movement.
“Any threat of our craft becoming obsolete, as the millennium approaches?? No, no. Everything is fine. We’re fine.”
But on that fateful day of September 29th, 1991 when “Smells Like Teen Spirit” debuted on what was the biggest radio station of the time, MTV the musical juggernaut that had dominated the mainstream for nearly a decade suddenly came to a grinding halt in a pop-culture blink of an eye. Well OK, it took a few months but by the time 1992 rolled around, everything had changed in the world of rock music.
When alt-rock was still in its Headbangers Ball/120 Minutes phase, it seemed maybe it could co-exist with glam. But not after Teen Spirit. It was soon clear that this musical genre would wipe the old guard away into permanent obscurity. Kurt Cobain especially took pleasure in mocking the shallowness of glam metal, and soon everyone piled on with him.
A slew of other grunge bands followed in the wake of Nirvana’s success and before you knew it, Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, and many more were receiving large amounts of mainstream attention.
The glam bands entered 1991 headlining arenas and selling millions of albums, and ended it being unsure if they had a career anymore. And they were not happy about it.
Which is why, up next we have…
By Mike Moran of The Confessional Podcast:
