80’s Blog – Hair and Glam Metal.

Hair and Glam Metal was/is essentially party music, music you can have a good time too.

In America, there were 2 Glam metal scenes: The East and West Coast.

· West Coast/Los Angeles - Quiet Riot, W.A.S.P, Motley Crue, Ratt, Stryper and Warrant were just some of the big names from the west.

· East Coast – Bon Jovi, Cinderella, Poison and Twisted Sister were the big names in the east.

Heavily polished distorted guitars, high male vocals and basic rock drum beats. As I said above, it was essentially party music. Music to have a good time with your friends too, music you’d expect to be played in clubs and bars, music to drive too, dance too. Bands such as Quietriot and Bon Jovi alike seemed all they wanted to do is party and play some rock ‘n’ roll. Heavily polished distorted guitars, high male vocals and basic rock drum beats. Bands such as Led Zeppelin, The Sweet, New York Dolls, and Sabbath are all obviously a big influence on many of the glam metal bands at the time. Also, David Bowie 70’s glam rock albums and image were an influence in its self, and trend, for example the big hair and bright coloured outfits. The exaggeration of the hairspray was critical to any glam metal bands image.

The scene soon took off in the U.S.A. and it seemed the movement started on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, thanks to bands such as Motley Crue and W.A.S.P. However, one of the biggest reasons for the rise of glam rock was the development of MTV, making rock a more visual genre and therefore spawning outlandish looks. Music videos soon became short films, with huge production teams. This was the same as there live shows, well rehearsed huge arena tours seemed crucial to the band. Stage shows must have consisted of over 2000 lights, fireworks and often confetti to be scattered upon the crowd. Glam metal bands always tended to put on a good show.

There were 2 waves of glam metal, the first wave of glam metal was between 81’-84’ bands included Quietriot, W.A.S.P, Twister Sister and Motley Crue. There music consisted of a heavy rock influenced sound but a glam metal image, but this soon changed in the mid 80’s when the second wave of glam metal approached. Bands like Poison, Warrant and Faster Pussycat all were around when glam was at the peak of its success. It ruled the airwaves and they were chart topping artists back in there day.

80’s Blog – Hair and Glam Metal.

Britpop Blog for 16th Nov.

Britpop Blog.
Britpop is a subgenre of alternative rock that progressed in the 1990’s.

While Nirvana was ruling across the pond with their second album “Nevermind.” It didn’t take Britain long to catch on to the Seattle Grunge scene and mould it into their own version.
Bands like Slowdive, Chapterhouse and Ride were known as “Shoegazers” or unambitious, by playing the same old songs album after album. This saw Indie Rock at its lowest. Journalists claimed many bands had lost confidence or joked about them running out of ideas, and soon Grunge hung over everything.
However, a new generation of musicians were doing the opposite to the typical Grunge takeover in London that was happening at the time. Often university students drawn to the capital to study, many of them in Bands. They all looked the opposite to Grunge, they sang in there own accents and were very proud of there country and were often seen supporting a union jack. They took influences from 60’s and 70’s guitar music and still managed to keep it new, fresh and different.
These were bands from artists such as The Who, The Jam, The Beatles and The Kinks etc..
But The Smiths was a popular influence to many Britpop Artists. This is were bands Suede and Blur were born.
Soon Britain began to shake off many of the elements of Grunge and it was clear a new generation of musicians were arising.
Blurs “Modern Life is Rubbish” in 93 proved that it became cool, to talk and sing about English Life, amusing examples of Football and Sunday Dinner.
Soon Artists such as Pulp emerged singing about their own take on the world, but still making sure that Britpop sound was still there. Suede’s Brett Anderson wrote many lyrics with a particular “English Quality” about them. Britpop bands such as Blur and Pulp’s lyrics were often ironic or a contradiction of English failure.

A chart battle between Oasis and Blur called "The Battle of Britpop" brought Britpop to the front of the British press in 1995. In the past the bands had praised each other but over the course of the year fights between the two increased. Spurred on by the media, the groups became engaged in what the NME dubbed on the cover of its 12 August issue the "British Heavyweight Championship" (Image is above,) with the release of Oasis' single "Roll With It", and Blur's "Country House" on the same day. The battle turned the two bands against each other, with Oasis representing the North of England, while Blur represented the South.
The event caught the public eye and gained huge media attention in newspapers, even tabloids, and even the BBC News.

“Yes, in a week where news leaked that Saddam Hussein was preparing nuclear weapons, everyday folks were still getting slaughtered in Bosnia and Mike Tyson was making his comeback, however the battle between Oasis and Blur was massive and the whole nation was Britpop crazy!”
- taken from NME 93.

Eventually Blur won the battle of the bands, selling 274,000 copies to Oasis' 216,000 - the songs charting at number one and number two. However, in the years to come Oasis became more successful than Blur. Unlike Blur, Oasis was able to achieve commercial success in the United States with single "Wonderwall".
Oasis's second album What's the Story Morning Glory? eventually sold over four million copies in the UK, becoming the third best-selling album in British history.

In my opinion Britpop was a great genre, even in bands today you can hear influences from Blur, Suede and Oasis. But it will never be as crazy as it was back then, especially not with all the modern pop music and rnb computer programmednoise the whole country is going crazy for.

k.

lalalalalala.