The Death of Hair Metal or How We Went from Motley Crue to Nirvana

I think we can all agree that the epitome of late 80’s hair metal is Motley Crue’s “Girls Girls Girls”. It passes every trope imaginable. 

For example, you have a band name that

• Is deliberately misspelled
• Contains unnecessary umlauts

Figure 5: Logo also curved for unknown reasons

Then we have the band members themselves, each touching upon a unique aspect of hair metal.

• Nikki Sixx on bass whose last name has two x’s in order to be extra cool. He also died of a heroin overdose but don’t worry, he got better.
• Mick Mars on guitar whose name is not only an alliteration but he is also named after a planet for some unexplained reason. I presume he got the gig over Uriah Uranus.
• Tommy Lee on drums giving us someone with two first names as well as later fame from a leaked sex tape.
• Vince Neil on vocals who in addition to having two first names was also behind the wheel during a car crash that resulted in the death of the drummer for Hanoi Rocks. Sadly, the drummer did not get better.

And then we have the song “Girls Girls Girls” itself. A song about strip clubs with a video filmed in a strip club and which is almost certainly being played in a strip club at this very moment. I’d say there was subtext here but I’m barely sure it even counts as text.

Then we have the video itself, which was the closest thing to porn that one could get with basic cable in the 80’s. Seriously, I was thirteen years old in 1987 when this video came out. It was a time when a teenage boy would watch old Benny Hill episodes in secret because they were considered risqué. This was more like an entry into a totally different world.

However, in hindsight the video is much more evocative than I recall and not because of the hard-working dancers. In fact, while they are the most memorable portion of the video, they might be the least important. The video can be separated into five distinct sections

• 52 seconds of the band riding motorcycles.
• 55 seconds of the band hanging out in the club without a woman in sight. Often they are reacting as if their eyes are going to pop out of their heads cartoon style. Based on this section alone one could ask if Vince Neil had ever seen a woman before this video shoot.
• 50 seconds of the band in the club at least sharing the screen with a woman. Sometimes interacting but a lot of it is Mick Mars playing a guitar solo in the dressing room with none of the dancers paying attention to him. To be honest, Mick Mars doesn’t seem to be paying attention to anything across the entire video.
• 105 seconds of strippers who back in the eighties we would describe as being attractive and / or able to dance.
• And 12 seconds of what I can only describe as Vince Neil sitting on a chair backwards as if he is the youth pastor that you really shouldn’t let give your kid a ride home.

Figure 6: “Hello teens! Have you ever thought about how Jesus is like cocaine?”

So, despite the fact that all anyone remembers of this video is the strippers they don’t even make up half the video. About 20% of the video is just the band trying to look cool riding motorcycles. This is admittedly tougher than it looks given that they spent more time on their hair than did any of the dancers. But, to any ad executive wanting to sell products to white males aged 18 - 34 this video was a goldmine. It had to be the ultimate lead in to a commercial break. Sure it objectified women and seemed to exist solely to upset Tipper Gore but it was a guaranteed hit. No wonder the album sold over 4 million copies. 

Fast forward four years and now you have Nirvana entering the scene. Now, as a band name Nirvana would still fit a hair metal band. Sure, it is properly spelled but if someone said in 1987 that they were seeing Nirvana at Whiskey A Go Go it would be safe to assume that the lead singer was more Aqua Net than man. And yes, Kurt Cobain is an alliteration while Krist Novoselic uses an alternate spelling of Chris but the drummer is named Dave of all things.

Figure 7: Either three names or a nickname such as “Diamond” Dave is acceptable under the hair metal naming accords

“Smells Like Teen Spirit” is what is typically considered the death knell for hair metal, but I don’t believe that is accurate. Not that it didn’t play a massive role in bringing Gen X to the fore but more that it isn’t as much of a seismic change from what had come before. Obviously the Pixies had already done the soft loud soft musical style and there were more than a few bands that were taking a more classic punk edge to their music. And the video shows what had changed and what hadn’t.

Instead of a band dressed in leather and denim Nirvana looks like, well, a bunch of guys from Seattle. Instead of a strip club the video takes place at what appears to be a high school pep rally. A janitor appears rocking out to the music for no apparent reason. But you still have cheerleaders fulfilling the need for scantily clad women (tattooed cheerleaders from Anarchy High School but still cheerleaders). The assembly ends in a riot complete with fire and someone stealing part of the drum kit. It certainly was speaking much more to teenage angst than Motley Crue but if you want to talk about standard white male imagery you have your culturally mandated levels of sex and violence.

It wasn’t “Smells Like Teen Spirit” that killed hair metal. If all it took was one good hard rock song then we would spend a lot more time discussing the merits of Faith No More. However, the follow up of “Come As You Are” not only made hair metal obsolete but ushered in the entire new Gen X world view into the mainstream culture.

It begins with one of the most memorable guitar riffs of my lifetime. (Yes, I know that it is stolen from a Killing Joke song, which honestly ties it to a completely different time frame and culture than what was before.) You then have the image of a gun floating in water. “Come as you are. As you were. As I want you to be.” Kurt Cobain sitting in a chandelier. A dog with a cone around it’s head. The band is constantly shown distorted by water. They do not look like rock stars. They do not look like they are about to become the most famous people on the planet. They look wounded and dangerous.

A baby swimming after a dollar. “Well I swear that I don’t have a gun.” Kurt swinging like a madman from the chandelier making you wonder if he wants to destroy the set or itself. More water flooding the set. The poor dog looking up in confusion. It is one thing to not follow up a breakthrough hit with the requisite power ballad. It is another to create a video that creates a visceral reaction of concern and fear.

And then there is the last image. An image that I will claim to my dying day exemplifies just what my generation is about at its core. After a minute of Kurt singing about not having a gun the scene shifts to the three band members lying on the grass as the song fades out. Kurt slowly leans into the camera, kisses the lens, and then falls back collapsing on himself with his hands folded as if in prayer. It is an image of sensitivity and a rejection of all of the cultural norms that had filled the airways before it. No hair metal act could do this and look sincere. Hell, Phil Collins couldn’t have done it and looked sincere. But Kurt immediately made it feel as though you were seen and that all of this performative 80’s nonsense was done and it was time to present the truth no matter the cost.

I’m confident that Nirvana would have been popular at any time period. The fact that you can buy their t-shirts at Target now is proof enough. I don’t consider them to have hits that would only exist due to Gen X. I just think Gen X would not have been the same without them.