Young And Wild - A Decade Of American Glam Metal 1982-1992
Following on the heels of the popularity of genres like punk, glam and NWOBHM, hair metal (or American Glam Metal as the title calls it) really started making its mark in the early eighties, and over the next ten years was one of the dominant forces in the music world. Most of the bands put as much time and effort into their looks and presentation as they did their music, and the fact that MTV was getting its start at the same time created the perfect storm for many of these bands that were either in or gravitating to LA and Hollywood. With fifty-eight tracks from fifty-eight bands, Young And Wild - A Decade Of American Glam Metal 1982 - 1992, does a good job giving a broad range of bands in that scene at that time and includes many that were pretty much household names like Twisted Sister (actually starting off as a glam band in 1972), Quiet Riot (first number one metal album in the US), Sammy Hagar, David Lee Roth, KISS, Ratt, Bon Jovi, Cheap Trick, Poison, Skid Row, Extreme, White Lion, Vixen, and Warrant. Some of the others like Dokken, Tesla, Bulletboys, Kix and Winger were still quite well known, while many of the others were lesser-known outside of the hair metal community but were releasing music that was just as good. Some of these include Helix, Black ‘N Blue, Kick Axe, Leatherwolf, Faster Pussycat, Dirty Looks, Bang Tango, Dangerous Toys, Junkyard and Electric Angels. The collection also does a great job of showing the diversity in the genre with band’s adding elements that include the blues (Cinderella, Tora Tora), soul (Little Caesar) and Southern Rock (Tattoo Rodeo, Jackyl) among them. A few of the other bands here really took things in a fresh direction that made them stand out to me and ended up as some of my go to bands at that time. These include Enuff Z’Nuff with their psychedelic pop, Saigon Kick who were rock, but with an ever-present, hook-heavy pop side and plenty of diversity, and Warrior Soul who mixed in elements of psychedelia, goth, pop and punk. Then there is Mother Love Bone, who while I question their inclusion here, have what I consider the box set’s best song, "Stardog Champion". Fronted by Andrew Wood, who was destined to be a star, but unfortunately died of a heroin overdose several days before their full-length debut was scheduled to be released, they drew rock influences from band’s like Led Zeppelin and also had glam in there too but were not “hair metal.” It should be noted that two members went on to form Pearl Jam who were lumped in with the grunge movement that is considered a contributing factor to hair metal’s decline. As with any collection like this, people are going to come up with a laundry list of bands that they feel should be included and there are going to be plenty that they don’t feel belong here, but overall this is a really fun listen that will take you back to that wild, loud and over the top debaucherous era in music.