Cinderella kicked ass. Fred Coury was a sick drummer.

A couple other bands that rocked back from that era that don't get their due are Tesla, Kix, and Dangerous Toys. Cry of Love too, but that was a little later.

When people make fun of any of the bands listed in the title, I tell them that they don't know what 'shitty hair bands' are.

Trixter...Bang Tango...Enuff Z' Nuff...Faster Pussycat.

I rest my case.
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Fred Coury never appeared on any of the 80's Cinderella albums.
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Firehouse. BulletBoys. Nitro. Femme Fatale. Autograph. Saigon Kick. By that time, the monster was eating itself. Dark days.

The rapid rise and even more rapid demise of the hair band movement is the classic cautionary tale of greedy music industry mogul shenanigans. The good bands couldn't release new music quickly enough, so they lured in and cranked out as many marginally marketable but artistically vapid acts as they could, with no care whether they were good or would last, just that they would get a video on MTV.

In short, by the time that Riki Rachtman said it was dying, it was already dead.
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But it also had a lot to do with many of the musicians in those band you mentioned jumping on the hair metal bandwagon just to get signed. It doesn't mean they weren't talented individually. The lead singer from Autograph has had a successful composing career and others have gone continued to work in the business in different capacities.

The strangest thing about the LA scene is that hardly anyone in LA embraced it during the 80's. It was all about the synth pop bands like Boingo and Depeche and Duran Duran while the other scene played out with bands like Jane's Addiction and RHCP (who were MUCH different before their breakthrough record).

KNAC was the only station by 1993 even playing that music and they died shortly thereafter. It was a trip and really shocking to this guy from Kansas City.

The Midwest was really the hair metal's core audience. Not the coasts.
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agreed. I moved to SD in 90, and I remember thinking how Boingo wasnt even played in KC - but in So cal, Boingo could sell out 3 nights in a row in SD or LA....whenever it wanted to.

And you're right....then came Jane's Addiction, and the scene changed.....but again, Jane's was more of a so-cal band as well (until "caught stealing" anyways).
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Throw in LA Guns for the next round.....
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And I apologize, but I just have to remind everyone of exactly what I'm talking about. Behold the atrocity that is Nitro's "Freight Train".


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And for the record (and I'm not sure why I didn't bring this up back in the day) but the only person from Warrant that appeared on their debut record that was Jani Lane.

All of the other players were studio musicians, although Mike Slamer cut all of the guitar solos. It was produced in several different studios and if you listen closely, you'll hear the sound of album isn't consistent.
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It's a good album. Good production by Beau Hill to make it sound cohesive.
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I have no doubt that it was strong in the heartland (especially since country was fairly weak at the time), but I'm not so sure about it not being a big thing on the coasts. Most of the big bands were from California - Motley Crue, of course, is the standard, as were Warrant, Ratt, Quiet Riot, and the bands that would eventually become Guns N' Roses. In the east, Cinderella and Poison were both from Pennsylvania, while Bon Jovi and Skid Row were both from New Jersey, which people still associate with big hair and stonewashed denims. I can't think of any hair bands from the midwest. Axl Rose grew up in Indiana but got out as soon as he could.

I don't doubt that New Wave was big in LA too, but big cities have plenty of room for more than one genre; rap was getting big at the same time as all of this, but it didn't squeeze anyone else out.

And you're totally right about the guys jumping on the bandwagon. I know Kip Winger, of all people, is also a big orchestral composer, and Randy Rhodes was raised with classical guitar.

I can't remember the last time I actually heard a hair band song on the radio, outside of the Sirius station devoted just to it, of course.
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Autograph gets my vote. that band had everything, poodle-hair, lasers, sequins, leather pants, inanimate robots and mechanical pencils. the music ain't too shabby neither
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I'd put LA Guns and Faster Pussycat on the top of this "B" list.
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I honestly can't believe a lot of these bands are still touring. Radio won't play anything new from them (not that it's good anyway), and they're just living on the accolades of days past. I've had the misfortune of having to see Poison with/for my wife on 3 occasions. They literally don't change anything from one tour to another. We saw them at least a year or more apart. Have the same videos running for the same songs. It's sickening to me to think they're stealing money like that, when there are lots of bands that are working their asses off for little recognition. To each his own, and there are unfortunately usually big crowds to see these bands who haven't released a hit song in decades.
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I think a lot of it is nostalgia and one thing people LOVE is nostalgia, and so whether or not the videos/lighting changes it doesn't matter. People connect with it. I haven't seen one of those tours since 2001 at this point though.
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