Metal Evolution Episode 5:glam Metal

    The fifth episode of ‘Metal Evolution’ takes Sam Dunn in a journey to the USA and especially to Los Angeles,the place where the whole glam metal movement took off and conquered the world of rock in the 80s.Although Sam Dunn confesses that this style of music was not exactly his favorite type of music because from the power and substance of metal,it still occupies an important place in the history of heavy metal.

    The LA Sunset place is presented as the place where it all started,first with the apparition of Van Halen in the 70s,a band whose sound and looks would influence an entire generation of bands in the eighties,but definitely the first true true glam metal band is Motley Crue,and through interviews with Vince Neill and Nikki Sixx we find out how the band managed to create their own distinct image,which had a huge role in the creation of glam or hair metal as it is also known;that image,including big hair,leather and spandex clothing,and also special effects like pyrothechnics in the show,allowed the band to rise quckly to fame.Another band which played an extremely important role in the growth of the popularity of the style is Quiet Riot,whose album ‘Metal Health’ was the first ever heavy metal album to reach the number one position in the American chart.These two bands,who managed to play in 19893 in front of a huge audience at a huge heavy metal festival in front of an enormous audience managed to attract the attention of the  that a new style of rock was ready to conquer it.

    The stories of those glory days for hair metal are evoked by musicians from some of the biggest bands of the 80s,such as Poison,Warrant,Stryper,Ratt and Dokken.We find out that the Sunset Strip became overcrowded with new bands who tried to imitate bands like Motley Crue,and only some of them,who managed to promote themselves very well,became famous.The eighties,a period od wealth,but also of excess and decadence represented the perfect background for the development of this type of music someytimes called ‘pop metal’ and hated by fans of other types of metal which developped in the same period,such as thrash metal,but nevertheless extremely popular in the eighties.Many of these bands owed their fame to MTV,whose influence in the success of hair metal worldwide was huge because of so many videos played i  heavy rotation which laid the emphasis on imagery rather than the quality of the music.Propeeled by MTV,these bands had such a huge success that they determined even established hard rock outfits like Whitesnake to change their image completely and comply with the standards of glam metal,a movement which,as David Coverdale admits in the documentary,brought the band millions of records sold in a short time,an achievement that would have been impossible without their change of looks and style.