October 15th, 2004 12:20pm
A! E! I! O! YEAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!
First off, don’t say hair-metal, say pop-metal. You can’t hear somebody’s follicles, you CAN hear a band’s willingness to write in a catchy, accessible, inclusive and immediate fashion while maintaing the sonic aesthetic of their subculture. Here’s two fine examples of the genre that I’ve chosen mainly because I get to reference bands that indie folks are prone to respect (or at least openly enjoy).
If you can’t handle the gratitous guitar squeals and the hypersexual, effeminate “ooh ooh” vocal hook found on Warrant’s “32 Pennies,” odds are you’ll never have much love for the scene. But anybody who gets off on the psychedelic lyricism of Love’s Arthur Lee (who used to live in bottles and pretend that they were cans) should adore Jani Lane’s wordplay here. He dances with his shadow but lets his shadow lead. 32 pennies in a Ragu jar is all he’s got to his name, but he loves her and she loves him (but to the pennies, it’s all the same). If you dig this track, definitely check out their debut album Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich (recently re-mastered and burdened with crappy liner notes that should have been written by Metal Mike Saunders of the Angry Samoans). It’s by far the finest pop-metal album I’ve heard: lyrically witty, playful yet sentimental and always unabashedly foxy. “32 Pennies” isn’t the best track on the album, it’s just the opening salvo – a gregarious ornament on the hood of their flashy ride. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)
Kix’s later albums, while enjoyable, blatantly aped the template created by the success of Def Leppard’s Pyromania. Their first two releases, Kix and Cool Kids, released in ’81 and ’83, are far less obvious beasts. Major influences on Poison, these guys danced between the AOR-side of new wave (Cheap Trick, the Ramones and the Cars) and more openly hard-rock/metal influences like AC/DC, Sweet and Kiss. In a sense, they’re the missing link between these respected ’70s giants and the underrated hairfarmers that followed: a synthesis that had yet to be sold as a specific niche.
“Yeah Yeah Yeah,” the finale of their self-titled debut, opens with a riff that might have been from R.E.M.’s Chronic Town (except that EP came out a year later) before suddenly zooming into a musical territory the Georgia quartet could never pull off as authoritatively (check out their b-side “Burning Hell” for proof). The first three minutes are enough to make the band a worthier similacrum of Bon Scott-era AC/DC than the Brian Johnston-led real deal. Then singer Steve Whiteman blows the competition away by whipping out an Elmer Fudd impersonation and launching into a sexually frustrated monologue to the cheers and hollers of an enthusiastic audience (“A big bottle of Jack Daniels, not the little one, the BIG one! And I ALWAYS carry a stash…cuz you never know!”). I’d suggest Karen O and the boys make it their theme song, but I’m not sure they could maintain the giddy, energy level for so long. All the more proof that people who write this shit off are missing out. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)
Rip Taylor “The Real Rip Taylor” – With the help of Jim O’Brien, “The World’s Funniest Rock Star” (whose repetoire includes “Crack In My Ass” and “I Read It In The Weekly World News”), Rip Taylor, comedy megastar and Fluxblog icon, has finally shot down all the fake-ass Rip Taylors that have crawled out of the woodwork following his rise to fame. The inexplicable acid-rock backdrop makes the track oddly reminiscent of the Kroon Along With Krusty version of “Break On Through.” Laugh! It’s funny! (Click here to buy it at Rip Taylor’s official site.)
Anthony Miccio is freelancer who has written for Blender, The Village Voice, and Stylus.