An old friend of mine (we'll call him "Super Cool") turned me on to '80s hair metal while at Syracuse. I couldn't get into it before college - it just seemed so shallow.
Then, I learned the wonders of Poison, Bon Jovi, and the like. I learned to appreciate (not always enjoy) the reincarnation of Nikki Six, the requisite monster ballads of, well, all of them, and that Van Halen did indeed have a third front man (Gary Cherone, formerly of Extreme).
There's a fascinating duality in hair metal that I feel other music doesn't emote. On the one hand, you have visions of masculinity - a cowboy riding on his steel horse, with a woman at home he can't describe in mere words while recovering from a past love, his thorny rose. It's good, honest, simple music.
On the other hand - it's inexplicably awful. Leather pants. Long hair. Some of the corniest lyrics this side of a boy band. It's awful.
Still, it's their songs. It's not recycled, or canned in Hollywood. There's no pop irony such as Natasha Bedingfield's "There Words Are My Own" (writing credit to Stephen Allen Kipner & Andrew Marcus Frampton).
And so, I continue to hope to see Bon Jovi in concert next month - he's playing for 2 weeks at the new arena in Newark - and not rolling eyes at future attempts.
Who's with me?
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