Last week, when I mentioned that I was going to compare hip hop and hair metal, a few people wondered exactly how I was going to accomplish that. Well, I’m going to start off by doing the obvious thing; comparing it to professional wrestling. You all remember the Ultimate Warrior, right? That guy had every ounce of his character based on the imagery of hair metal. From the four-cans-of-hairspray poof to the colorful tassels to the spray painted jackets, the Ultimate Warriors’ image couldn’t have been thanks to anything else. What else made him hair metal-esque? How about running to the ring at breakneck speed? How about the face paint? How about the three power moves (or the three power chords, if you prefer)? Incoherent lyrics? The ability to make a huge impact for five minutes but completely unable to sustain himself past that? Twelve pack abs? The absolute lack of fan interest past 1992?
Current WWE champ John Cena reminds me a whole hell of a lot of the Ultimate Warrior. He’s got pretty well the same amount of moves, the same amount of body fat, and the same idea of channeling the current musical scene. 1987-1992 was the time of hair metal domination, which was the exact career span of the Ultimate Warrior. After that point, it was downhill for both of them. Now, Warrior does absolutely crazy public speaking at Republican committee houses, and Motley Crue can’t last three songs (they were pretty dead looking at Live8).
John Cena’s gimmick is that he’s got ‘street cred’ with his ‘chain gang’ of fans. As to why he raps in his interviews and wears spinning bling is inconsequential. Nobody really knew why the Warrior liked to wear bright neon pink, rouge, and black, but he did. The ‘why’ isn’t nearly as important as the ‘when’. Hip Hop is no longer on the verge of taking over mainstream airwaves, it now is the mainstream, and is over-doing it just as much as hair metal did. The important thing to see here is that John Cena and the Ultimate Warrior have absolutely everything in common with one another. They’re using the image of the current music scene to sell t-shirts, and damn if it doesn’t work.
These two wrestlers using the image of these two kinds of music made me think about image and music together and how that works. Just about every genre has an image to it, and when you think about it, just about every musical genre has been utilized by a professional wrestler (hello, Raven). I began to think about how this got to be, but it hit me way too fast. The thing is, the image that goes with the music is completely transferable. Just because it’s associated with the music doesn’t mean it has to be presented with the music, (Raven, again, didn’t come out with a guitar and serenaded his pain to us in song) but in the case of the Ultimate Warrior and John Cena, it was.
There have never been two genres that find image more important than the music itself. How many hair metal bands where there that wore the leopard pants and bike gloves but only had one song that didn’t make you wretch? Consequently, how many MC’s have the chops to get past one-hit-wonder syndrome? Can you really tell the difference between anyone in the G-unit squad? Can you really tell me the difference between Quiet Riot and Warrant?
The reason that there were so many crappy hair metal bands is the same reason that there are so many crappy hip hop acts (Mase is back, did you know?). A few of them made a bunch of money, the record companies wanted to cash in on the craze, and subsequently over-flooded the market with bands that used the image but, because of various reasons (pushed too soon, couldn’t handle the fame, had seven lead guitarists to feed-and they eat more than drummers, you know) very few worked out.
Now, I’m not saying that hip hop is about to die a fiery death the likes of hair metal, but I really wouldn’t be surprised. We’ve got a very similar situation, actually. In 1990, hair metal was the ‘cool’ thing, but underneath there was a swarm of insecure punks who knew and loved grunge. Right now, hip hop is the ‘cool’ thing, but there’s a whole hell of a lot of us that love the current indie scene (it hasn’t gelled together enough to call it anything else) and maybe it’s only a matter of time before it blows up and takes over. Hey, weirder things have happened.
It takes a great deal of talent to play guitar as well as someone like Slash does, and it takes the same level of talent to put together a beat like ?uestlove, but at the same time, it’s really easy to write a catchy hair metal song, and it’s even easier to write a hook. There’s a certain formula to follow for both, and if you match up your P’s and Q’s and make something vaguely pop-like, it’ll sell and the 14 year old girls will love it. They’re not hard to please, but at the same time they’ll be 16 by the time you record something else, and that’s where the line is drawn. You can throw the costume on some putz and make them dance a certain way and for a while, people will believe that what they’re seeing is legit, until it becomes a little too noticeable, that is.
Anyone can write one good song. It takes an artist to write album after album of great stuff that will nab everyone at every age. That’s why ‘Welcome To The Jungle’ will still be awesome twenty years from now, and so will ‘Hey Ya’. When it comes to ‘She’s my Cherry Pie’ and ‘In Da Club’ though? Probably not so much.
I think the point I’m trying to make is that when it comes to these two genres, the image is what sells the music, and that’s fundamentally wrong. Yes, hip hop imagery is patriarchal, medieval, and likely destroying the innocence of our youth, but it’s also getting in the way of the music. How do we expect any of them to write true art when they’re too busy singing about how much money they all make? Yes, every genre has an image, but only in hip hop and hair metal does the image direct the music, and not the other way around. There really aren’t too many grunge songs about grunge, and there aren’t too many emo songs about thick glasses and knitting. Hair metal songs aren’t usually about the clothing, per se, but it is about the attitude just as much as hip hop is. The only difference really is that hair metal mostly presented a positive attitude, while hip hop’s main images are mostly vice-oriented, but all that means is that they’re on opposite sides of the same teeter totter.
Walking around in a mall these days is akin to seeing the backstage of a hip hop video in production, and walking around in the same mall 15 years ago would have looked the same, just with more florescent and less limp in everyone’s steps. Everyone is so damn moldable. It really does just depend on what the companies decide to sell that month. What I would like to know is, if the audience is really this plastic and easy to manipulate, why are they sending them messages to make them fight one another? There’s no peace in the image of hip hop. It’s all Capulet and Montague, except that when Aaliyah and Tupac die at the end everyone just keeps on fighting. It’s all very, very stupid, and I’m glad I grew up in the age of hair metal, where it was cool to ‘try and be an individual’, even if that was an illusion. In just about every case all the time, isn’t it better to lie to the people about something good than something bad?
That’s what makes me think that the indie scene right now will blow up and take over, because the basis of the whole scene is to be too honest and too giving and too loving about everything. It’s a gush of emotion that completely contradicts the ‘I’m going to stand here and bob my head and women will sleep with me’ attitude of hip hop.
And before I get some angry email about how the B-boy aspect of hip hop as well as the poetry can be positive, yes, they can, but hair metal had its good points, too. Nothing that is complete crap can be sold to the masses. There always has to be some alleviating quality. But just like hair metal, in hip hop the bad has begun to outweigh the good. Andre 3000 has already stated that hip hop is dead. It’s only a matter of time before everyone else realizes it, too.
Hair metal was justly replaced by grunge, which had the image of being the dirty truth. Somehow, this was replaced by more plastic, which lead to the rise of candy pop similar to the early 80’s. This is a cycle, and the next part will be exciting, because it will be an upswing. It will be the illusion of the revolution. Mainstream hip hop will crumble just like hair metal did, and something with the idea of being ‘really for real this time’ will come up, and all the kids will dance again to new sounds, and things will be okay for a while. The exact same people on top will still make all the money, but who cares? If it means that The Streets is in the top 40 instead of Ludacris, that’s all that matters to me.
***
LIVE
Motley Crue
7/30 – Seatlle
7/31 – Portland
8/02 – Edmonton
8/03 – Calgary
8/05 – Salt Lake City
8/06 – Denver
8/09 – St Louis
8/10 – Milwaukee
8/11 – Cleveland
8/13 – Washington
8/14 – Holmdel
8/16 – Wantagh
8/17 – Atlantic City
8/20 – Hartford
Warrant
8/05 – Sacramento
8/06 – Elko
8/09 – Claire Shores
8/12 – Loveland
8/13 – Copper Mountain
8/26 – Malibu
8/27 – Concord
8/28 – Fresno
Ludacris
Wed 20-Jul: Trenton, NJ
Thu 21-Jul: Bridgeport, CT
Fri 22-Jul: Hershey, PA
Sat 23-Jul: Hampton, VA
Sun 24-Jul: Baltimore, MD
Wed 27-Jul: Cleveland, OH
Thu 28-Jul: Columbus, OH
Fri 29-Jul: Detroit, MI
Sat 30-Jul: Champaign, IL
Sun 31-Jul: St. Louis, MO
Wed 3-Aug: Las Vegas, NV
Thu 4-Aug: Universal City, CA
Fri 5-Aug: Universal City, CA
Sat 6-Aug: Oakland, CA
Mon 8-Aug: Englewood, CO
Wed 10-Aug: Kansas City, MO
Thu 11-Aug: Little Rock, AR
Fri 12-Aug: Houston, TX
Sat 13-Aug: New Orleans, LA
Sun 14-Aug: Grand Prairie, TX
Wed 17-Aug: Greenville, SC
Thu 18-Aug: Nashville, TN
Fri 19-Aug: Birmingham, AL
Sat 20-Aug: Memphis, TN
Sun 21-Aug: Atlanta, GA
Wed 24-Aug: New York, NY
Thu 25-Aug: Philadelphia, PA
Fri 26-Aug: Washington, DC
Sat 27-Aug: Greensboro, NC
Thu 1-Sep: Jacksonville, FL
Fri 2-Sep: Tampa, FL
Sat 3-Sep: Orlando, FL
Sun 4-Sep: Miami
***
LINKS
Gloomchen puts Good Charlotte, Dashboard Confessional, and Bright Eyes into the same category. One of these things is not like the others…
Michael Chadwick gushes over The Bends, deservedly so.
Mathan Ernhardt shares with us his experiences dealing with all of hip-hop’s major deaths.
Shawn M Smith ‘keeps it real’ by giving us Liz Phair, soccer mom, news. Also, secrets of being a comedian. Har.
***
Lyrics to live by
Still Rock and Roll to me – Billy Joel
What’s the matter with the clothes I’m wearing?
“Can’t you tell that your tie’s too wide?”
Maybe I should buy some old tab collars?
“Welcome back to the age of jive.
Where have you been hidin’ out lately, honey?
You can’t dress trashy till you spend a lot of money.”
Everybody’s talkin’ ’bout the new sound
Funny, but it’s still rock and roll to me
What’s the matter with the car I’m driving?
“Can’t you tell that it’s out of style?”
Should I get a set of white wall tires?
“Are you gonna cruise the miracle mile?
Nowadays you can’t be too sentimental
Your best bet’s a true baby blue Continental.”
Hot funk, cool punk, even if it’s old junk
It’s still rock and roll to me
Oh, it doesn’t matter what they say in the papers
‘Cause it’s always been the same old scene.
There’s a new band in town
But you can’t get the sound from a story in a magazine…
Aimed at your average teen
How about a pair of pink sidewinders
And a bright orange pair of pants?
“You could really be a Beau Brummel baby
If you just give it half a chance.
Don’t waste your money on a new set of speakers,
You get more mileage from a cheap pair of sneakers.”
Next phase, new wave, dance craze, anyways
It’s still rock and roll to me
What’s the matter with the crowd I’m seeing?
“Don’t you know that they’re out of touch?”
Should I try to be a straight ‘A’ student?
“If you are then you think too much.
Don’t you know about the new fashion honey?
All you need are looks and a whole lotta money.”
It’s the next phase, new wave, dance craze, anyways
It’s still rock and roll to me
Everybody’s talkin’ ’bout the new sound
Funny, but it’s still rock and roll to me
***
I’ve got nothing planned for next week yet, but the site itself certainly does. I’ll have to whip up something really big to match.
Party On, Garth.
