If we look through the archives since 1971, Glam has survived continuously to this day. Sure there were the dizzy peaks of 1974 – 1978 and 1983 – 1989 and between those era’s, 80s Glam was being shaped with emergence of tight leather clad rockers including Queen, the Scorpions & Whitesnake. So what after 1989?

We know that in the late 80s and early 90s, many great Glam acts made their debut including Firehouse, Skid Row, Enuff Z’nuff, Trixter but they were denied reaching their full potential. Society was changing. After a run of 7 years, Glam was getting stale and it was a time for something new. 1990 was a year of massive change. The end of the Cold War, the tearing down of the Berlin Wall & the Persian Gulf War. It was more a dramatic shift than a large change, not unlike the Summer of Love in 1969 which incidentally, was were the foundations of Glam were laid but more on that later.

Seattle was the place where it would happen. Kids all over the world embraced a new form of rebellion called grunge. The shift was too great and Glam, as a mainstream genre, became uncool.

After 15 years of relative obscurity and living ‘underground’ Scandinavia played the unlikely host for a minor glam revival that still limps along today.

Bands like Vains of Jenna, Hardcore Superstar, Malice in Wonderland and Crashdiet are examples of modern day glam bands that have gained some traction in the market.

Having seen Poison & Vains of Jenna on the same bill, the question I had to ask myself is “are these nu glam bands in the same league as the original Glam Rockers?”. “Are they wannabes or the real deal?”. “Are they serious or a disgrace to Glam?”

For those that have lived through both of the glorious era’s, it’s possible that the original rockers aren’t as accepting of nu glam and the young audience are embracing them?

The conventional wisdom is that Glam Rock was a 70s phenomena and Glam Metal an 80s one.

It is well accepted that the first mention of “heavy metal” as it relates to music, was the song “Born To Be Wild” which was a massive hit off Steppenwolf’s self-titled debut album in January 1968. From just about that point in time, hard rocking bands were classified as heavy metal, including Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Wishbone Ash, UFO & Blue Oyster Cult. The heavy metal designation lasted throughout to the 90s when for these bands, the term “Classic Rock” seemed to be a more appropriate classification as ‘metal’ had gained a new meaning.

From that time, metal splintered off into the emergence of a number of sub-segments including thrash metal, death metal, speed metal, melodic metal and so on. However what these types of ‘metal’ all have in common is that they are a niche and underground movements. With the exception of perhaps Metallica, and possibly to a very limited degree…Pantera, Judas Priest & Iron Maiden, true metal from the 80s, was never a mainstream form of music. It never climbed the popular music charts and it wasn’t until the early 90s with the arrival of the “nu metal” scene which included the likes of Linkin Park, Faith No More & Slipknot etc, that there was mainstream interest in it.

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Glam exists since the decade of the 70’s, and it’s been trough some changes, at first it was Glam Rock like Foxy and all of that bands and. when the 80’s began, appeared Glam Metal (which is my [cherrypie] fave) with bands like Dokken Def Leppard Mötley Crüe and Cinderella in the beggining. In the middle of this decade, Glam Metal was at its peak with more bands like Poison, Ratt, Tuff..” All people in Hollywood looked like  women!” said Vince Neil member of Mötley Crüe, and it was because of the hair-styles worn by all the great bands at that time. But suddendly when the 90’s decade started, many Grunge and Alternative bands began to appear in the music scene fulling all the people’s ears with idealisms and counterculture and Glam started to disappear; all the people were already bored of women and men looked like a woman!

So many teenagers began to identify with the new Grunge wave. But in the late 80’s appeared a band called Gun N’ Roses with a new hard sound and they were supposed to save 80’s music, that’s why some call them “The Pearls of the Rock N’ Roll Decadence”. But many bands like Mötley Crüe still exist with some new sounds in their albums, and that persistence made Glam Metal lasts to this decade. But wait, more bands arrive with Glam sound wich was weird but it’s great like Vains Of Jenna and Black Rain, all this kind of bands are trying to rescate Glam, and we know for sure GLAM METAL NEVER DIES!

All though now glam bands that show the true style of the 80’s are coming back with bands like Steel Panther,Miss Bahaviour and white widdow and not forgetting white wizzard  that have come out these days,So Glam still exist from T-rex to Miss Behaviour.. Glam will always live on and never dissappear !

post written by cherrypie