It was understandable why people got caught up in Dreams & Why Can’t This Be Love after being bought up on a great diet of David Lee Roth’s Van Halen but it didn’t last long. Here we go (drum roll) -

Number 10 : DLR’s Van Halen was heavy metal/hard rock, Sammy’s Van Hagar was pop music.

Number 9 : DLR could do the splits and Sammy didn’t even try.

Number 8 : DLR’s Van Halen used a bit of synthesizer but Sammy’s Van Hagar was completely covered in it.

Number 7 : DLR was graceful, debonaire and handsome, whilst Sammy wasn’t.

Number 6 : DLR’s Van Halen were charming in a bad boy, macho sort of way, while Sammy brought a ‘frat boy nerd trying to be cool’ quality to Van Halen.

Number 5 : DLR’s Van Halen’s greatest love song was “Ain’t Talking ‘Bout Love”. Van Hagar’s was “When It’s Love.” How wimpy is that?

Number 4 : DLR’s Van Halen had a huge hit with their 1984,  Sammy’s Van Hagar looked threatening in the early days but in reality, never even came close.

Number 3 : DLR’s Van Halen featured Eddie Van Halen with his home-made guitar; Van Hagar featured an Eddie Van Halen with a signature Music Man model that even after 15 years still looks stupid.

Number 2 : DLR’s Van Halen had cool album titles i.e. Diver Down and Fair Warning. Sammy’s Van Hagar had the cheesiest album title ever: OU812?!

Number 1 : DLR’s Van Halen featured Eddie’s dad playing clarinet on Diver Down and son Wolfgang playing bass on the reunion tour. Quietly though, the family never approved of Sammy.

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?

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.

Glam Metal, on the other hand was a spectacularly successful phenomenon from the early through to the late 80s. It was wildly popular, impacted on mainstream social values, spawned superstars and sold out stadiums all over the world. While at the same time, heavy metal was struggling to find a place for itself in the mainstream world and it wouldn’t find that place until Glam Metal bowed out of the spot light and left a void that needed filling.

Since the dawn of civilization, the notion of “divide and conquer” has been the prevailing thought from those in a position to influence. Nowhere in music is this more prevalent than in Metal. It is so fragmented, splintered and confusing but does Glam Metal belong with it? In the 80s, the Glam version was commercially dominant but the truer metal version, had a neglible commercial impact.

It seems inappropriate to label 80s hair bands such as Kiss, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, White Lion etc, as Glam Metal. Perhaps at the harder edge of the spectrum, W.A.S.P., Slaughter et al, it may be appropriate as the bands of this ilk, did not achieve the same commercial successes.

Over time, the greats and the legends, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath etc, have been recategorized from Heavy Metal to Classic Rock, perhaps it’s time we acknowledge that our heroes from the 80s had little to do with underground 80s metal movement and that their showmanship, costume & image justify a more appropriate badge than Glam Metal.

Besides, the evolution from Sweet & Slade style Glam Rock to Van Halen, Warrant, Poison and even Motley Crue is quite obvious. Their evolution to Metallica and Linkin Park isn’t, so why group them in Metal?

The term Glam has it’s origins in the early 60’s when it was used as a short form of the world “glamour”.

Dictionary.com defines glamour as -

“the quality of fascinating, alluring, or attracting, especially by a combination for charm and good looks”

It is commonly accepted that Glam Rock has it’s origins in 70s and almost simultaneously occurring in the US & UK. It was a time of rapid social change and music was commonly being used as a form of social expression, particularly politically given the global conflicts at the time.

There was a great deal of clutter in popular music at the time. Most of the acts out there basing themselves on the Rolling Stones or the Beatles. It was a “cookie cutter” style of musical concept and by definition, there was little or no differentiation between bands.

Enter Glam! Glam broke the old mold and created a whole new mold. Glam was specifically a music phenomenon of the 70’s, quickly became mainstream and left an indelible mark on society.

The orginal Glam Rockers wore outrageous costumes, platform shoes and makeup so that they could stand out of the clutter and be noticed. Like any other form of teenage rebellion through music (as had previously occured in the 50’s and the 60’s), Glam Rock was embraced in the same way for the 70’s and then Glam Metal in the 80’s.

What a wonderful two decades of musical history it was?.