Hair metal: for anyone who survived the eighties or has ventured down a YouTube music video rabbit hole, the phrase conjures images of spandex, immaculately coiffed perms, scantily clad models, guitars shaped like space cruisers and striped in Day-Glo colors. But what of the oft-derided music behind the flashy presentation? More than what might meet the ear, argues musician Sean Kelly, who makes the case for the art and artistry of eighties hard rock in Don't Call It Hair Metal.
Kelly is no stranger to the scene; as the leader of his own glam band Crash Kelly and a respected session guitarist, he knows of what he writes, and in enthusiastic, almost feverish prose, he offers an expansive chronicle of hair metal history, with reflections on dozens of bands and their place in the rock firmament. Acknowledging the excesses of the times — "Someday we're going to be held responsible for depleting the ozone layer," jokes a rock veteran about the constant use of Aqua Net — he reviews hair metal's more respected musical antecedents while elaborating on how it built on those foundations and stretched out in new directions.
Moving chronologically, Kelly tips his hat to formative bands like Led Zeppelin and The New York Dolls who provided musical and visual inspiration for their descendants before singling out seminal live albums from acts such as the Scorpions, UFO and Thin Lizzy. As you would expect, the bulk of the book centers on the eighties, when hard rock ruled the charts with Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Poison and Guns N' Roses. True to his guitarist roots, Kelly focuses most of his praise on guitar heroes such as Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhoads, while also giving due credit to under-heralded producers such as Bob Rock and Michael Wagener, who helped shape the sounds of classic albums.
The old adage "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" might come to mind a few times while reading Don't Call It Hair Metal. For the most part, Kelly does yeoman's work in communicating the flamboyant, wild, energized, playful qualities of the music, even if his language gets unwieldy from time to time. Clearly music knowledge helps: with all the descriptions of left-hand legato flurries and glissandi pick slides, some readers will be on more solid ground than others. Nevertheless, Kelly makes for a genial tour guide, and his points are given weight by a bushel of interview excerpts with hard rock luminaries such as Dee Snider, George Lynch, Vivian Campbell, Paul Gilbert, and Mark Slaughter.
Kelly also brings a welcome touch of the personal to his narrative, noting life-changing musical moments in his own background while ruminating on the irony of his own love affair with hair metal, as a well-adjusted Catholic boy became enamored of a rock scene that often ran counter to his values. It's impossible to discuss hair metal without mentioning the debauchery and politically incorrect, sexist elements — and Kelly does so with a balanced perspective, acknowledging both the fun and freedom the music provided and the unsavory attitudes that haven't worn as well over time.
Don't Call It Hair Metal concludes with a wistful chapter on the early nineties, in which bands like Enuff Z'Nuff and King's X promised to further expand hair metal's boundaries, only to be shoved aside by Nirvana and the new age of alt-rock. But there's a happy ending: many of the bands profiled in the book have persisted in memory and still tour today. Don't Call It Hair Metal is a loving paean to a halcyon time in hard-rock history, and while many of the excesses of the era might be lampooned today, Kelly makes a strong argument for the music's importance. If nothing else, it invites one to revisit these oldies, or encounter them for the first time, with fresh ears.