Why hair metal glam rock?
Remember that summer or that one party you went to many years ago where there were scads of sexily dressed hot gals, cold beer, hot beaches, cool water, great music, live bands, big solos, real drums, songs about chicks, cars, parties and fun, short skirts, tight jeans, big hair, you flirted a bit, maybe with some success and the fun just never seemed to ebb? That’s what it was like for two decades straight as a hard rock fan DJ during the 80s & 90s. Then along came the Kurt Kobain era, with its whiny lyrics & vocals, infant-like exaggerated guitar strumming, unchanging tempo, over-beaten drumming and three note solos (if any solos at all). And with it, came the end of the care free fun party life and the birth of the social over-scrutinizing uber-aware gloom generation. Grunge. Aptly named. Technical musicianship gave way to ‘just pick it up & bang away on it’, dressing up gave way to frumpy, blazing scale based solos gave way to angry single chord wanking, fun friendly flirting gave way to disgusted sneering if you eyeballed someone , asking someone to dance gave way to hopping about the floor alone in the crowd with eyes closed and arms flailing banging into everybody else, hours spent on hair gave way to unwashed unkempt mats, the sunshine of LA rooted upbeat happy glam rock gave way to the dreary Seattle dark depression angry pissing & moaning, singing gave way to screaming , playing instruments gave way to thrashing instruments, audiences went from smiling and engaging with the band to zombie-dancing and looking at the ground, not pretending to be anything other than fun and sexist gave way to being pretentiousness and self righteousness, take lessons, learn scales and practice practice practice gave way to “just pick up the guitar and suck”
Glam was happy, grunge was miserable – were people just tired of being happy?
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And now for something completely different:
CD via DMP over I2S to DS DAC.
“Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” is one of my wife’s favorites.
Beautiful music, but the recording strains a bit when the music gets “big”. Have to reach for the remote/volume from time to time.
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CD via DMP and I2S to DS DAC
Fabulous arrangements, Ms. Ronstadt at the peak of her powers and Nelson Riddle conducting. Great recording/engineering as well…
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Qobuz. CD. Previously posted by @andolink. To describe them as derivative might be unjust, but many of these pieces seemed very reminiscent in style to better known works. Strong German and Italian influences. Sound and execution both very satisfactory. The pieces by Anonymous were the more Italianate. A pleasant album.
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