The Death of 80's Hard Rock

Much ado has often been made about grunge killing 80's hard rock in the early 1990s, but something that seems to go largely ignored is the impact rap music had on the genre.

I graduated high school in 1989, and I seem to recall that MTV had already shifted their focus from bands like Whitesnake and Poison to the likes of MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice.  I can even remember them running an ad as early as 1988 touting the fact that they were playing less hard rock and heavy metal.  So there were already chinks in that armor long before Nirvana became an MTV staple.

I specifically remember that, because of the popularity of rap music and the decline of hard rock on MTV and radio that I started exploring 1970s rock artists.  That has a lot to do with my interest in classic rock.  So I had shifted from listening to radio to seeking out music on my own well before the shift came in 1992.

Sure, there were the occasional glam rock bands that got attention up until Nevermind hit store shelves, but glam rock was already in its death throes when that occurred.  Had it not been, the shift to grunge's popularity wouldn't have been so swift.

So, in my opinion, grunge didn't kill 80's hard rock.  How do you kill something that's already past its expiration date?  While it's true that grunge acts were coming of age at the same time that 80s bands were in decline, I think that crediting bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam with the death of 80's hard rock is a little like blaming today's spaghetti for the fact that I had to toss out last night's pizza. The music was already in decline.

That's not to say that 80's hard rock is dead. It's experienced a resurgence in the past few years. Partly because of the rise of the Internet, but largely because some of the people in a position to help promote these bands grew up with the music.  I remember a similar resurgence for 1960's acts in the 1980's, for much the same reason.  In the 90's, the 70's were stylish again.

If anything, we should credit bands like Soundgarden and Alice In Chains for bringing the focus away from bubble gum hip hop artists back to heavy guitars.  If you really listen to the music and focus less on the differences in image between a Tesla and Alice In Chains, for example, you'll notice that the music has more in common than you might initially think.

Yes, the grunge music is quite a bit darker than many of the bands that rode that final wave of 80's rock popularity, but the use of heavy distortion by both genres is telling.  I, for one, enjoy bands from both genres.  And, I think if you ask the members of those grunge bands if they set out to obliterate 80's bands, most of them would laugh at the prospect.

Like any musician, they were simply trying to make music that they could stand behind with a sense of pride.  Sure, every wave of music has the Johnny-come-lately acts that are attempting to re-create the sounds that the path-pavers popularized.

But, at the same time, if you choose a line of work, you do what is necessary to get paid.  If someone chooses music as a vocation, is it really fair to judge them for adapting to their environment?  It's not as easy as one might think to write music in a certain style, with a specific result in mind, especially if it's not a style you like.  I have to assume that many of the artists that make up the subsequent waves of a genre, at the very least, find something in that genre that speaks to them.

After all, there's a lot more security in putting the guitar in the closet and getting a 9-5 than attempting to carve out a living in music.