Blabbermouth.net reports:
Motley Crue singer Vince Neil claims that his band “supported” the rise of grunge in the early ’90s and says that Seattle music scene “didn’t seem to kill” Motley Crue the way it affected many of the other so-called “hair-metal” bands who were mega successful in the ’80s.
“We went on [MTV’s] Headbanger’s Ball and we’d had an early pressing of [Nirvana’s] Nevermind,” Neil told Q magazine. “We were talking about a bunch of upcoming bands and told people to check that album out. We supported that whole thing.
I don’t know why people say grunge killed rock. Only people whose careers were on the way out said that. It didn’t seem to kill us.
I was talking to Courtney Love [wife of late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain] one time and she told me that one of Kurt’s favorite records was [Motley Crue’s 1981 album] Too Fast For Love.”
Rob Zombie recently told England’s TeamRock Radio that the American rock scene never recovered from the the ’90s grunge explosion. Zombie explained, “When the grunge rock thing hit, with Nirvana and all that, everybody thought it was cool to be anti-rock star. But in a way they sort of anti-rock starred themselves right out the door, because the rap guys came in and they said, ‘Fuck it. We’ll be the rock stars then, if you guys are going to wear flannel shirts and stare at your feet.’ And in the U.S., truthfully, rock music has never recovered from that.”
Zombie added, “A whole generation of kids thought, ‘Fuck this! Rock music is boring. Let’s go listen to rap music.’ And it’s never recovered.”
additional source: blabbermouth.net
67 Responses
The hair metal era starting in the early 80’s was new to kids who were born in the early 70’s. The Grunge era was a whole new generation of kids born in the eighties, they probably could not relate to grown Dudes wearing womens make up and growing the hair down to thier ass and teasing it with hair spray, Most of the bands from the 80’s are plaing bowling alleys now and wearing wigs!
Grunge was the BEST thing to happen in the 90’s! It wiped out all of that pouser crap (Poison, Warrant…) that Thrash and Death Metal bands couldn’t. I’m not really a hardcore fan of Grunge, but I’m happy that it happened. Those damn “hair rock, ballad spewing” bands had to go!! I, myself am a fan of true metal (Priest,Maiden,Sabbath), Thrash (Exodus,Slayer,Testament,Megadeth) and Death Metal ( Obituary,Suffocation,Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse). But even those awesome Thrash and Death Metal bands couldn’t wipe out the stench of Glam. It took something else, that no one expected, to wipe out glam once and for all. Sure, there’s residual crap that still around, but it’s not half as bad as it was in the late 80’s. Thank GOD for Soundgarden, Nirvana (more so Foo Fighters) and Pearl Jam and even Faith No More (I know they’re not grunge, but they at least did something new).
I agree, there was an oversaturation of glam bands in the 80’s. However, in between, there were some really good tunes, even from the bands that you mentioned, Warrant and Poison.
Personally, I think Warrant’s, Uncle Toms Cabin, is a great song and Posion’s, Look What The Cat Dragged In, has a bit of a sleazy, punky attitude. The issue is that commercial radio chose play the Popier songs from those bands. Even Whitesnake’s, Here I Go Again, got the commercial treatment for Top 40 radio, which was unnecessary, since it had a commercial sound already. If one was to judge Whitesnake solely on that song, it would have been very easy to dismiss them as another “glam” band, when the truth, they are a blues based rock band.
Everyone is going to have their own taste and subjective preferences when it comes to music. I don’t happen to care for anything that doesn’t have some kind of melody or good vocals. Therefore, thrash bands, like Slayer (no offense), and sub genres such death metal, death core, etc. are completely lost on me. However, I would never say that I wished another form of rock would come along and wipe that entire genre of music out. That eliminates ones choices. Today, kids have very few choices, unlike back in the 80s, where there was a plethora of genres of music one could choose from such as: Pop, Dance, Funk, New Wave, Classic Rock, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, etc.
While I liked some grunge (especially STP), I found the whole scene as a whole to be dour and depressing. But again, to each their own.
D 🙂
Agree 100% on STP! Although I never thought of them as grunge, I don’t know why they got looped into that mix, probably because coincidently of the time they came around, ’92-’93, grunge was exploding, why I don’t know, unless you like doom & gloom and being F’N depressed all the time! I’m just glad that era is over, and NEVER comes back! 🙂
Outside of alice in chains and soundgarden, grunge stunk…and still stinks today…say what u want against hair bands, but they were phased out due to a change in musical trends….but it says a lot about grunge when mtv decides the ratings are better if they promote shows about prego teens…grunge is s-t…
Saxon does rock forever! I was able to ‘party’ with them and their bus driver, ‘Bat’, on their tour bus when they were touring with Krokus and Iron Maiden back in ’82.
Anybody see the Corabi Crue or the Elektra honcho face after their sales tanked? Sorry Vince, you guys got creamed like everybody else.
I personally feel the Corabi self titled album was Motley’s best. And with Corabi playing rhythm, it allowed Mick to be more open and creative on lead guitar. Too bad Elektra Records didn’t support the album more. Yes there were fans who wanted Vince back in the band. But had it been given a chance, that album with Corabi was solid.
Nick I totally agree with you about the self-titled album. As much as I loved Dr. Feelgood, I got tired of hearing those songs. When Hooligan’s Holiday came out I ran out to buy that album because I totally love that song.
The disc with Corabi was great. Stronger than anything the Crue has done since then. Honestly, I’ll listen to that before I listen to any of the newer albums when Vince returned. It has attitude, crunch, swagger and melody. It’s a shame it didn’t continue.
That Corabi album is up there with Too Fast for Love and Shout.
Vince coming back is cool, but they’ve been missing something for quite a while.
That album sucked. The Corabi version of the band was terrible in so many ways.
Agreed, great album. Wish they would have continued with Corabi.
Rob Zombie was spot on. Grunge might have killed Motley if they hadn’t killed it themselves.
Exactly!!
I like Crüe , but they didn’t do much in mid 90’s just like most of the hair bands. And I agree with rob z, the hair bands were the last big rock stars. Not many have come along since ,that were big stars like Bret, Vince , Paul Stanley, jbj, Coverdale, j Elliot, don dokken…
F**K rap, it’s not music anyway! Rob, you know better, get real, and keep it real!