Hair metal is a sub-genre of music that is classified as pop or rock. It was very popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s, especially in the United States, but the early to mid 1990s, it had faded away. It was distinguished the performers’ outlandish appearances, which included growing long hair and teasing it out, wearing makeup, and dressing in flamboyant outfits. Hair metal is characterized heavy guitar riffs and fast solos, with songs that are generally loud and aggressive, though many bands did include some ballads.
The lyrics of many songs were overtly sexual, mostly in keeping with the overall stylings of the genre. Hair metal music was mostly geared toward younger listeners, and the lyrics of many songs were overtly sexual, mostly in keeping with the overall stylings of the genre. Hair metal was very popular in the 1980s due to the combination of loud, heavy music and overt theatrics on stage, and much of the clothing style as well as general pop culture in the 1980s was influenced it. Hair metal had its roots in punk music, but it had its own distinct musical style that emphasized power chords and howling guitar solos.
Many hair metal bands were known as much for their off-stage antics as their on-stage performances. The hair band rock star’s rough, hard drinking and partying lifestyle became a defining characteristic, and band members tended to take pride in their celebrity. Hair metal bands tended to take excesses to extremes, and stories of these extreme lifestyles became part of the lore of the hair band, despite the fact that this was not a new theme.
With the rise of grunge alternative music in the early 1990s, the genre began to fade. The theatrical style began to give way to a more angst-ridden performance style, with less emphasis on overt sexuality; indeed, the epicenter of popular rock music appeared to shift from Los Angeles, where hair bands flourished, to Seattle, where the new grunge scene was forming. Hair metal favorites like Van Halen and Motley Crue were replaced as the front runners of pop music bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, though the most popular hair bands persisted through the 1990s and into the 2000s. In the early 2000s, many of them experienced a resurgence of popularity, though the genre as a whole declined in favor of other, newer genres that were popular with a new generation.