I have no problem admitting that I like a lot of the ballads from these bands. I enjoy the harder stuff as well but the ballads are quite enjoyable.
Killer Dwarfs deserve more discussion ITT. Man, one of the most criminally underrated bands of all time
I'll say it til I die: That album thrust the sub-genre into the world's face and saved radio from being overrun by caterwauling shit like Gloria Estefan. I know every word of that album and I'm proud as hell of it.
Think it came out the year I was born so I get the hindsight luxury of saying it's the most overrated butt bum followed closely by Look What The Cat Dragged In. But I get the radio play angle. It's valid. I hate it, but it's valid.
How did you get exposed to all this butt rock if you weren't born until '86ish? My brother had that Poison album, and a bunch of Van Halen. I'd take that Bon Jovi album over the entire Halen discography.
Just got it in me early, hearing some of the bigger hits on the radio growing up. Always liked it, but spent most of my earlier years worshiping Guns and AC/DC. Went way hard in the paint on roots/blues, Americana and blues-rock for most of teens/20s. Favorite band of all time still today is actually The Allman Bros. Didn't really take a deep dive down the butthole until about 6-7 years ago though after giving Out of the Cellar a listen to in entirety. It was all over then. Searched it all out on internet radio stations, Hair Nation on XM, etc. Got another couple of kindred souls/best buddies who are equally captivated by a renewed appreciation for 80s hard rock. Ever since college, had to deal with all my fellow millennial dipshits and their hipster nonsense summarily discarding classic hard rock because of the imagery, throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Re: Bon Jovi and Poison, I think the fact that I'm looking at all of this completely in hindsight makes complete appreciation of these bands difficult. Because the bands that came after were so much better. I'd take XYZ over Bon Jovi anyday, but I don't have to reconcile my experience with how huge those bands were when they came out. That's not in my memory, so I have the luxury of dismissing them in favor of lesser appreciated bands that, in my opinion, just made a better craft. It's sorta the same thing with Kiss fans. They have some indelible spiritual tether to that band growing up in the thick of Kiss's prime. Me? I think they suck horribly and aside from Lick It Up, can't point to a single other album I need to have. If I hear Tears Are Falling on Hair Nation one more time I might just quit radio altogether.
And with that, I wanna hear some thoughts on best, most overrated, and most underrated butt bands. Best imo: 1. Def Leppard 2. Whitesnake 3. Ratt 4. Dokken 5t. Tesla and Skid Row Overrated: 1. Poison 2. Crue 3. Bon Jovi 4. Warrant (this one hurts. When they rule, they rule completely. And when they suck Lord do they suck hard) 5. Faster Pussycat ***If Quiet Riot is considered butt (not sure they quite are), they'd be #1 overrated*** Underrated: (well, every butt band is underrated, but these are the most tragic cases imo) 1. Cinderella 2. Killer Dwarfs 3. Junkyard 4. Britny Fox 5. Black n Blue
My brother loved Kiss, he'd dress up as Peter Criss for Halloween. I never really saw what everyone else did in them. I did get Animalize in '84 so that album brings back a lot of memories. Lick It Up is good, I think most of their fans consider it their best. I'd still take my Animalize over it though.
Ratt too low IMO. Poison is definitely overrated and might be my #1 too. Killer Dwarfs should be your #1, I can't consider Cinderella underrated with how much attention they got in the 80's. Killer Dwarfs struggled to get attention outside of Canada. I was so excited to get "Metal Health" in the 80's. Unfortunately when I got it I then realized outside of their two radio hits the album was garbage. To make things worse I found out that one of those two songs was a fucking cover track. Ugh. So they've basically written one good song in their entire career. Yeah, not worthy of all the praise they get. I too hate Crue except Shout At The Devil. Got that a year after it came out and basically wore out the cassette. I do not share your love for Leppard. It's not that I hate them, I just had limited exposure. I was drawn to heavier stuff, so what money I could come across at that age was going to bands like Twisted Sister and Metallica. My brother was older and buying a lot of the hair bands, so what he bought had a big influence on what I would be listening to. He would leave the house to go play with a friend and I would sneak into his room and listen to his cassettes.
I p much agree with everything you said. It feels a little wrong to list Ratt above heavyweights like Snake and Lepp, but in my heart (and butt) I know they're the best butt band that ever was. That's a list of who I think is the overall best. My favorites are: 1. Ratt 2. Cinderella (yeah they git fairly big, but still underrated) 3. Sammy Hagar 4. Britny Fox 5t. Danger Danger and White Lion Agree on Crue. Shout at the Devil is one of the great hard rock albums of all time. The rest is largely trash. Saw Brett Michaels a few years ago. Man that show was trash. I've never understood the appeal of that guy. He doesn't even really sing, just sorta talks all weird and staccato-like. That said, yes I listened to a bit of Poison on the 4th
Nice list for sure. My brother only associates Hagar with Halen, oblivious to the rest of his career. Always found that a bit weird. Hagar is 100x the vocalist Roth was. I hate DLR with a passion.
So I watched the dirt last night and got me thinking of all the 80s pop metal Ratt 1st in list The lead had mad talent If you can fit Tesla into the category then they are a top 5 Another great guitarist
I met Paul Lidel at a Megadeth concert in nyc He was friends with a friend of mine warren who was the guitarist in a band called whiplash
I fucking love Kiss, but it's almost entirely due to the fact that my brother was obsessed with them, so it's mostly nostalgia. Even though I'm a fan, I would never argue the merits of their musicality. Still, they do have some (non-80s era) good songs, and Ace Frehley is the reason I play guitar.
I'm on an obscurity kick tonight. Not much Axis on youtube, could only find this song, which is unfortunate because I really like "Bitch In Line". 1985
Been a while guys. Let's revisit butt's finest guitar players 1. George Lynch 2. Vito Brata 3. Vivian Campbell 4. John Sykes 5. Frank Hanen 6. Michael Schenker 7. Warren DeMartini 8. Jake E Lee 9. Steve Clarke 10. Tom Keifer
And no I didn't forget Steve Vai. Was great on Eat em and Smile. Can't say there's anything worth a damn to his name
burnttatertot you're prolly hooked into some other metal threads on here. This is not butt. It's just outstanding. Check out the whole album
Somebody in my socmed timeline brought these guys up and I was like "Holy Shit how could I forget?" These guys would have dominated the scene if this album came out a few years earlier.
Finally, not butt rock, but definitely paid out my butt for this. Had to. Classic Swedish metal>>>>>>>