hair!

80s hair metal is not a style of music I ever connected with. Granted, Bon Jovi have a few songs that sound ok when they’re blaring from a dive bar juke box and you have a few drinks in ‘ya. Guns ‘N Roses are pretty good, too, but they’re not hair metal in the manner of Whitesnake. Skid Row, Winger, Poison, etc. Most of the stuff is too undifferentiated, unimaginative, and just plain stoopid, the rare exceptions proving the rule. So I was surprised to find that Enuff Z Nuff is a favorite band among some power pop geeks lurking on the internet. Until now I’ve always thought of ‘nuff Z as just another dumb hair band. But after doing some exploring, I’ve come to the conclusion that they were actually a pretty decent power pop band that had the misfortune of bad timing, coming along during hair metal’s MTV-driven dominance. This is not to deny that they have many of the unfortunate trappings of your garden variety hair metal bands. Today’s selection certainly has the look and feel of all the stuff Adam Curry used to pleasure himself to on the Headbanger’s Ball. But if you can get past the B.C. Rich shredding and the vaguely guido-ish vibe that was so often an essential component of the hair metal ethos, you’ll hear an amazingly catchy pop song with lyrics that, while cloying and naïve, are nevertheless very far removed from the by-numbers misogyny of the genre more generally. And how often do you see a guy in a metal band of any kind playing a Rickenbacker? Try never…except in the case of ‘nuff Z. It makes me think that they wanted to be more direct in their power pop approach but were thwarted by marketing suits at the record company who made them put on makeup and riddle their songs with Eddie Van Halen-style fills. What makes things all the more tragic is that 'nuff Z's 15 minutes overlapped with that period when grunge was on the rise and hair metal was already in decline. Just really bad timing on all levels, it seems... I’m still making my way through the ‘nuff Z catalogue, but so far I like what I hear. They recorded their fair share of stinkers, of course, but the good stuff is hooky, crunchy, tight, and well crafted. If more of the hair bands had gone in this direction, I’d probably be wearing lipstick right now…