Another common misconception that's been bugging me:

When it comes to the genre of hard rock/metal music, and more specificially the many subgenres, a lot of people seem to think that the popularity went from glam metal to grunge, overnight. Even some people who lived through the time period and bought all those albums seem to think it was all hairspray and spandex, then suddenly all flannel and goatees. But that's not exactly what happened.

I went to highschool during the George Bush Sr. years (1988-92), give or take a year. What does the former president have to do with this? Absolutely nothing. I'm just putting a convenient label on the time period. Anyway, I think this was a really interesting time for music. We tend to think of music by decades: "50's rock", "80's rock", "90's rock". I think this makes us sometimes to lose sight over what was going on when the decades were changing.

So here's some stuff I do recall about the music during those years:

1) There was such a thing as "alternative music", but that's exactly what it was: alternative music. It wasn't exactly pop, it wasn't rap, and it wasn't metal. It was sometimes thought of as "college music". This was way before the term "alternative" was applied to every band of young white musicians who cracked the top 40 in the 90s. You had Pixies, Jane's Addiction, The Church, The Cure, and plenty more. One of the many things that has amused me over this whole "alternative music" phenomenon is that by the late 90s, this was the kind of music that you heard on Mtv and the radio all the time. If I want to listen to heavy metal (that means with singers at the mic, not somebody rapping), I have to go to an on-line radio station or a college radio station. Funny how tables turn.

2) There certainly were tons of glam metal bands (now referred to as "hair bands"). But you shouldn't directly place the blame on members of bands like Poison and Warrant. What made it sickening was the oversaturation of bands that sounded like them. It felt like 10 new bands were being signed and put on Mtv every day. And as I said yesterday, my guess is that this happens because promotors, DJs, VJs, and record companies will grab whatever pre-existing bands sound like somebody who's popular, and saturate the airwaves with them assuming they'll be well-received. Even if you hate Poison's music, you at least gotta give them credit for starting their stuff in 1986, not 1991.

3) Right around 1990, it wasn't metal that was dominating the airwaves. It wasn't alternative or grunge either. It was rap and hip hop. Do the names MC Hammer, Digital Underground, Tone Loc, Vanilla Ice, Young MC, Public Enemy, Bel Biv Devoe, Kriss Kross, C&C Dance Music Factory, Rob Base, and Naughty by Nature ring any bells?

4) Around 1992, there was a little surge in metal's popularity because a lot of bands released albums around the same time. But they weren't too well received by the fans. I've seen a lot of theories on why people think "metal died" in the 90s, and nobody seems to consider this. (Actually, metal didn't die; it just switched places with "alternative" music. But I digress.)

5) Mtv's "Headbangers' Ball", the weekly 3 hour show devoted to hard rock and heavy metal, was still around. Stone Temple Pilots debuted their hit song "Plush" as an accoustic version on that show.

6) Then you even have a few bands that managed to be part of both the "80s metal" and "90s grunge" scenes. They lucked out and never lost airplay. Soundgarden and Alice In Chains come to mind.

7) The turn of the decade also presented a lot of refreshingly different twists to music. Now keep in mind that the following listed bands appeared on Headbangers' Ball at this time too. Mtv had "Unplugged", and I think Tesla had a lot to do with the popularity of that show. Faith No More's song and video for "Epic" blew a lot of folks away. And speaking of rapping over heavy guitar riffs, do you remember Anthrax teaming up with Public Enemy to do "Bring The Noise"? That was 1991 (nevermind the fact that Anthrax was doing that type of stuff as early as the mid 80s). Then there was Primus who brought a weirdness that most of the world hadn't heard before. You'd see other bands on that show that had funky slapping bass players: Infectious Grooves, Love/Hate, White Trash, and even the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. On the other end of the spectrum, the Black Crowes played hard rock stripped down to its bluesy, Rolling Stones-ish roots. Other bands like Georgia Satellites, London Quire Boys, Salty Dog, and The Four Horsemen were in this vein too. Even bands like Cinderella and Ratt, who we usually think of as 80s metal, came back to a similarly "bluesy roots" sounding effort.So there you have it.

There's more than meets the ear. Oh, and while on the subject: yesterday I did buy Faith No More's "The Real Thing" and L.A. Gun's debut album, both on CD.

And in case you're reading this and wondering why my diary entries look more like magazine articles...well, I guess that like those who write in diaries, I have things on my mind that I want to write or type out.