Look, I’m a hair metal guy. Yes, I love Black Metal, Thrash Metal, Death Metal, Doom Metal, Stoner Rock, Power Metal, NWOBHM, Speed Metal, and blah blah blah. But, there’s a HUGE part of both my heart and identity that will always fight the good fight supporting the lipstick-drenched androgynous Adonises of my youth. I can literally count the glam metal bands that I actively DON’T like on two fingers (Warrant and Faster Pussycat) and the only type of musical ballad that can truly move me comes from Hair Metal gems produced in the late 80’s.
But I’m also a realist, and I totally understand that Hair Metal is not many people’s bag, especially if we’re having a non-ironic conversation. So I pick my fights carefully. And I only try to make new converts by arguing for bands that I truly think transcend the genre with greatness.
Hanoi Rocks is, by far, the most authentic and important Hair Metal band of the 80’s. They are also the only band I have a more than 50% success rate in converting non-metal fans into appreciating. I understand that the cards are stacked against me in my argument, because by definition, this type of music is pretty vapid and silly. But hear me out while I give you three reasons to give a serious listen to Hanoi Rocks.
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Hanoi Rocks invented Hair Metal. All other 80’s glam bands swiped only the bodacious visual aspects of Hanoi’s blueprint to achieve their success. These bands forgot (or just didn’t care) to follow the authenticity angle. By 1980, traditional glam rock was basically dead, yet, in Finland, a visionary named Michael Monroe was still worshipping at the altar of the New York Dolls. His motivation was to put a new spin on glam rock, where a band could keep the sleaze and simplistic bombast of the 70’s New York trash rock gods, but at the same time, update it with slicker, modern production, and add the aesthetic gloss of the popular New Romantic new-wave movement. Monroe and his cohort Andy McCoy weren’t pulling their ideas or motivations from trying to play Gazzara’s on the Sunset Strip to get laid. They weren’t trying to have the most clever marketing. Their endgame wasn’t fame and fortune. Their motivation was to create a fresh new spin on music that hadn’t been done before, and blow people’s minds. Every other band that followed their lead had dubious motivations.
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Because of my argument in point one, Hanoi Rocks’ records don’t give a fuck if people like them or not. Give a close listen to their first four records. There are no obvious examples of a “single”. In fact, their best songs were NOT the singles. They were not the songs that the record company forced them to make a video for. Unfortunately for them, the label would only shell out money to make their Creedence cover of “Up Around The Bend” their only true American presence. Their label had no clue how to handle them. Like all original acts, the major label (in this case Epic) fumbled the marketing and distribution. But Hanoi Rocks was a band where only listening to the full record could provide a true picture of their genius. Instead of listening to the singles, people should listen to the deeper cuts like "Tragedy", “Boulevard Of Broken Dreams”, or their deep cut masterpiece “Beating Gets Faster”. Mind you, all of this output predates 1985, well before hair metal even made a dent on the popular charts.
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Hanoi Rocks’ legacy will always be overshadowed by the death of their drummer Razzle, instead of people (Japan excluded) actually listening to their music. 9 out of 10 people who have heard of Hanoi Rocks only know about them because Vince Neil (I guess unintentionally) killed their drummer Razzle in 1984. “Do you like Hanoi Rocks?”... “Oh isn’t that the band where Vince Neil manslaughter-ed the drummer?”. That’s their legacy. It ended in 1984 with Razzle's death at the hands of a much more popular American band. This is a huge bummer, because Hair Metal didn’t fully explode until around 1986 when Poison, Guns ’N Roses, and Bon Jovi went absolutely nuclear. And after that, the levee broke and all hell broke loose. And the Xeroroxed-copycats amassed the riches, girls and popularity.
I honestly don’t know how expensive the OG Hanoi records are worth nowadays. I was lucky enough to be an adopter when the band was at their relevancy nadir in the early 2000’s. So the records were worthless. But trust me, their records RULE. And if you ever see one, gobble it up. It’s true rock ‘n roll sleaze greatness in the best sense. And they deserved much, much better.