Glam Metal Scene Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Glam Metal Scene - Essay Example As MTV appeared, a new instrument became available for music bands seeking popularity and recognition. Sunset Strip in Los Angeles was the place of birth for this music and visual genre, for early 1980s’ populated local clubs and concert halls with a great number of heavy metal bands that desperately sought ways to stand out among others (Batchelor 165). Due to availability of video clips’ rotation, the bands put their stakes on extravagant visual image as a means of being distinguished among others: MTV made glam metal â€Å"very much a whole visual and stylistic thing† (Popoff 217). While many heavy metal bands were using rather extravagant elements of visual image like leather, spandex and teased hair, these elements were exaggerated and extreme in glam metal bands, for their members were typically dressed in bright and even womanly clothes, created big teased hairstyles, wore tons of makeup and jewelry. However, their generally androgynous look ran contrary t o their image of outstanding males with enormous sexual appetites and their lifestyle involving heavy drinking, multiple sexual contacts and even drug abuse, whereby Nikki Sixx can be mentioned as a heavy heroin addict at the time of hair metal’s extreme popularity. However, androgyny of hair metal bands of eighties was different from that cultivated by the glam rock bands that influenced the discussed genre: glam metal scene used androgyny as the instrument of entertainment rather than irony, being more explicitly heterosexual (Moore 105).