07.10.08
80’s Heavy Metal is gay – Part 1
This is an article I wrote 1 year ago for an Assignment I had at Uni. Hope you’ll enjoy! I’ll post it divided into differents pieces.
Part One
Homosexuality freedom…a target to reach!
We all know that from very long times, the homosexual organizations are fighting to get equal consideration and rights for gay and lesbians, in many ways, Music is one of these. 80’s music, and band names could be seen as an action of sexual liberation. The lines you are going to read could sound a little bit offensive or dirty, but you will see that all the listed names and things are just here to state my point of view.
So, if we look back on the music scene of the 1980s, one thing sticks out – Heavy Metal. Not just the real traditional heavy metal, but metal of the hair band variety. And the major observation that we could come up with about the heavy metal scene in the 80s is that the whole thing was gay or at least that’s what it seems. I’m not really saying that all of the 80’s heavy metal people are gay, but they were definitely putting up a homosexual front (probably to sell more records). And I’m not talking about openly gay heavy metal guys like Rob Halford of Judas Priest; as I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with being gay, just that hair metal is a sorte of homosexual scream of liberation…as to say “We are here, and we worth the same as you!”
. Let’s take a look at the evidence:
The Band Names: This could seems strange , but if we read carefully the names of the bands, and we work with a little bit of fantasy we may see that metal band names seem to be rife with phallic imagery, whether it be snakes (Whitesnake), insects with their penetrating stingers (Scorpions, WASP), guns and phallic-shaped bullets (Shotgun Messiah, Guns ‘n’ Roses, L.A. Guns, Bullet Boys) or just out-and-out penis slang (Tool, Motorhead, Prong, Helmet, Mr. Big, Mother Love Bone and the worst example, Deep Purple). There are bands that are named after girls (Lizzy Borden, Thin Lizzy, Cinderella, Britny Fox, Alice Cooper, Alice In Chains) or have other feminine twists (Twisted Sister, Guns N Roses, Queensryche, Iron Maiden). There are also references to a specific kind of lifestyle that the common imagination think to be possessed by gays, such as sex (Sodom, Motorhead, Diamond Head, WASP – “we all s**k p***s”- I prefer not to write the entire name to be respectful-), animosity toward women (Slayer - that can be read as “slay-her”), and homosexual pride (Rainbow, the name given to their representative flag).
The Band Member’s Names: The band members themselves often have names that sound a bit feminine (Lars Ulrich, Sebastian Bach, Kip Winger), sound like “different” movie stars (Axl Rose, Vince Neil) or are actually women’s names (Jani Lane, Vivian Campbell, Dee Snider, Rikki Rocket, Nikki Sixx, Tracii Guns).
shehab6003 said,
July 11, 2008 at 12:44 am
metal is more about freedom and being against the flow not about homosexuality
metalepitaph.wordpress.com
flyingwords said,
July 11, 2008 at 9:08 am
well shehab, I said it is about freedom….but you can’t deny the things I’ve said are true! Wait for the remaining pieces of the text….and then you’ll see! thx a lot for the comment and the visit!
r0ck0n said,
July 12, 2008 at 1:18 am
I’ll be interested to read what part two is about. So far I’m not sure how this is about homosexual liberation–I don’t think that was anywhere in the minds of the guys (and girls) involved in 80’s heavy metal. You’re right, there were a lot of men taking feminine names and wearing lipstick and stilettos, but it was mainly for attention, and setting themselves apart from the hippies and flower children their parents were in the 60’s. I think all they were trying to do was deliberately make themselves into sleazy cartoonish characters–something new and different and shocking and well, refreshing to the hoards of youth looking to carve an identity for themselves. You’ve also got to remember, this trend started long before the 1980’s—New York Dolls and David Bowie, anyone? Anyway, I’ll be back to read the 2nd part. Can’t wait to see what you’re going to say!
Jennifer
r0ck0n.wordpress.com
T-man said,
February 26, 2009 at 12:05 am
I love most of the theory but there are problems with some of your examples E.G. Mother Love Bone, Alice in Chains, Tool and Helmet were not hair metal and none of them hit until approximately 1992. All of those bands were actually the beginning of the end for hair metal bands.
Mother Love Bone was a Seattle band of the same era as Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. The same thing is true for Alice in Chains.
Tool and Helmet didn’t hit until the early to mid-nineties and had much different sounds and looks than hair metal bands. For starters, Helmet all had crew-cuts. In addition, Tool and Helmet had much harder and darker songs. Most hair bands were all about sex, drugs and rock n’ roll. For hair bands it was party time. Helmet and Tool explored themes that were much more sober (in fact Tool has a song called Sober) both literally and figuratively. For hair bands the world was their sexual oyster. Tool and Helmet (and bands like them) were singing about tragedies born from human decadence or ignorance.
Food for thought.