I recently saw the MTV documentary on the '80s metal phenomena, and I suddenly wondered what had gone wrong. Many will say that the bands simply "sucked". They all had that poodle-rocker haircut and the music was cheesy to say the least. But why were they so popular at one time, only to lose popularity almost overnight in the early '90s?

People often cite Nirvana and the grunge movement as the death of the traditional hair metal scene. I would have to disagree, because early grunge was heavily based in the same metal roots as Poison, Cinderella, etc. The metallists killed their own scene because there were too many of them. Def Leppard (yes, the man himself), said that there were too many bands copying each other. They were all competing for the same audience, trying to provide a similar but superior hesher experience. All the bands were essentially members of a huge band of metal rockers. The public eventually rejected the huge band, and the metal years came to a close. Only the death metal types escaped the destruction. So don't blame just the music and style for the collapse of the metal years. Blame the lack of originality.

Mugu