Sleaze rock

Sleaze rock is a contractual subgenre of glam metal born in the early 1980s and popularized later. It is characterized by a dirtier, street, irreverent image and without the excess of makeup that other glam style bands used. Likewise, their music tends to be more aggressive and elaborate than typical glam bands. One of the most outstanding bands of this subgenre is Guns N' Roses, who mainly popularized it and influenced other bands.

History

The origins of sleaze rock can be traced back to the album Rocks by the band Aerosmith. He made a mixture of blues rock, hard rock, arena rock, punk rock, glam rock, glam metal, blues and rock, achieving a unique sound for the album. In 1977 the band Kiss released the album Alive II, where on its B side, in the studio section, we find precursor songs such as "All American Man" and "Larger Than Life". At the beginning of the 1980s, the Finnish band Hanoi Rocks became popular on the British music scene, a band with obvious Punk influences, but with a more refined sound resulting from the mixture of Glam rock and Blues, the band probably defined the genre. with his first albums. Then it is essential to mention Mötley Crüe who in 1981 were the ones who started this subgenre of glam metal in the United States with their debut album "Too Fast for Love" and in 1983 with "Shout at the Devil". After the second half of the 1980s, countless bands with Sleaze influence emerged in both the United States and the United Kingdom, many became popular thanks to the rise of the Glam metal movement, especially in the music scene of the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, That same breeding ground also arises in L.A. Guns and Hollywood Rose, preceding bands of what became popular years later as Guns N' Roses, the most popular band of the genre that, thanks to its street and tough image, added to its irascible attitude along with its unique sound, a hybrid of hard rock and heavy metal with notable influences of punk as well as blues, enjoyed worldwide popularity and success thanks to their debut album Appetite for Destruction. A clear example of the Sleaze sound that cannot be pigeonholed either within heavy metal or outside of hard rock, but somewhere in between. Later, this band would influence others such as Faster Pussycat, Skid Row, L.A. Guns, Roxx Gang, Shotgun Messiah, Bang Tango, or Dangerous Toys. With a wide repertoire of bands that would take this style to a broader commercial territory.1

Decay

In the early 1990s, the popularity of the genre increased with the arrival of albums such as Use Your Illusion I, Use Your Illusion II by Guns N' Roses, Slave to the Grind by Skid Row, and Dog Eat Dog by Warrant. But the growing popularity of genres such as grunge and alternative rock overshadowed the bands, becoming increasingly relegated from television channels such as MTV and the support of record companies. By 1994, most of the bands had broken up or were in a low profile.

Resurge

In the late 1990s, the genre experienced a modest resurgence with the creation of bands like Buckcherry with their hit "Lit Up." Currently it is made up mainly of bands from Northern Europe or mostly Swedish, such as Vains of Jenna, Crashdïet, Hardcore Superstar, Crazy Lixx, Babylon Bombs, as well as the American band Dirty Penny, which is very popular in Europe, Latin America and California.

It is important to add that the bands are more sober than in the 1980s, and tend less towards clichés such as power ballads.

See also