Greetings pop pickers and please be welcome to tonight’s Fabulously Flamboyant Friday and another of our fortnightly mastications upon the marshmallowy pillows of musical magnificence.
Tonight, dear reader, despite our title, we shall not examine the cruel and heartless affliction of brewer’s droop; nor shall we attempt to push wet string into a keyhole, nor marshmallows into a money box. Instead, we shall focus our gimlet gaze upon a truly terrible musical monstrosity: the hideous oxymoron that is soft rock. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear… Let the horrors begin – Not Arf!
Content Warning: The following videos contain sounds and images some viewers may find deeply unsettling…
Now, to be clear, I don’t believe all soft rock is horrible. In fact, as a genre, it started out pretty well. By the late 1960s, journalists on both sides of the Atlantic were faced with an explosive diversification in popular music and were more or less forced to invent a broad range of brand new terms and stylistic categories to help keep track of everything and attempt to make sense of the rampant musical fecundity that was chaotically swirling around the cesspool of popular music journalism. This was particularly true in the burgeoning genre of rock music: folk rock, funk rock, psychedelic rock, space rock, southern rock, jazz rock, heavy rock, prog rock and, of course, hard rock. Unfortunately, once the term ‘hard rock’ had been coined, there was inevitably going to be a category of music called ‘soft rock’.
And, at the time, there was certainly a need for this category – particularly in north America (although many of the US radio stations at the time seemed to prefer the term ‘melodic rock’). Artists such as America, Eagles, Steely Dan, Little Feat, CSN&Y, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Santana, Jefferson Airplane and many more, all appealed to both the teen and adult rock market, but could hardly be described as hard rock. Additionally, the burgeoning singer-songwriter scene, with artists such as Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Cat Stevens and Carol King, also had great appeal to the exact same contemporary rock-focused demographic. As a result, soft rock became a convenient, popular, and commercially successful catch-all genre for US radio stations chasing the spending power of what was clearly a substantial and economically valuable demographic.
For most of the 1970s, soft rock trundled along quite nicely and very lucratively indeed. In fact it was impressively successful, sold by the truckload, and probably peaked around ’76-’77 with the release of the Eagles’ Hotel California, the (truly hideous but) hugely successful Frampton Comes Alive, and of course Fleetwood Mac’s planet-rodgering, global monster of a hit, Rumours – an absolute behemoth that went on to become the biggest selling album of the decade.
So, soft rock was hugely successful. However, by the late ’70s, change was in the air. Although US punk rock did very well in New York and a few other areas, it never had the sort of cultural impact it did in the UK. In fact, while punk rock was busily running rampant in the UK, in the US a (so-called) rock band called Styx produced a very successful single called Come Sail Away – a truly abhorrent soft rock monstrosity of such foul soul-sucking horror that almost 50 years later it still has the power to make me cower and cringe. It’s arrival (video at the head of this article) signalled the start of what became a dreadful decade for soft rock.
A big part of the problem was a new and malign subgenre of heavy metal that began to emerge (primarily but not exclusively) in Los Angeles. It was known variously as pop metal or glam metal, but eventually (and pejoratively) became widely known as hair metal. And as this rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouched towards the record labels and radio stations to be spawned, it was accompanied by its foul sibling, the most terrible soft rock abomination of all time: the dreaded hair metal power ballad.
Unfortunately, we in Blighty probably need to take some of the blame for the development of hair metal. Our culpability probably stems from March 1971, when Marc Bolan (with a little help from Elton John) delivered a Top of the Pops performance of Get It On (Bang A Gong) that is widely regarded as the starting gun for the birth of the glam rock.
Glam was of course a peculiarly British style of pop music that drew as much on bubblegum pop, cabaret and panto, as it did on rock and roll. It was typically performed by geezers in silly costumes, lots of makeup, ill-advised haircuts, platform shoes and lots and lots of glitter. The visual styles were often camp or androgynous and the entire genre felt like a push-back from the pop and rock of the late ’60s, which in many cases (e.g. prog rock) was beginning to take itself far too seriously.
And very successful it was too. From ’71 to ’75, the UK’s music charts were inundated with glam rock acts such as Bowie, Sweet, T Rex, Mud, Wizzard and *ahem* Gary Glitter. Those not central to the genre very quickly saw their opportunity and jumped on board to cash in on the glitter boom. Slade were a perfect example of this opportunistic manoeuvring – a hard rocking skinhead band from Wolverhampton, who quite frankly looked like a bunch of brickies’ hod carriers. Nevertheless, after a quick coat of glitter, they reinvented themselves and enjoyed tremendous chart success throughout the glam rock period.
However, although glam rock artists did hugely well in the UK and had decent success in mainland Europe, they never really cracked the US market. By the mid-70s, the disco boom was booming, punk was rearing its ugly spittle-stained head and glam rock was beginning to fade away. It’s still with us, but the glory days were over and most artists either tried to move on (e.g. Slade) or settled for the cabaret and scampi-in-a-basket club and holiday camp circuit (e.g. Mud). Some, of course, (e.g. Bowie) went on to have very substantial international careers.
However, a few American artists (e.g. Alice Cooper, The Tubes, Kiss) had been paying attention and subsequently enjoyed more north American success than their UK colleagues by moulding the ethos of glam rock into something more suited to the US market. Foremost amongst these artists were The Tubes – a band whose glam and theatrical influence in the US far outstripped their commercial success.
As these U.S. artists began to influence the musical landscape of north America, others began to explore the UK roots of the glam rock movement and liked what they saw. As a result, artists such as Marc Bolan, Slade and many others began to gain status in the US. Marc Bolan has been cited as an influence by several of the ’80s hair bands and to say that L.A. rockers Quiet Riot were influenced by Slade is something of an understatement.
And just like their UK cousins, US glam and pop metal performers never took themselves too seriously, with camp comedy and slapstick larks always waiting in the wings. If UK glam rockers were influenced by theatrical shenanigans and panto, their US counterparts absorbed elements of vaudeville into their performances. This can be seen clearly in the work of bands such as Aerosmith and can be amply illustrated by the 1980s solo work of David Lee Roth.
But, although north American rock was clearly becoming increasingly flamboyant, it wasn’t yet the distinctive brand of ’80s hair rock that would send Silvikrin shares soaring and threaten the very existence of the ozone layer. For that to occur, another ingredient was needed: Mike Nesmith, he of Monkees fame.
Nesmith would of course achieve enormous international fame and fortune with The Monkees. So, perhaps unsurprisingly, given the success of the Monkees’ TV show, by the time Nesmith left the Pre-Fab Four he had become firmly convinced of the value of television when it came to the business of flogging music to the masses. Accordingly, in the late-70s, Nesmith created a music video program called PopClips for the Nickelodeon cable network. It was basically pop music radio on TV for the video age. The massive Time Warner/Amex consortium was suitably impressed by his development, bought PopClips outright, gave it a quick polish, chucked a shed-load of cash at it and, in 1981, MTV Television was launched.
Because the sad, pale, flickering shadow of MTV stopped broadcasting in the UK just a few months ago, it’s perhaps easy to forget just what an enormously influential international success this channel once was. Once it launched, record companies quickly realised the enormous record flogging and cash generating power of popular music videos. Additionally, once MTV was up and running, they were surprised and delighted to discover that teenage girls – a demographic who up to this point had largely ignored heavy rock music – were suddenly watching rock and metal bands in substantial numbers. For their part, rock bands quickly realised they needed to seriously up their visual image, lose the beer-stained denim, put on clean socks and underwear, start using deodorant and make damn sure they looked pretty for the girls.
In what seemed like a flash, the radical makeovers were in place and the beautifully coiffured fabulously flamboyant gentlemen of ’80s hair metal were up and running. From that point on, previously sweat stained and deeply unwholesome rock bands (e.g. Whitesnake) just seemed to get prettier and prettier, and rawk ‘n’ roll just got softer and softer.
In what seemed like two shakes of a Silvikrin tin, ’80s hair rock began churning out the soon-to-be-ubiquitous, female-friendly, 80’s power ballad. These mid-tempo, rocked-up and often emotionally overwrought ballads were a dominant feature of the genre. Almost every hair band produced them, the ladies loved them, cigarette lighters were held aloft for them, and record company executives rejoiced as they sold by the truckload. It was a period in rock music I despise with a deep and abiding passion.
Essentially a pop ballad in rock clothing, the development of the power ballad is credited to several artists. More than a few will cheerfully point the finger of blame (or credit – depending on your point of view) at the late, great, American guitarist Tony Peluso. His mid-70s guitar and production work, most notably with Richard and Karen Carpenter, and in particular his iconic guitar solo at the conclusion of their 1972 single “Goodbye To Love”, is often cited as birth of the power ballad as a distinct species of pop song. Others will blame Led Zeppelin and cite Stairway To heaven as Exhibit A, m’Lud.
Whoever is to blame, ’80s rock embraced the format with glee, added loads of cheese, lashings of overwrought emotional incontinence, and very soon the list of the guilty was long indeed: Foreigner, Toto, Europe, Whitesnake, Def Leppard, Poison and many, many more. And some of the worst examples of their heinous crimes against rock are scattered throughout this article. Grim times indeed.
Some of the blame has to be laid at the feet of ’80s production techniques. The advent of digital audio equipment certainly gave producers a whole new toolbox of tricks and techniques to deploy. Inevitably, like kids with their brand new toys, they often overused them and seriously overproduced the albums and singles on which they worked. Add in the cheesy sound of early digital keyboards, the fashion for over-compressed drum tracks (thanks Phil) and the resultant output was often slick and glossy, but really quite grim. 1984 to 1989 is often cited as the peak years for both ’80s hair metal and the loathsome power ballad, and indeed many of the most heinous crimes against musical good taste were spawned during those dark and tightly Spandexed days.
Of course, it couldn’t last and fortunately it didn’t. Rock and roll has always been about rebellion, and as hair metal was king of the hill, it was always going to be toppled. And eventually it was – in quite spectacular fashion – by the arrival of grunge. Some bands who were late to the party and some who were unfairly tagged with the hair metal label were able to escape the now fast-approaching crash. Guns & Roses are a very good example of this. Always more of a traditional ’70s style rock band than a hair metal band, they rode the collapse without noticeable damage and then set about imploding anyway.
But most of the hair metal acts were not so lucky and, in truth, most of the genre’s wounds were self-inflicted. But just as the scene looked like it was flagging, grunge came charging out of the Pacific Northwest to deliver a seismic blow. In what seemed like the blink of the eye, the hair metal scene was severely wounded and would never recover. Quite simply, grunge made hair metal look very silly. It made it look tired, ludicrous and old – and it was quickly swept away. Mr Big’s To Be With You is generally regarded as the last big hit of the hair metal period.
Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam were the primary bands to make an impact. With scruffy clothes, messy hair, low-fi analogue recordings and a downbeat attitude of gloom, doom and teenage angst, grunge was perceived as pretty much the exact opposite of what hair metal had become. Hairspray sales collapsed, the ozone layer was saved and the soft and floppy rock dominance was over. Hair bands that had been playing to 10,000 fans a night, quickly found themselves back where many had started, playing in nightclubs to 500 people or less. The party was over, Spandex manufacturers wept and rock ‘n’ roll moved on.
Of course, not everyone was swept away by the grunge onslaught. Indeed, some of the biggest names of the 80s simply rocked and rolled with the punches and went on to much bigger and better things. And we’ll end tonight’s festivities with a perfect example of one such band. For many, the greatest exponents of the big hair decade – Bon Jovi: masters of the cheesy power ballad,
Anyway, I think that’s probably quite enough of my inane wittering for this evening. I badly need a quiet lay down in a darkened room to recover from the aural onslaught of tonight’s terrible tracks, so I shall say TTFN to one and all. May all your pillows be tasty, your gardens inclined and your puddles well jumped.
Goodnight, and may your frog go with you – Not ‘arf!
Featured Image: Pairadice by Billydvette1234, via CC BY-SA 4.0, licensed under Wikimedia Commons Attribution Share Alike 4.0 International Licence.
© Ivory Cutlery 2026
