FAINT WAVES

The Venn diagram of Glam Metal and Horror is not as big as I’d like it to be but it exists and it’s a favorite niche of mine. Hardly enough to even constitute a subgenre of a subgenre; there are just enough awesome tunes to make me wish we got a little more glammed up, vaguely gothic, horror-tinged music in the 80’s and early 90’s. These are songs for the creatures of the night, denizens of the dark, for the lost boys, and girls gone wild. That’s what this article is about: night songs (thanks for the title Cinderella!), celebrating the unsung songs of the glam n’ goth movement that never was. Something of a disclaimer too; I dig Goth Rock, Darkwave, Doom Metal, all that good stuff that deals in the darkness we’re sort of dancing around, I won’t acknowledge that stuff here. There’s some great stuff within those genres and you’ll find that a lot of it can rock pretty hard in its own right, it’s just not what I’m after. I’m not talking about King Diamond or Savatage or Candlemass either, even though they’re all metal as hell, and consistently dabble in horror motifs and imagery (I’d just argue they’re too far outside glam to actually be incorporated into what I’m talking about here). I’m zoning in on a hyper-specific musical interest of mine, that being the Glam Metal/Horror crossover, the coy flirtation of two seemingly disparate things.

You can’t talk about the songs I’m about to talk about without mentioning Shock Rock, as that’s really the foundation for these dark forays into the night. It’s a larger tapestry though, too, driven by image as much as music; public behavior, stage antics, props, and visual cues are a big part of that genre and its musical world. Well and truly, I believe Shock Rock as it were, could’ve had (and kind of did have) a Glam Metal injection. There was a period where this music was most prevalent, where the makeup and glitter clad bands of Glam Metal ventured into the abyss of night, screaming, howling, shredding through the darkness. Coincidentally, that same time period saw the resurrection of the Shock Rock godfather himself, Alice Cooper. Alice had a slow but steady career resurgence, returning to Horror motifs and steadily modernizing his sound with an increasing metal sheen. After almost five years off the road and three years between albums, Constrictor arrived in 1986 and kicked off a multi-year return to prominence that would culminate in the biggest successes of his already long and storied career. Yes, something was in the air. The time and place was right. 

Another thing that can’t be overlooked, the influence of film; the soundtrack was a foundational element intrinsic to the type of music we’re talking about here. Alice Cooper terrorized teens with Jason in Friday The 13th Part VI and Dokken haunted dreams with Freddy Krueger for A Nightmare On Elm Street 3. W.A.S.P grooved with the Ghoulies for Ghoulies II and Fastway tore it up for outcasts everywhere in Trick Or Treat. That’s not even mentioning the more standard Rock fare, like Lou Gramm’s contribution to The Lost Boys soundtrack, “Lost In The Shadows”. Again, there was something in the water, something in the air. It was the right time and place for Horror in general and the music seemed to follow suit, leading to some truly excellent forays into night-bound decadence. These films served not just as a catalyst but as an outlet for these sordid musical numbers. Not every song of the night wound up on a soundtrack but each song was a soundtrack in its own right, conjuring images of hell raisers, slashers, monsters, religious iconography, madness, and general terror. Whether it’s Alice Cooper, Cinderella, Mötley Crüe, Dokken, W.A.S.P, or Lizzy Borden? These acts had you covered, dabbling in the darkness, moving through the shadows, living for the night.