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listening to our vapid cheerleaders sing at the front of the bus; they were singing “Armageddon It” and “Love Bites.” That alone was indisputable proof that Hysteria sucked.
    By virtue of this criteria, it would seem that heavy metal was a completely definable entity. And when I was a younger man, those guidelines did indeed seem totally clear. But as an adult, it’s damn near impossible for me to make a comprehensive list of every ’80s glam band that ever existed, because I’ve come to realize that metallurgy isn’t an exact science. Nonetheless, zine editor Matt Worley did a pretty decent job in a 1995 issue of his publication Lies (which may or may not have taken its name from the 1988 Guns N’ Roses EP). Here’s his hit list: Bang Tango, Love/Hate, Smashed Gladys, Bon Jovi, Mother Love Bone, Poison, D’Molls, Cinderella, Dangerous Toys, Guns N’ Roses, Tora Tora,L.A. Guns, White Lion, Whitesnake, Great White, Little Caesar, Roxx Gang, Enuff Z’Nuff, Child’s Play, Danger Danger, Snake Island, Spread Eagle, Kix, Shotgun Messiah, Warrant, Extreme, Vain, Dirty Looks, Dogs D’Amour, Faster Pussycat, D.A.D., Rock City Angels, Dokken, Skid Row, Royal Court of China, liquid jesus, Circus of Power, Katmandu, Kill For Thrills, Bulletboys, Junkyard, Kiss, Lord Tracy, Sleeze Beez, and, oh yeah, Mötley Crüe.
    Well, Mr. Worley obviously forgot Helix. But he still did an admirable job of hitting most of the bands everyone else has forgotten. He only missed a handful of major notables: Ratt, Britny Fox, W.A.S.P., Lita Ford, Twisted Sister, Frehley’s Comet, Vinnie Vincent Invasion, Winger, Hanoi Rocks, King Kobra, Fastway, Slaughter, the Sea Hags, Tuff, Tiger Tailz, Accept, Quiet Riot, Europe, Zebra, Helloween, Loudness, Autograph, Heavens Edge, Vixen, Tesla, Badlands, Stryper, EZO, Pretty Boy Floyd, Y & T, and Hurricane. I will grant that some of these additions are debatable; I’m sure a lot of these bands would vehemently insist that they were “just a rock ’n’ roll band” and shouldn’t be included under the amorphous parameters of metal. I read an interview Nikki Sixx gave after the release of the unremarkable Crüe reunion LP Generation Swine, and he was bemoaning the fact that a magazine listed Mötley Crüe, W.A.S.P., and Twisted Sister in the same sentence. He seems to think Mötley Crüe was far better and far different than those other groups, which is absolutely insane. Oh, they were better, but they certainly weren’t different. Mötley, W.A.S.P., and Ratt were often discussed as a leather-clad trinity of L.A. metal excellence (Twisted Sister hailed from New York). In fact, Sixx personally thanked W.A.S.P.’s Blackie Lawless in the liner notes of Shout at the Devil . At one point, I’m pretty sure they were even in the same band (that group was called London, which remains best known for having all its most talented members quit in order to become rock stars with better bands).
    Sixx’s attitude is an unfortunate (and all too common) denial of his roots. Part of the reason ’80s hard rock will never getrespect—even kitschy respect—is because so many of the major players have retroactively tried to disassociate themselves from all their peers. Disco didn’t wrestle with this kind of shame: Even after it had been flogged like a dead horse, former discotheque superstars were still proud to be part of the phenomenon they built. Subsequently, it’s become acceptable to play disco albums at parties. Nikki Sixx could learn a lot from Donna Summer.
    The reason so many metal groups hate being lumped into the same category is that writers often turn the phrase “heavy metal” into “glam metal,” which is used interchangeably with “hair metal,” a term that purposefully ignores musical ability and classifies a band by its follicle volume. By the mid 1980s, it