Look, the '80s are back in style in every way, and that's totally cool with me. I love it, actually, because it means pop music is more bearable than it's been in a long time. For someone who grew up on 106.9 The Point, this is a wonderful gift that I cherish.
But I'm noticing a disturbing trend in metal. It's not quite that some top acts are aping the decade's worst aspects, but they're definitely starting to verge into some of the less-flattering trends. For instance, much love to Dallas crossover thrash band Power Trip, but the reverb addiction has got to stop.
So to give some helpful hints on what to avoid in the future, here are ten metal bands from that decade who absolutely sucked, and you should avoid sounding like at all costs.
10. Tesla Christ, these guys were awful, and they have so much to teach about what not to do. First, it doesn't matter if the riffs and solos are hard to play. If they're strung together with as little logic as this, the song will sound like shit. Second, intellectual subject matter doesn't make your lyrics any less cheesy or horrible.
9. Def Leppard What you should take away from Def Leppard is, if you didn't glean this from Metallica, don't fucking sell out. Yeah, they made a lot more cash betraying their New Wave of British Heavy Metal roots, but you respect Iron Maiden a hell of a lot more than you do Def Leppard, don't you?
8. Twisted Sister Gimmicks like Dee Snider's can only hide how bad your music is for so long. At some point, people will notice, and your next stop is a fate worse than death: VH1.
List continues on the next page.