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| BORN TO BE WILD THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICAN ROCK BBC Documentary 2014 (3 DVDs) DVD Format: NTSC Source: Pro-Shot (Multi Camera) Video Quality: Rating: 9.0 Menus: No Chapter Selection: Every 5 Min. Widescreen: Yes HD: Yes Total Running Time: 180 Min. About Documentary: I directed the final part of BBC Four's Born to be Wild. The 1980s. The documentary series covers the Golden Age of American rock and is the centrepiece of the channel's United States of Rock season which has been running throughout January. By the 1980s, mainstream American rock music had moved far away from the protest and revolution of the 1960s and was more concerned with sex, drugs, partying and having a good time. All the time. Hey it was the 80s so it was allowed, apparently. And naturally everything was bigger and more outrageous than before, from the epic guitar solos right down to the ludicrous hairstyles. The single most important influence on the sound and look of 80s American rock was MTV - the 24-hour music television channel set up in 1981 that went on to seemingly create superstars overnight. As music journalist, Rob Tannenbaum, says: "In the music business anything that succeeds is instantly imitated over and over again on a larger scale, until it fails." In the case of 1980's American rock, this applies to the pop metal bands that came to be collectively known as Hair Metal on account of their hilarious barnets. Inspired by Van Halen and led by Mötley Crüe, a succession of LA rock bands (and others from other parts of the USA) took over the TV channel with their raucous, pop metal anthems. Following MTV exposure their popularity exploded all over the country. Naturally there was a record company signing frenzy and by the end of the decade America's airwaves were saturated with this so-called Hair Metal. |
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