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I wouldn't go quite that far in terms of grunge being talent-free genre.
I just tend to look at 1989 as the last commercial hurrah for hair metal, certainly regarding the high-profile US bands that got heavy rotation on MTV. In terms of their best material, the likes of Motley Crue, Dokken, Ratt and the like were already recycling riffs and ideas. 1987 to 1989 had that blast of lesser-talented bands of the genre (your Wingers, Poisons and Warrants). Leppard had shot their wad with Hysteria.
So 1990 rolls around and you're left with Extreme, Trixter, Faster Pussycat...not exactly the cream of the crop. Queensryche and Skid Row were still plugging along with Empire and Slave To The Grind. And the whole hair metal template with the obligatory power ballad had just run out of steam. What had seemed new and exiting several years prior was just staid.
1991 was the transition year, but lest we forget you still had G n R and Metallica (not hair metal to be sure, but at some type of metal) selling a shitload of records that year.
And more than a bit of it was that kids graduating high school in the early 1990s were, by and large, probably too young to have really remembered (or cared) much about the 1980s LA hair metal bands. I mean, a kid turning 18 in 1992 would have been, what, 10 years old in 1984? Back then, to such a kid a Twisted Sister video would have had as much resonance as Pee Wee's Playhouse.
That whole grunge explosion lasted about as long as the hair metal scene, in terms of years. Shit, by 1996 Soundgarden was on their last gasp, Nirvana had already ended, Pearl Jam had peaked and then (much like Winger and Warrant in 1987) your Puddle of Mudd and Bush-type bands came in to mop up whatever residual interest left in that type of rock was left to be found.
I just tend to look at 1989 as the last commercial hurrah for hair metal, certainly regarding the high-profile US bands that got heavy rotation on MTV. In terms of their best material, the likes of Motley Crue, Dokken, Ratt and the like were already recycling riffs and ideas. 1987 to 1989 had that blast of lesser-talented bands of the genre (your Wingers, Poisons and Warrants). Leppard had shot their wad with Hysteria.
So 1990 rolls around and you're left with Extreme, Trixter, Faster Pussycat...not exactly the cream of the crop. Queensryche and Skid Row were still plugging along with Empire and Slave To The Grind. And the whole hair metal template with the obligatory power ballad had just run out of steam. What had seemed new and exiting several years prior was just staid.
1991 was the transition year, but lest we forget you still had G n R and Metallica (not hair metal to be sure, but at some type of metal) selling a shitload of records that year.
And more than a bit of it was that kids graduating high school in the early 1990s were, by and large, probably too young to have really remembered (or cared) much about the 1980s LA hair metal bands. I mean, a kid turning 18 in 1992 would have been, what, 10 years old in 1984? Back then, to such a kid a Twisted Sister video would have had as much resonance as Pee Wee's Playhouse.
That whole grunge explosion lasted about as long as the hair metal scene, in terms of years. Shit, by 1996 Soundgarden was on their last gasp, Nirvana had already ended, Pearl Jam had peaked and then (much like Winger and Warrant in 1987) your Puddle of Mudd and Bush-type bands came in to mop up whatever residual interest left in that type of rock was left to be found.
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