I don’t think it was quite that simple. Or rather why did metal become prominent?

Now first we’re gonna go ahead and start out with the basic types of “metal “and the question as to whether or not that counts in headcanon:

Hair/Glam: poison, ratt, Hanoi rocks, Motley Crue —- more melodic, catchy songs, the boys looked like girls and that was weirdly amazing

“Heavy metal” (in my 14 yr old parlance): Metallica, Judas Priest, Megadeth, anthrax, slayer, Pantera, biohazard, Ronnie James Dio, Black Sabbath/ozzy solo, IRon Maiden —-this was magic to me. You had some virtuoso guitar and bass players making music that I had never heard that was a combination of angry, dark, defiant, loud, angry, angry, and angry face:) and the lyrics to some of these songs - they were stories, man! The Sentinel from Judas Priest - all metal and post apoc! War Pigs by Sabbath, which no one understood and everyone took the wrong way, except for the metal heads that actually listened to the lyrics. The Trooper by maiden!!! Rawr, Eddie!!!!

And then there was the heavy metal movie. And it was perfect :-)

I missed out on the balladeers of the 1960s and hadn’t yet heard about people like Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash and all of that good stuff. Until metal, my music exposure was limited to what was on the top 40 radio.

Heavy metal was new. It was brash. There was hair all over the place and “normal people “hated it, which I assure you enhanced it replay value to a 14-year-old a hundredfold.:). It got angrier, it touched on the concepts of horror and evil. And it made me think: the bleakness of depression and the despair of suicide (Ride the Lightning), the military industrial complex (War Pigs), Judge fucking Dredd (Anthrax)! Pride and integrity (Pantera’s Walk, Regular People), Ed Guinn! (Dead skin Mask).

It was… I can’t even describe how it was. The concerts. Stage diving mosh pits at the anthrax concert.

“Punk metal” DOA, suicidal tendencies, black flag, SOD: machine gun guitar. Anger and rage and angst and no apologies. It was perfect for a teenager boy.

Lots of other categories, even in the 80s and 90s as things were spinning up. But it was always the guitar and the bass and the lyrics for me. It was finding a band that you could head bang until you couldn’t move your neck anymore and then listen to them do this Completely unexpected instrumental that was…. Beautiful. It changed everything for me. It was different. It meant something. it mattered. And metal heads were GREAT together and as a group.

But I’m gonna leave you one last category, and it’s an important one from the 80s:

GWAR

Because holy shit, bored art students that created a sci-fi universe based on horrible, heavy metal Demi gods can’t be compared to anything. I’ve seen them in concert many times, but learned that my first concert to always bring a tarp :-)