Negoba
The Last Gasp of Glam
By 1990, everyone knew Glam was on its last breaths. Many bands were starting to try new tricks to keep the music going, but some of the bands were pathetically the same old same old stuff. In the era of overpolished Trixter and Firehouse, Warrant released their biggest album, Cherry Pie.
While Whitesnake had already pushed the single entendre so far years before that it was a complete joke by 1990, Warrant had the audacity to mine the same dry well so hard that the cover is just stupid. What's worse, the title song and the band's biggest hit of their career was a blatant ripoffs of Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me." Not only did they steal the riff style and songwriting structure, they stole the lyrical content too. (By the way, where do these glam bands find all these diabetic girls. Sugary is not how I'd describe...well let's move on) What annoys me even more is that "Pour Some Sugar on Me" was already a ripoff of Loverboy's "Lovin' Every Minute of It." At least Def Leppard made up their own lyrics.
The band attempts to get serious with "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and the ballad on this album "I Saw Red" is a bit more sophisticated than the vapid "Heaven" from the debut album. Having Warrant, of all airbrushed bands, give an "Ode to Tipper Gore" is just ridiculous. Warrant was about as risky as a trip to the malt shop.
This was the last gasp of glam. The classic story is that high off the success of this album, Jani Lane went into the record company, where "Cherry Pie" had been blaring on the stereo for months, and posters covered the walls, shortly after the release of "Dog Eat Dog" only to be met with the sounds and views of Alice in Chains' "Dirt." Glam was done.
Bottom Line: Formula glam pays off...for the last time.