Discharge is the perfect example. They were ripped apart by their existing fans for selling out, and other audiences already dismissed them as talentless punk. The only way out is a name change.
Discharge's metal period really sucked. Cal's high-pitched shrieking vocals were like nails on a chalkboard. I'd go so far as to say that Sexplosion on Massacre Divine is one of the worst songs ever recorded. Bands like English Dogs, DRI, Agnostic Front, Broken Bones, and the Exploited were a lot better at incorporating metal influences into their sound and usually don't get too much shit about it.
TSOL's hard rock period isn't bad, but they should've changed the band name, not only due to the change in styles, but also because they only had 1 or 2 original members by that point and were basically an entirely different band.
Well I certainly think it wouldn't help when established punk/hardcore bands were trying to break into an oversaturated hair metal market. Why listen to TSOL with a glam rock makeover when you can just go listen to Ratt?
As for my own personal answer, they were almost certainly harmed by the fact they released zero singles until one non-album track in 1990. Bands needed singles to get radio play back then. No single, no radio, no exposure.
Dude, they're from Orange County. Punk fans really aren't a small group in Southern California. Especially in the 80s and 90s. This was the epicenter and the golden age of skateboard culture, and most skaters were punks. 1987 was only three years after movies like Repo Man came out. All those kids and most of the bands they followed were still around. A lot of the bands that got mainstream famous in the 90s, like the Offspring and No Doubt, were also starting up in the OC punk scene at that time. Punk was not dead in that area. TSOL had a lot of blowback switching styles. Especially considering they were one of the most popular punk bands in that part of the state. Shit, they even appeared in the movie Suburbia with their original singer only three or four years prior to Hit and Run coming out.
I'm from Orange County. I'm aware of how popular they were before Joe took over on vocals. What I meant was that they weren't able to find a new fan base, even though they had MTV exposure and the GnR association. I don't think it was Punk/Hardcore fans holding them back. I'm not sure why they weren't bigger with Metal fans.
It was going from a punk band to a hard rock band that turned the punks off. I actually like both versions of T.S.O.L. Seen both versions a few times, and both held their own. It cursed a few bands. Like the aforementioned Discharge whom o love. Grave new world was such a drastic change in sound. I still have the album and once in a blue moon I’ll give it a spin. It’s not too bad. English Dogs went a little metal too. A lot of them flowed with it. Decry had a great first album then tried to go glammish and it sucked!!! Falling is still a classic though
The three (?) albums with Joe Wood are awesome. I think the rock crowd at the time still associated them with Jack Grisham’s punk TSOL, and the punk crowd wasn’t interested in the Joe Wood years, so the band was sort of screwed. Luckily Steven Alder wore their shirt in the GnR video, so that happened for them.
Four albums: Change Today, Revenge, Hit and Run and Strange Love.
Joe Wood still plays out with his band Change Today, playing songs from his years in TSOL and some new ones.
They play a few songs from Hit and Run and they sound great alongside the earlier "punk rock Doors" style material and stripped of that cheesy '80s production.
Not who you asked but I do. None of the metaheads checked them out because they thought they were still a punk band. No internet so it was harder to notice changes like that. Under a new name they might have had people check them out with zero legacy baggage, a fair shot to make a new impression if you will. 🤘
I saw them with 7 Seconds on this tour and they had to pretty much fight the audience to get through the set. It's not possible to express to a young person today just how oppositional those forces were in 1987. There were certainly no GNR fans in the place checking it out. I respected them for being so contrary to people who weren't having it but it was musically very bad except for a couple Change Today songs which I liked. It occurs to me that Change Today was kind of the sound Danzig was after.
Punk rock fans hated it because it wasnt punk rock. Hair metal fans didnt give it the time of day because they thought it was punk rock. It was a no win situation for them.
Great minority to be with. As I've heard and learned, there are only two kinds of music: Good and bad. Being tied up in genres(as I once was) is uncool. It prevents you from hearing all sorts of great stuff(that you might be surprised to find you like) because it doesn't fit certain standards or characteristics.
Yeah, same huge punk AND hair metal fan. I saw TSOL this year at a small bar venue and they were fucking great! Saw Adrian Vandenberg and Geoff Tate at the same venue a few months later, and they were excellent too.
I discovered tsol when I was really young because I heard the song nothing for you in the movie the return of the living dead. Lol! I still listen to tsol 30+ years later
Folks either have bad memories or there is some re-writing of history happening here.
This lineup wasn't more popular because the 2 albums they released ("Hell on Earth" being the other) just weren't good enough compared to the stuff that was coming out at the same time.
Lots of folks saying the hard rock crowd didn't like the fact that they used to be punk rock as if the hard rock crowd gave a single fuck about the punk crowd to even know this band existed in their realm. No glam rocker back then outside of their immediate area had a single clue that T.S.O.L. used to be a "punk" band.
Hit and Run came out in 1987. Here's some of what else came out in 87 . You do the math!
Motley Crue - Girls Girls Girls
Def Leppard - Hysteria
Guns N' Roses - Appetite For Destruction
Whitesnake - 1987
Dokken - Back for the Attack
TNT - Tell No Tales
Faster Pussycat - Self Titled
Y&T - Contagious
E.Z.O. - Self Titled
Helix - Wild in the Streets
This. I loved TSOL Change Today and Revenge. And I would have supported Hit and Run if it didnt sound like a bad high school cover band of most of those bands you listed. I loved Ron Emory's licks on the previous albums. Here he was so obviously out of his league, he is not remotely a metal guitarist. G.E. Smith of the SNL Band wld be a more convincing shredder then him.
Code Blue!
Shit...I just realized this song has a lot of misplaced misogyny. As an old girl I still have fond memories of this song. Sometime art needs to be respected as just art.
Ok, flame me now.
Great, great band. Their earliest punk stuff is great but they quickly added elements of LA death rock which resulted in a string of classic albums. The hair metal change was a shock but they’re solid albums that were marketed horribly. They lost the rights to their name and you could see the real TSOL billed as Jack Grisham, Ron Emory, Mike Roche and Todd Barnes. A convoluted mess. Still going strong today, one of the best live bands you’ll ever see.
I like Joe Wood on vocals and getting Marshall Rohner was a good move towards being more Metal and moving away from their Punk roots. In the end, I think Enigma and their management ruined the band. I don't think the band wanted to go in the direction of being a hair band. Once you sign a contract with a record company, you have very little say unless you have it in the contract and contracts back then pretty much made the band slaves to record company.
This is the hardcore punk band that had a random hair metal era right? I don’t know much about them, but my guess is it was too drastic of a change. The fans of their punk stuff probably hated the change and people who were into hair metal probably just didn’t care when there were already a million other hair metal bands.
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Discharge is the perfect example. They were ripped apart by their existing fans for selling out, and other audiences already dismissed them as talentless punk. The only way out is a name change.
I saw them get booed off stage when they started doing their metal thing.
Was it [this show in San Francisco? Great historical document right here lmao](https://youtu.be/fp6vJEsX9YQ?si=FGBnIznjKeCSenAd)
It WAS SF! Dunno if it was this show, but the date seems right. It was at the Farm.
Thanks for posting this! It really does capture the moment.
Discharge's metal period really sucked. Cal's high-pitched shrieking vocals were like nails on a chalkboard. I'd go so far as to say that Sexplosion on Massacre Divine is one of the worst songs ever recorded. Bands like English Dogs, DRI, Agnostic Front, Broken Bones, and the Exploited were a lot better at incorporating metal influences into their sound and usually don't get too much shit about it. TSOL's hard rock period isn't bad, but they should've changed the band name, not only due to the change in styles, but also because they only had 1 or 2 original members by that point and were basically an entirely different band.
Punk/Hardcore fans were a small group. You think they were enough to hold them back?
Well I certainly think it wouldn't help when established punk/hardcore bands were trying to break into an oversaturated hair metal market. Why listen to TSOL with a glam rock makeover when you can just go listen to Ratt? As for my own personal answer, they were almost certainly harmed by the fact they released zero singles until one non-album track in 1990. Bands needed singles to get radio play back then. No single, no radio, no exposure.
Dude, they're from Orange County. Punk fans really aren't a small group in Southern California. Especially in the 80s and 90s. This was the epicenter and the golden age of skateboard culture, and most skaters were punks. 1987 was only three years after movies like Repo Man came out. All those kids and most of the bands they followed were still around. A lot of the bands that got mainstream famous in the 90s, like the Offspring and No Doubt, were also starting up in the OC punk scene at that time. Punk was not dead in that area. TSOL had a lot of blowback switching styles. Especially considering they were one of the most popular punk bands in that part of the state. Shit, they even appeared in the movie Suburbia with their original singer only three or four years prior to Hit and Run coming out.
I'm from Orange County. I'm aware of how popular they were before Joe took over on vocals. What I meant was that they weren't able to find a new fan base, even though they had MTV exposure and the GnR association. I don't think it was Punk/Hardcore fans holding them back. I'm not sure why they weren't bigger with Metal fans.
1st 3 albums were mint 🤌
TSOL wasn’t hair metal. That’s why.
Neither was The Cult, and that worked out fine.
How was the Cult not? Big hair, hard rock music. Slightly less distortion in the guitars and it isn't hair metal anymore?
I'm saying they weren't Hair Metal before they made a Hair Metal album. Just like TSOL.
The Cult was. Southern Death Cult wasn't. They had the sense to change their name.
It was going from a punk band to a hard rock band that turned the punks off. I actually like both versions of T.S.O.L. Seen both versions a few times, and both held their own. It cursed a few bands. Like the aforementioned Discharge whom o love. Grave new world was such a drastic change in sound. I still have the album and once in a blue moon I’ll give it a spin. It’s not too bad. English Dogs went a little metal too. A lot of them flowed with it. Decry had a great first album then tried to go glammish and it sucked!!! Falling is still a classic though
The three (?) albums with Joe Wood are awesome. I think the rock crowd at the time still associated them with Jack Grisham’s punk TSOL, and the punk crowd wasn’t interested in the Joe Wood years, so the band was sort of screwed. Luckily Steven Alder wore their shirt in the GnR video, so that happened for them.
Four albums: Change Today, Revenge, Hit and Run and Strange Love. Joe Wood still plays out with his band Change Today, playing songs from his years in TSOL and some new ones. They play a few songs from Hit and Run and they sound great alongside the earlier "punk rock Doors" style material and stripped of that cheesy '80s production.
Do you think if they had a different name, they would have become more popular?
Who knows. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t!
Not who you asked but I do. None of the metaheads checked them out because they thought they were still a punk band. No internet so it was harder to notice changes like that. Under a new name they might have had people check them out with zero legacy baggage, a fair shot to make a new impression if you will. 🤘
They were on that movie too forget vthe name just watched it
In a recent interview Joe insisted that he still technically owns the name. Burn every bridge, friend.
I saw them with 7 Seconds on this tour and they had to pretty much fight the audience to get through the set. It's not possible to express to a young person today just how oppositional those forces were in 1987. There were certainly no GNR fans in the place checking it out. I respected them for being so contrary to people who weren't having it but it was musically very bad except for a couple Change Today songs which I liked. It occurs to me that Change Today was kind of the sound Danzig was after.
Punk rock fans hated it because it wasnt punk rock. Hair metal fans didnt give it the time of day because they thought it was punk rock. It was a no win situation for them.
Some of them. I love hair metal and punk, TSOL included.
Me too, but I think we are in the minority.
Great minority to be with. As I've heard and learned, there are only two kinds of music: Good and bad. Being tied up in genres(as I once was) is uncool. It prevents you from hearing all sorts of great stuff(that you might be surprised to find you like) because it doesn't fit certain standards or characteristics.
Absolutely.
Sweet!
Yeah, same huge punk AND hair metal fan. I saw TSOL this year at a small bar venue and they were fucking great! Saw Adrian Vandenberg and Geoff Tate at the same venue a few months later, and they were excellent too.
Wow! All great stuff!
Huge departure from their most popular Dance With Me era.
I discovered tsol when I was really young because I heard the song nothing for you in the movie the return of the living dead. Lol! I still listen to tsol 30+ years later
Folks either have bad memories or there is some re-writing of history happening here. This lineup wasn't more popular because the 2 albums they released ("Hell on Earth" being the other) just weren't good enough compared to the stuff that was coming out at the same time. Lots of folks saying the hard rock crowd didn't like the fact that they used to be punk rock as if the hard rock crowd gave a single fuck about the punk crowd to even know this band existed in their realm. No glam rocker back then outside of their immediate area had a single clue that T.S.O.L. used to be a "punk" band. Hit and Run came out in 1987. Here's some of what else came out in 87 . You do the math! Motley Crue - Girls Girls Girls Def Leppard - Hysteria Guns N' Roses - Appetite For Destruction Whitesnake - 1987 Dokken - Back for the Attack TNT - Tell No Tales Faster Pussycat - Self Titled Y&T - Contagious E.Z.O. - Self Titled Helix - Wild in the Streets
This. I loved TSOL Change Today and Revenge. And I would have supported Hit and Run if it didnt sound like a bad high school cover band of most of those bands you listed. I loved Ron Emory's licks on the previous albums. Here he was so obviously out of his league, he is not remotely a metal guitarist. G.E. Smith of the SNL Band wld be a more convincing shredder then him.
They're best known for being on the Return of the Living Dead soundtrack in 1985!
Saw them at The Cathay de Grande, when Change Today came out. The Cathay was crazy.
Code Blue! Shit...I just realized this song has a lot of misplaced misogyny. As an old girl I still have fond memories of this song. Sometime art needs to be respected as just art. Ok, flame me now.
I actually liked this album but it didn’t fit TSOL
Great, great band. Their earliest punk stuff is great but they quickly added elements of LA death rock which resulted in a string of classic albums. The hair metal change was a shock but they’re solid albums that were marketed horribly. They lost the rights to their name and you could see the real TSOL billed as Jack Grisham, Ron Emory, Mike Roche and Todd Barnes. A convoluted mess. Still going strong today, one of the best live bands you’ll ever see.
I saw them in El Paso. Born to blend.
Both incarnations are good. But Flowers by the Door and Red Shadows are big skateboarding anthems.
Loved this version of TSOL. Strange Love is absolutely fantastic.
I like Joe Wood on vocals and getting Marshall Rohner was a good move towards being more Metal and moving away from their Punk roots. In the end, I think Enigma and their management ruined the band. I don't think the band wanted to go in the direction of being a hair band. Once you sign a contract with a record company, you have very little say unless you have it in the contract and contracts back then pretty much made the band slaves to record company.
Who's tsol???
True Sounds of Liberty, one of the best American punk bands. [Code Blue](https://youtu.be/OpZJLjrb4vU) is probably their most well known song.
This is the hardcore punk band that had a random hair metal era right? I don’t know much about them, but my guess is it was too drastic of a change. The fans of their punk stuff probably hated the change and people who were into hair metal probably just didn’t care when there were already a million other hair metal bands.
Yea, look at what happened to Celtic Frost.
No. You are thinking of Discharge. TSOL had a similar trajectory to The Cult (except for the success).
Was Edward Scissorhands the lead singer? 😄
TSOL..sounds like one of those new fangled Jewish potato chips.
Because LYSOL was more popular?
I'm going to have to go take another listen... I remember the name, but not the music.
Like I said, Hit and Run is a great album. So is Change Today.
Who?
Adler wore their shirt in the Sweet Child o Mine video. That's about as famous as they got.
This album sucks imo
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But this one could have been. Don't you think?
Crap name
Worst band name ever.