Notes
In a recent chat on The Jeremy White Show, former WHITE LION frontman Mike Tramp didn’t hold back when reflecting on the seismic shift that hit the music world in the early '90s—when grunge took over and left many '80s hard rock bands in the dust. Tramp shared some hard-hitting truths about how the industry itself played a major role in the downfall of the era.
"The '80s scene was basically put to sleep by the record companies and the industry," Tramp said bluntly. "Once they succeeded with WHITE LION, they signed SKID ROW, and then they signed the next SKID ROW. It was just an assembly line—like the iPhone version 25, already on the drawing board! MTV pushed every '80s band to overdo it, to the point where they killed themselves. By the end, the last wave of '80s bands became a joke. They were just copying what came before, with no originality."
Tramp didn't mince words about the way the music scene became stale before grunge swooped in: "When I look back, I can't stand to listen to that last wave. There were only so many waves before everything became a clone."
He also elaborated on how grunge and alternative music became the new flavor of the decade: "It’s funny how we call it 'alternative,' but if you think about it, an alternative is just another option. It wasn’t necessarily better or worse, just different—like picking a gray car instead of a black one. But the truth is, nobody was bringing anything genuinely new in those last few years."
What's your take? Was the '80s rock scene a victim of its own success, or did grunge simply bring something fresh that was sorely needed? Let us know in the comments—did grunge save rock, or did it kill the hair metal you loved?