The Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years

1988's THE DECLINE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION II: THE METAL YEARS is the second in director Penelope Spheeris' trilogy of Los Angeles documentaries which look at a specific era's culture of rebellion.  The original was an appropriately blistering account of punk music, its musicians, and its fans.  It felt realistic much of the time, frighteningly so.  There is nothing at all scary about THE METAL YEARS, which focuses on the "hair metal" or "glam metal" of the mid to late 1980s.  Groups like Poison and W.A.S.P.  But also unsigned/obscure bands like Odin and Seduce, whose music sounds much like that of their famous counterparts. 

The attitudes are also similar.  They just want to play rock and roll, get wasted, and get laid.  If nothing else, everyone interviewed is honest.  No piety here.  Even Megadeth, who were wisely chosen to close out the film on some note of sanity and are more serious musicians, still cite beer is one of the things that make life worth living.  Who can argue? Or that sex is great?  But drugs? Most are reluctant to agree there, and one of the few female musicians interviewed says she prefers "sex, drums, and rock and roll." Most of Spheeris' subjects are male, and their attitudes about women will seem odious to many viewers.  When asked if he would like to go straight and have a family, one rocker recoils, asking why he'd want to "in ten years be yelled at by some fat bitch, surrounded by thirty kids."  They love the groupies, though.  Kiss' Paul Stanley is interviewed on a bed full of them.

To be fair, the women talk about cheap and fast sex with as much lasciviousness as the guys.  Just about everyone in this doc comes off like a knucklehead.  It provided many hearty laughs for me, but just as many depressing asides.  Sometimes both at the same time, as when we watch a perverted sixty year old club owner hold an embarrassing beauty contest and describe how he loved eighteen year olds when he was that age, and still loves 'em now.  Did Richard Linklater get inspired for Wooderson's famous line in DAZED AND CONFUSED here?

THE METAL YEARS does often seem quite condescending.  As if Spheeris contrived to make these folks look as idiotic as possible.  She questions famous elder statesmen such as Alice Cooper and Steven Tyler, who rattles on about masturbation.  Gene Simmons for once seems almost humble.  Ozzy Osbourne reminisces of the wild times while he struggles to make breakfast.  Lemmy is interviewed from a distance (in day and night scenes) on a hill overlooking freeways.  Most famously, Chris Holmes of W.A.S.P.  lounges in a swimming pool, painfully self-assessing while pouring vodka over his face (as his mother looks on).  This and some other moments seem suspiciously staged.

The director bluntly asks the unknown musicians if they have a "Plan B" if their rock and roll dreams fail to materialize.  They do not.  They are supremely confident they will make it big.  You can almost hear in Spheeris voice a certain certainty that she knows they are destined for obscurity.  That's depressing.

And this entry seems less interested in the music of the time than did the earlier film.  The start-up groups never even get to finish a song.  Spheeris' contempt and superiority is loud and clear, and if one focuses on that solely, it could hurt the film.  But the subjects (which also include authority figures) speak for themselves.  THE METAL YEARS is frequently hilarious, but also quite a downer.  As in the original documentary, we are witnessing a transitory culture.  The difference here is that the metalheads seem to think it will live on forever.