Rock And Roll In The 1980's

Rock and Roll in the 1980’s

Rock and roll started in the 1940’s, has influenced different decades’ music and evolved in different forms throughout years. For example, 1960’s rock was more blues-based; while in the 70’s, the hard rock has emerged. However, 1980’s was surely the greatest time of rock and roll. During this decade, while hard rock and heavy metal were still popular among musicians, their subgenres trash, and glam metal arose and influenced many teenagers to form bands that became successful later on. The eighties thrash and glam metal did not only influence music, but they also had a huge impact on fashion. However, this rock and roll scene was not all so glamorous and happy; during this decade, heroin became the most used drug

In the early 1980's, President Reagan and Vice President Bush declared the war on drugs in America. Bush expressed that, addictive drugs sales had to stop because these drugs were "drowning" American citizens (Jordan Hanna). However, rock musicians continued doing drugs to have fun and to escape the reality. A drug that affected the most 1980’s were heroin and cocaine. Although heroin was more popular in the 1970’s, it was still the most popular and effective during 1980’s. Unlike heroin, cocaine was a new drug that Latin American drug makers began creating and distributing. Cocaine became drug users’ new favorite drug and different forms of Crack rose among the society (Jordan Hanna). During this time, so many rock and roll musicians like Slash, Duff McKagan, and Izzy Stradlin, and Steven Adler from Guns N’ Roses; Nikki Sixx from Motley Crue; Sebastian Bach from Skid Row were heroin and cocaine

Society was facing with unemployment, riots, and the miners’ strike (Charlotte Gelipter). These social and political struggles gave birth to subgenres of heavy metal and hard rock, known as thrash and glam metal. While glam metal was more popular in this era, it died out in the 90’s, while trash metal continued to be rock and roll fans’ favorite. The 1980s saw well-known bands like Metallica, Megadeth, Guns N’ Roses, Bon Jovi etc., welcomed different sense of fashion and outrageous eye makeup. Unfortunately, this alluring rock and roll scene came with a dreadful cost. Drug abuse in the 1980s was worse than ever. Cocaine along with America’s ongoing war with heroin affected so many lives in the United States. Some of the greatest rock musicians died due to heroin overdose while some struggled for many years to overcome this