Steel Panther - Balls Out

ROCK'N'FUCKIN'ROLL MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!!!!!!
Many years ago, way back in the mists of time for some, Motley Crue stormed onto the Sunset Strip with a fuck you attitude and proceeded to mix attitude laden rock, punk and glam together into something that captured the imagination of a global audience.
It wasn't to last long though, and by the time their third album was released they - and bands of their ilk - had mainly lost the hunger and succumbed to revisiting the polished rock that they had initially set out to distance themselves from.......... and with that the dreaded hair metal years would be ushered in.
Thankfully an antidote for that limp wrist cock rock was quickly found in the grunge scene that came along and slapped the shit out of the hair metal acts.
Time has however been kind to some of them, and although the chances of a new wave of bands emulating those who pioneered this wave of rock are slim there is a niche where people playing this style can flourish, and that's in the angle of ripping the piss out of it while maintaining the quality of the musicianship.
It's all basically the same thing, but done with a great deal of self deprecating humour.
The best of the limited bunch are of course Steel Panther.
In 2009 they dug deep into the past and released their down and dirty sexually explicit tongue in cheek masterpiece 'Feel the Steel' that paid homage to those days where tricked out Harleys, hairspray, lip gloss and sex, drugs and rock and roll ruled the strip.
It was a release that perfectly captured the times with a wink and a smile. Not so much a nostalgia trip, but more an affectionate arse slap of a homage that was rolled out on a carpet of hilarious profanities.
Now here they are again with 'Balls Out' and similar to the debut they have remained true to the chronological history of the original movement by lampooning the more sterile and polished hair metal that came after the initial fresher blast.
Only once again they are doing it better.
The difference between Steel Panther and the bands whose music they are very obviously using as a foundation is that with the added 'fuck you if you can't take a joke' attitude has actually made the music far more relevant than the original acts were.
This isn't a shadowy copy of what has come before, a diluted attempt at capturing something and falling short, but instead a joke writ large and screaming for some well deserved attention as it doesn't just surpass what has come before, but instead dances on the graves of the originators with devilish glee.
Christ knows what Motley Crue and Def Leppard were thinking when they added Steel Panther to the bill of their UK dates as it looks like they are going to get their arses handed to them, and the only way that they can compete with the boys is if they accept that they are a joke themselves and indulge in extracting the urine from themselves, but how likely is that?
Anyway. I'm off to slip into some spandex, snort a line and jack off to some old footage of Poison.
I suppose I should add that I'll not be doing this due to any sexually explicit nudges in that direction from Steel Panther. It's just my usual Monday morning routine.