Nöthin' But a Good Time
The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion
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4.2 • 130 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Now streaming on Paramount+ as an exclusive docuseries!
The New York Times Bestseller
The Explosive National Bestseller
"A backstage pass to the wildest and loudest party in rock history—you'll feel like you were right there with us!" —Bret Michaels of Poison
Nothin' But a Good Time is the definitive, no-holds-barred oral history of 1980s hard rock and hair metal, told by the musicians and industry insiders who lived it.
Hard rock in the 1980s was a hedonistic and often intensely creative wellspring of escapism that perfectly encapsulated—and maybe even helped to define—a spectacularly over-the-top decade. Indeed, fist-pumping hits like Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” Mötley Crüe’s “Girls, Girls, Girls,” and Guns N’ Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle” are as inextricably linked to the era as Reaganomics, PAC-MAN, and E.T.
From the do-or-die early days of self-financed recordings and D.I.Y. concert productions that were as flashy as they were foolhardy, to the multi-Platinum, MTV-powered glory years of stadium-shaking anthems and chart-topping power ballads, to the ultimate crash when grunge bands like Nirvana forever altered the entire climate of the business, Tom Beaujour and Richard Bienstock's Nothin' But a Good Time captures the energy and excess of the hair metal years in the words of the musicians, managers, producers, engineers, label executives, publicists, stylists, costume designers, photographers, journalists, magazine publishers, video directors, club bookers, roadies, groupies, and hangers-on who lived it.
Featuring an impassioned foreword by Slipknot and Stone Sour vocalist and avowed glam metal fanatic Corey Taylor, and drawn from over two hundred author interviews with members of Van Halen, Mötley Crüe, Poison, Guns N’ Roses, Skid Row, Bon Jovi, Ratt, Twisted Sister, Winger, Warrant, Cinderella, Quiet Riot and others, as well as Ozzy Osbourne, Lita Ford, and many more, this is the ultimate, uncensored, and often unhinged, chronicle of a time where excess and success walked hand in hand, told by the men and women who created a sound and style that came to define a musical era—one in which the bands and their fans went looking for nothin’ but a good time…and found it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Revolver cofounder Beaujour and former Guitar World editor Bienstock (Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck) give heavy metal a flamboyant retrospective in this raucous oral history. The pair interview dozens of figures from the glam-metal eruption of the 1980s, including Ozzy Osbourne and David Lee Roth; the members of Quiet Riot, Twisted Sister, Guns N' Roses, Vixen, Winger, Ratt, and Poison; and sound engineers, record company execs, roadies, security guards, and costume designers (spandex pants, readers learn, became ubiquitous because they wouldn't split at the crotch during acrobatic dance routines). Accounts of recording session tantrums, trashed hotel rooms, guitar-virtuoso rivalries, and the inter-band arms race toward ever-bigger hairdos and ever-crazier shows "e started making the fire sign and the torture rack and the raw meat box," recalls W.A.S.P. stage designer Al Bane and pure debauchery ("I would wake up out of a binge and there'd be naked people and drugs everywhere," M tley Cr e bassist Nikki Sixx remembers. "I'd have blood all over my hands and my feet and not know what happened") round out this irreverent and fun narrative. Metalheads and those with a fondness for the over-the-top antics that marked the genre and era are in for a treat.
Customer Reviews
Thorough and Interesting Format
Definitely provides authentic insight to the rise and fall of a distinct proof of music history and also the greed and excess that unfortunately were so pervasive during this time.
Best Document of the Eighties Rock Scene
I’ve read a ton of rock/music bios and this is the best of the Sunset Strip and “Hair” metal scene. From Van Halen to the advent of grunge, this is the back story told by the bands, producers, a&r and labels and there is no holding back.
Well done
This book reads differently than most since it is the words of the musicians, managers, producers, etc from this great era of rock and roll. Once I got going it was hard to put down. Dry well done by the authors with a unique perspective.