…aka “not even a fucking minor iv”.
From: Dan
To: Ian
By our usual metrics, can you think of any “hair metal” songs that are harmonically interesting? I loves me some hair metal, but it seems that things go right from the usual minor or mixolydian (mixolydian possibly being more common than major in hair rock?) (Ratt, Skid Row, Bon Jovi), to stuff you would call “non-chordal”, that borders on prog, like Extreme.
Footnote: once I picked up a pick from Pat Badger, the bassist for Extreme, after an Extreme show. That’s what was left after all the real fans crawled all over each other to get Nuno’s picks.
In any case, Google didn’t help much, but did turn up this article at metalguitarist.org, which I found pretty thoughtful. But it’s more about guitar interpretation than about underlying chord structure, and basically gives examples with a lot of I → bVII.
Continue reading to see what Ian comes up with… →