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If the triumphant return of nu steel has proven us something, it is that nothing is ever really out of style perpetually. Give any style sufficient time and it will develop into cool once more, whether or not it is through nostalgists reminding us why their period was undoubtedly one of the best, sincere, or a brand new technology discovering sure bands for the very first time.
That every one stated, it looks like a great whereas since glam steel was given one other second within the solar. It has been 13 years (sure, actually) since Metal Panther gave the style a lovingly foolish kick up the ass with their debut album, and whereas the likes of Mötley Crüe and Poison stay huge attracts, glam steel as a motion is way from the most well liked speaking level in rock music proper now.
Or at the least, it was till January 13 of this yr, when Peacemaker arrived. The TV spin-off of James Gunn’s hit 2021 supervillain ensemble smash-up The Suicide Squad was a considerably stunning selection to increase Gunn’s voyage into the DCEU (that is the DC Prolonged Universe, DC Comics’ considerably hit-and-miss try at replicating Marvel’s all-conquering Hollywood empire). However, Gunn was eager to discover extra of the comparatively unknown Peacemaker character, a C-list DC anti-hero with a penchant for attaining peace by any (typically violent) means obligatory.
Even with WWE legend John Cena’s wonderful flip because the character in The Suicide Squad, there was no apparent indication {that a} full Peacemaker collection may very well be a significant hit (it has been: the finale broke the report for viewership of a HBO Max-produced TV episode). What was clear proper from the present’s premiere, although, was that this was going to be a superhero collection not fairly like another – rammed house instantly by what has already gone down as one of many biggest TV opening credit score sequences ever.
Starring Cena’s Peacemaker himself and his supporting forged of characters (a few of whom aren’t even launched till later episodes), the sequence incorporates a utterly ridiculous and heartwarmingly awkward dance routine, set to a tune by none aside from, er…middling Norwegian glam metallers Wig Wam? The lads who represented Norway within the Eurovision Music Contest in 2005? Actually?!
“The Wig Wam tune was simply, to be utterly sincere, one of many first issues I considered,” James Gunn advised Rolling Stone in January. “I began amassing an inventory of Peacemaker music lengthy earlier than I began writing the present. And the Wig Wam tune simply gave the impression to be the one which had good lyrics for our present: ‘Do you wanna style it? Do you actually wanna style it?’ And so there actually was nothing else in consideration moreover that tune.”
Titled Do Ya Wanna Style It (clearly) and initially launched on Wig Wam’s fourth album Non Cease Rock ‘n’ Roll in 2010, the tune has since taken on a brand new lease of life, having now racked up over 13 million streams on Spotify alone – twice the variety of their aforementioned Eurovision hit and former breakthrough monitor, In My Desires – and that is earlier than you are taking within the near-10 million those that have watched the Peacemaker intro on Youtube. Wig Wam are the primary to confess all of it got here at a vital second for the band.
“Three days earlier than the Peacemaker premiere, our [Scandinavian] reserving company dropped us from their roster, as a result of there was too little curiosity within the band,” singer Åge Sten ‘Glam’ Nilsen advised Billboard. After Peacemaker debuted, Do Ya Wanna Style It flew to the highest of the US iTunes Rock Chart and commenced racking up streams within the hundreds of thousands. Even TikTok went Wig Wam loopy: dance movies aping that credit sequence attracted a whole lot of hundreds of views. The band signed with a brand new agent, began reserving gigs and have not regarded again since, Nilsen including that their “cellphone traces are on hearth proper now”.
Peacemaker‘s glam steel love-in does not cease there, both. Your entire present is soundtracked by glam steel, packing every little thing from classics by 80s OGs Mötley Crüe, Lita Ford and Hanoi Rocks to cuts from extra trendy names like Reckless Love, Band-Maid and Sister Sin. An official soundtrack playlist put out on Spotify by James Gunn himself has amassed 116,000 followers – by a distance the most-followed combine he is launched (and he is launched just a few). Nearly each time a brand new band was added to the combo following their look in a Peacemaker episode, the tune rapidly turned the top-trending monitor of their respective discographies.
“It’s taking hair steel, mainly, or sleaze steel, or glam steel, and giving it a highlight,” Gunn advised the official HBO Peacemaker podcast. “And it’s a mixture between these outdated bands and new bands. There’s a whole lot of European sleaze steel bands at the moment which might be really actually good. They’re really total a lot better than the hair steel bands that I grew up with. Having the ability to give that music that’s so out of style in America an opportunity to shine a bit of is among the enjoyable issues about this present.”
Glam steel does not simply give the present a kickass soundtrack, both: it supplies a pivotal plot gadget in serving to us unwrap the title character’s character. Sure, Peacemaker is a humungous glam steel fanatic – one thing that is seemingly at odds together with his hyper-macho posturing. A scene within the very first episode has John Cena dancing round in his pants singing alongside to Quireboys jam I Do not Love You Anymore, having simply excitedly found one other character’s glam rock vinyl assortment.
“You already know, this was again when males have been actual males,” he beams, “‘trigger they weren’t afraid to be ladies!” It is a disarming take that begins the method of opening up a operating theme within the present – certainly one of poisonous masculinity and the way it drives on the coronary heart of the connection between Peacemaker and his dad, a racist, homophobic mega-prick, performed with seething menace by Terminator 2 and X-Recordsdata alumni Robert Patrick.
“I believe that [glam metal] is the music that speaks to Peacemaker’s spirit,” James Gunn defined throughout a latest press roundtable. “He loves hair steel. However I additionally suppose that it speaks to a whole lot of the issues that his dad isn’t. It is androgynous. I consider Peacemaker bringing house a Hanoi Rocks album with all the fellows within the make-up, and the fishnet stockings, and every little thing else…these are direct affronts to who his father is.”
As a giant fan of Poison, Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard and Weapons N’ Roses, John Cena did not need to stretch his appearing abilities too far to show Peacemaker’s love of all issues glam. He has acknowledged, nevertheless, how vital the dancing scene is in including new, empathetic layers to a personality who was, fairly frankly, an enormous dickhead in The Suicide Squad, giving nice credit score to “James Gunn and the whole forged for having the ability to let me discover being weak.”
That glam steel has been used to discover these themes of male vulnerability – and, certainly, assist harness a little bit of empathy for a basically dislikable character – is an interesting perception into its distinctive standing inside the steel scene. It’s, in spite of everything, one of many few areas in steel that encourages males to embrace their extra glamorous, effeminate aspect, and it has incurred the wrath of many a steel elitist because of this.
In fact, glam steel itself has points to reply for. It is a main offender in rock’s historic and problematic depiction of ladies as intercourse objects, and let’s be actual: for each Poison or Cinderella-penned banger, there was a lot of also-ran-peddled guff, too. In Peacemaker, although, glam steel has not solely discovered an unlikely new cheerleader, however a brand new layer of discourse wherein to thrive. The one query that actually stays is: do you actually wanna style it?
Peacemaker is out now on HBO Max within the US and on Sky Atlantic within the UK
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