Word: skid
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Something other than realism is unmistakable from the opening moments of Mt. Morgan. The title refers to an automobile skid in mid-blizzard that has left . the central character, an aging insurance entrepreneur, physically shattered and confined to a hospital bed. Yet this wreckage of a man rises, leaving behind the outline of his slung and plastered body, to pace the stage and engage other characters in conversations he recalls, conversations he imagines, conversations he wants to have, and sometimes conversations he daydreams about in the midst of other conversations...
Metallica is not the only band turning heavy metal into pure platinum. Skid Row's latest, Slave to the Grind, has sold 2.5 million copies worldwide since last June. Van Halen's For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge entered the charts 13 weeks ago at No. 1 and sold 2 million copies in less than a month. Poison's past three albums, Look What the Cat Dragged Down, Open Up and Say Ahh and Flesh and Blood, have sold a combined total of 12 million copies; all five of Motley Crue's have sold more than 1 million each...
...white, young and male audience by portraying themselves as disillusioned outsiders who have turned their backs on a corrupt civilization. Dressed like renegade bikers, they sing anthems to the rebellious and the wild, or wild at heart. Outrageous behavior is more than a pose for many of them, notably Skid Row's lead singer, Sebastian Bach (ne Bierk), whose on-the-road antics have included tearing up hotel rooms and striking a concert spectator with a bottle that he hurled into the audience...
...finding his true calling in the Toronto club scene. "In the '70s pop was more hip, and now the energy of punk has come into heavy metal. Punk was a socialist thing, and metal was a capitalism thing." Yet both are sneeringly anti-Establishment. In Slave to the Grind, Skid Row proclaims, "Can't be the king of the world/ If you're slave to the grind/ Tear down the rat racial slime...
...going to f---- in' sell out like the mainstream," vows Bach. "The kids can see through the phoniness." No doubt. Which could raise a ticklish problem for bands like Metallica and Skid Row, which presume to voice the disaffection of middle-class youths while earning fat-cat salaries. To stay on top of the heap, metal's messiahs may have to figure how to keep both their millions and their edge -- or risk becoming long-haired rebels without a cause...