Rocktober '90s Song #10: "Desperately" by Slaughter (1990)

Thus far in this '90s-themed Rocktober, I haven't yet featured a song from the first two years of the decade.  Since it's Hair Band Friday, it only makes sense that I should feature a song from a hair band.  As I detailed in the first Tuesday Top Ten of this '90s Rocktober, despite the onslaught of grunge beginning in 1991, hair bands still enjoyed a good bit of success in the first several years of the '90s.  Unfortunately, there were a lot of hair bands that got started in the early '90s, which in retrospect, only gave them a limited window of time to hit it big before musical tastes sent most hair bands to virtual extinction by 1993.

Slaughter was one of those bands.  They formed in 1988 after the breakup of Vinnie Vincent Invasion by that band's lead singer Mark Slaughter and bassist Dana Strum, after the band's record label took Vinnie Vincent Invasion's contract away for exceeding its credit line, and the label gave the remainder of the contract to what became Slaughter.

The band released its first album, Stick It To Ya, in January 1990, when hair bands still ruled the rock world.  The album did pretty well, reaching #18 on the Billboard album chart and eventually going double platinum in the U.S.  It featured three Top 40 songs on the Billboard Hot 100:  the Amelia Earhart-inspired power ballad "Fly to the Angels" (#19), "Up All Night" (#27), and "Spend My Life With You" (#39).  Their next album, 1992's The Wild Life, actually charted better, peaking at #8 on the Billboard album chart, but it didn't produce any Top 40 hits and only went gold in the U.S. because, you know, grunge.

One of the hidden gems on Stick It To Ya is "Desperately."  It's a catchy glam metal song that wasn't released as a single, but it's my favorite song on the album, and I think it probably could have been a hit had it been released a few years earlier.

Interesting tidbits:  

1.  Slaughter drummer Blas Elias was among the many '80s and '90s rock start who played roles in one of my favorite guilty pleasure movies, 2001's Rock Star.  He played the drummer in the Steel Dragon tribute band Blood Pollution.  And he also drums for Trans-Siberian Orchestra and the Las Vegas production of Blue Man Group.

2. Strum was a talent scout in his early days and is kind of legendary rock and roll matchmaker.  He is the one who convinced Randy Rhoads to try out for Ozzy Osbourne's band in 1979, and he's also the one who helped Jake E. Lee get the guitarist gig in Osbourne's band after Rhoads's untimely death in 1982.  Strum also credited with placing Mark St. John in KISS in 1984, replacing Vinnie Vincent, who had left to form Vinnie Vincent Invasion, in which, as discussed above, Strum was the bassist.