Album
Hair-metal parody act Steel Panther is based in Los Angeles but plays Vegas multiple times a week, packing in crowds at casino lounges around town. The band’s shtick is based on an over-the-top exaggeration of glam clichés, and in a live setting, with a mix of well-known covers and novelty originals, maybe it works as a tongue-in-cheek tribute of sorts (admittedly, I haven’t experienced the band live).
The Details
- Steel Panther
But Steel Panther’s major-label (!) debut, Feel the Steel, is painfully bad, and not in a funny way. Sure, it impeccably re-creates the hooky arena-rock sound of the ’80s, but it does so in service of tasteless, repetitive, crass, unfunny jokes about sexual escapades, laced with loads of uncomfortable misogyny, homophobia and a bit of racism. Even with a wink, this is the musical equivalent of a Rob Schneider movie, and manages to make every band Steel Panther is allegedly satirizing look classy in comparison.
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