;^)

Actually I think you're being a bit disengenuous here KC. For all it's silliness and posturing, as far as I can see, the NWOBHM was, at its heart, a genuine grass roots movement of sorts. I think, for a lot of the bands it was fueled by a genuine love of the music and a need to escape from drabbery. A lot of the music came out of the working class Midlands and the North and again, it was about living all the crap behind and escaping. Naive, posturing maybe - but heroic IMO all the same. And don't forget, a lot of the OTT presentation, no matter how lame it seems today, was partly inspired by memories of glam rock too. Mott, early Queen, Alice Cooper et al. all mind fodder for young spotty 'erberts with their first flying V

And, unlike punk, the bands didn't really have an ideaology or sloganeering to fall back on if they weren't great muscians or a just generally a bit crap. By that I mean, a crap punk band could always say "yeah we're shit but we meeeean it man - we're singing about issues and the kids and things that are important. We have a message!". You're average NWOBHM band, singing about beer, chicks, Rock itself, and if you're very lucky, dragons, didn't have the luxury of that - it was live by the rock, die by the rock.