Hair Metal's Sweetest Nothings: Kip Winger Takes You to the Ballet

Kip Winger showed some tongue at 2008's Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy Camp

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I've made no secret of my love for hair metal, and, more specifically, my love for Winger. When it comes to the Spandex Sound, the wussier the better in my book. I loved all the sappy, saccharine ballads by Winger, Slaughter, Giuffria, Tesla...bring it on. So when my boss dropped today's Datebook on my desk, with a front page piece on how Winger's headed for a Swan Lake heartbreak, I felt giddy as a Pitchfork scribe hearing a fresh Deerhunter fart. 

It seems Winger's namesake, Kip Winger, is premiering "his first symphonic piece with the San Francisco Ballet." That music, titled "Ghosts," will hit the opera house starting Tuesday. It will apparently display the brainer side this Kip has been cultivating since grunge killed all that Aqua Net rock in the '90s. I knew he was into the high-brow arts from being a starstruck fan doing serious reporting at the Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy Camp in 2008, but in those hotel rooms I only heard snippets of his instrumental work. Time to hit up this new "Ghosts" show.

And since I'm already traveling down memory lane here, I have a bonus bit for you, just in time for Valentine's Day: Hair Metal's Sweetest Nothings.

Winger "Headed for a Heartbreak" (acoustic)

Giuffria (don't tell me you've never heard of them) "Call to the Heart"

Slaughter's "Fly to the Angels" (acoustic)

Tesla's "Love Song" (still remember a certain long-haired boyfriend playing this on his guitar)

You're welcome.