Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion by Tom Beaujour and Richard Bienstock and featuring a forward by Slipknot and Stone Sour vocalist Corey Taylor (St. Martin's Press; March 16, 2021; $29.99 hardcover) is a definitive, no-holds-barred oral history of 1980s hard rock and hair metal, told by the musicians and industry insiders who lived it.

Written as an oral history, Beaujour and Bienstock draw from over 200 author interviews with members of Van Halen, Mötley Crüe, Poison, Guns N' Roses, Skid Row, Bon Jovi, Ratt, Twisted Sister, Winger, Warrant, Cinderella, Quiet Riot and others, as well as Ozzy Osbourne, Lita Ford and many more.

Nöthin' But a Good Time is the ultimate, uncensored, and often unhinged chronicle of a time where excess and success walked hand in hand. 1980s hard rock was a hedonistic and often intensely creative wellspring of escapism that perfectly encapsulated―and maybe even helped to define―a spectacularly over-the-top decade. Hits like Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It," Mötley Crüe's "Girls, Girls, Girls," and Guns N' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle" are as inextricably linked to the era as Reaganomics, Pac-Man, and E.T.

From the do-or-die early days of self-financed recordings and D.I.Y. concert productions that were as flashy as they were foolhardy, to the multi-Platinum, MTV-powered glory years of stadium-shaking anthems and chart-topping power ballads, to the ultimate crash when grunge bands like Nirvana forever altered the entire climate of the business, in Nöthin' But a Good Time Beaujour and Bienstock capture the energy and excess of the hair metal years in the words of the musicians, managers, producers, engineers, label executives, publicists, stylists, costume designers, photographers, journalists, magazine publishers, video directors, club bookers, roadies, groupies, and hangers-on who lived it.