It’s an age-old conundrum: What do you do when you prefer something fun and silly over something hip and “meaningful”? How do you make amends with your impulse to choose Outback Steakhouse over that totally wicked bar that’s hidden behind a fortune teller’s shop?

For this installment of Oh Brawling Love!, guest critic Raven Snook—who reviews theater for Time Out New York and also performs in a sizzling burlesque act—explains how this dilemma recently confronted her. You see, Raven (that’s her pictured up top) didn’t expect to love the hair-metal musical Rock of Ages, especially with the celebrated  revival of Hair playing just down the street. But she did love Rock of Ages, y’all. She did.

After the jump, she’ll explain why…

The Hair Up There: Why Rock of Ages Rocked My World… More Than Hair

By RAVEN SNOOK

When Rock of Ages—the shockingly entertaining jukebox musical of 80s rock anthems—opened on Broadway mere days after the lauded revival of Hair, it was inevitable that reviewers would compare the two. After all, they both feature casts rocking out with shaggy ‘dos, and both shows enjoyed successful Off-Broadway runs. Plus, their plots—which are really just excuses for parades of high-energy, emotionally-charged numbers—hang on love triangles: In both cases, a shy boy falls for a nice girl while a grandiose guy gets in the way.

Both musicals are also very much rooted in their respective eras. For all its timeliness (the war, general dissatisfaction with the world), Hair is stuck in the 60s, with its catchy (but at this point quaint) odes to drugs and freaky sex. “Sodomy, fellatio, cunnilingus, pederasty: Father, why do these words sound so nasty?” Well… in a world in which the lyric “I want to fuck you like an animal” seems passé, they don’t. Hair‘s entire vibe seems kind of tired. Act II’s war sequence is chilling, but the first act, all acid trips, orgies and self-empowerment, works best as a portrait of adolescent narcissism. Yes, the audience relishes cheering the performers on—mainly because we’ve all been there, done that, and kind of wish we could do it again. But now we’re over eighteen now, and most of us paid 100 bucks to get into the show. No can do. (Awful admission: I actually found myself relating most to Megan Lawrence’s overbearing but sensible—except for the war stuff—Mother character. When she told her son to get a job, I thought, “Right on, honey!”)

Meanwhile Rock of Ages celebrates being a time capsule and doesn’t pretend to have any particular relevance. One of the show’s biggest laughs comes when Drew cracks open two wine coolers. If you’re between the ages of, say, 30 and 55, that will mean something to you. (And Drew is played by adorkable American Idol alum Constantine Maroulis, who’s always seemed like a throwback.)

Does Rock of Ages trade in on nostalgia? Big time. But what’s wrong with that? The folks behind Broadway’s The Wedding Singer stumbled by replacing beloved 80s hits with newly penned approximations. Rock of Ages delivers where that tuner died. In addition to being great escapist fun, the show pulls off a really neat trick by managing to charm both the folks who grew up loving cheesy Bon Jovi, Poison and Asia tunes, and those of us who absolutely despised them. Somehow, I don’t think a musical of my 80s favorites—Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Smiths, The Cure—would have such mass appeal.

Rock of Ages sends up the excesses of the mainstream ’80s—the styles, the sounds, the silliness—without resorting to snarkiness. I actually found myself invested in the characters’ journeys and their rendition of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” The show is campy, but never cold. In other words, Hair has hormones but Rock of Ages has heart. And really awesome fake lighters! (The fake lighters really are awesome. They hand them out in the audience before the show starts. — MARK)

I know that saying I enjoyed Rock of Ages more than Hair makes me sound middlebrow or, worse, like an old fogey. What can I say? There comes a day when you realize that you can pick New Jersey over New York, and your life, as Steve Perry might say, will still go on and on and on and on.