Photo from the National Museum of American History

The National Museum of American History is charged with preserving the country’s history, culture and traditions, no matter how exotic or esoteric they may be. The museum takes this responsibility seriously, as evidenced when it announced last week that it had collected artifacts from mediocre hair metal band Nova Rex (see below) as a means to remember what was both the most awesome and most awful period in modern music:

The museum recently collected materials from Nova Rex as part of our ongoing efforts to preserve historical instruments and represent the diverse forms of American popular music. Among the materials recently donated by bassist Kenny Wilkerson are a pair of leather chaps, an instrument sponsored by Budweiser, and a cassette tape featuring a mouse in a tank-top holding a knife. Needless to say, this is the first sound recording featuring a knife-wielding mouse in the museum’s collections.

Chaps, a Budweiser-branded bass guitar and a knife-wielding mouse wearing a tank-top? God how I miss the 80s.