Oh, wait... "HAIR" bands. Got it.
My #1 is Ratt.
Mods pull if to controversial.
All recreated by The Glam Band at a festival or fair weekly:
They’re a scream!
Most bands of that list sucked. Dokken? Come on!
No Van Halen? No Metallica? No Aerosmith? No AC/DC?
Lita Ford. Joan Jett. The Runaways...
I know Nirvana and the rest of the grunge bands of the early 1990s pretty much destroyed hair metal but those were good times. Especially all the power ballads of the 1980s.
If we’re including out of scope bands, like Judas Priest, why not die Skorpione!
Just a few comments towards the previous posts.
Saw all of the bands on that list except for Twisted Sister and Whitesnake. I would definitely replace Twisted with Quiet Riot or Night Ranger. Better bands with more good tunes and better albums. Otherwise this list is ok.
Van Halen was never a hair band. Their style spawned every one of the bands on this list but that was never their deal. They are my band. I was fortunate enough to see them 15 times between ‘79 and 2015 and have met Mike and Sammy. I know of what I speak. Metallica(seen 5 times) and Gn’R (seen twice) don’t belong on this list either. They are a different thing also.
I still love the hair metal. My favorite on that list is Dokken followed by the Crue and Ratt. The first two Crue albums are classic. Saw Poison open for David Lee Roth right after their first album came out. They were impressive. Saw Bon Jovi open for Ratt and they blew Ratt off the stage. The boys in Ratt enjoyed their party favors a little too much and were very sloppy. Def Leppard is a great live band. Have seen them a few times between Pyromania tour and last summer with Motley Crue. Still sounded great.
Girl I knew who played in a band referred to a lot of the 80s hair band music as ‘Cheese Metal’. She actually liked it more than 90s grunge, and covered some 80s hair band songs.
Oh, wait... "HAIR" bands. Got it.
I heard it was some crap about then-wife Valerie. They eventually patched it up for a great final run.
dfwgator:"Headbangers Ball was mandatory watching on Saturday Night."
Yes it was; and that Truck guy was nowhere as cool as Ricky Rachtman.
circlecity:"I’m not a monster Guns and Roses fans but they killed over produced hair bands and gave garage rock it’s last breath."
True and right when it was most needed. The fantastically talented lead guitar and unique vocalist could not be denied.
dfwgator:"It’s hilarious to see how Pantera started out as a Glam Metal band."
As pointed out, Ronnie James started as a Doo Wop guy, always way older than people thought he was. Awesome! Kick-ass band Ministry started out doing DISCO. If you listen to Rob Zombie you can pick up that he got inspiration from cheerleader routines.
circlecity:"I jest but Kiss's first 3 albums up to Alive just kicked ass. Ace rules.
This is true. Gene was and will always be an ass but he got his dream over and then some. I called into a radio contest in 1975 (?) and won the album "Dressed to Kill" - which severely alarmed my Southern Baptist foster parents. It stands up today as a stripped-down and raw example of rock much like the early Ramones."Destroyer" remains classic, too.
z3n:"The only concert that ever left my ears ringing when I left was Ratt, and I’d been to ACDC (supposedly set the decibel records) and Metallica among others."
My high school was so cool as to buy concert tickets for the best students and even provide transportion there and back in the later 1970s (party hardy), so I saw just about everyone touring then. The absolute worst were Foghat who's sound engineer set their amps to 'Deafening Distortion' while they were obviously too blasted on substances to play. My ears rang for weeks after that.
circlecity:"I loved Cheap Trick. Not a hair band. Pop metal. But they just rocked."
Another stroke of luck: while stationed at Ft. Hood early 1980s the next door town of Killeen had a nightclub named "Woodstock" that somehow booked huge bands to it's little venue. Got to see Cheap Trick there four feet away from the stage and shook hands with most of them (but not Bun E. who's a notorious dick). Still got a Rick Nielsen guitar pick. He flicked them out constantly to the fans as an appreciating (and cool promotional) gesture.
discostu:"And Roddy almost became lead singer for AC/DC when Bon died."
That would have been FAR better. How awesome was Bon for a guy starting out as a chaufer? And you're absolutely right about Metallica's Black Album being a downward path. "And Justice For All" is the masterpiece.
Spacetrucker, If you haven't seen this from "Ash vs. the Evil Dead" you (and everyone) have missed out. This song ,"Smoke on the Water" and "My Woman from Tokyo" cemented Deep Purple in eternal glory.
I'll finish boring you people by saying I had no respect for the 'Hair Metal' trend until hearing Motley Crue's "Shout at the Devil" album. So great that they never approached that again except for "Home Sweet Home" from "Theatre of Pain" which takes a dozen cliche' rock riffs and turns them back into art.
Turned 62 today but still rockin'. I like Korn, System of a Down, Ghost and especially Rammstein - ever open to the evolution of rock at an age when most seem to have turned that part of themselves off at a specific period. Damned shame MTV chased the dollar for Rap then failed so badly they turned into a reality TV channel. Fortunately today we have the internet to preserve the greatness!