You are not logged in. Please register or login.
- Topics: Active | Unanswered
Re: Top 20 Hair Metal Albums of the Eighties
this article aughta piss some people off "GNR ARENT HAIR METAL!" 
Top 20 Hair Metal Albums of the Eighties
By the Guitar World StaffYeah, they dressed funny and their lyrics often lacked the angst and agonized self-awareness that we’ve come to expect in this decade of the rock and roll sissy-band, but the pop metal acts of the Eighties produced some top-shelf albums during their short reign. In chronological order, these are the 20 best records woven, steamed and blow-dried by the most esteemed members of rock and roll’s Hair Club for Men before they were abruptly given the hook.
MÖTLEY CRÜE—Too Fast for Love (1981)
The album that launched a thousand bands. Fueled by drugs, alcohol and Vince Neil’s impossibly shrill wail, Mötley Crüe unwittingly established the look, sound and attitude of a decade with this rough-and-tumble album recorded in just a week. Permeated by a genuine punk sneer and an obvious devotion to such Seventies power pop luminaries as Cheap Trick and the Rasperries, Too Fast for Love’s take-no-prisoners abandon still sounds fresh today, while Tommy Lee’s I’ve-got-a-cowbell-and-I’m-gonna-use-it drumming may be the best example of hard rock sticksmanship committed to tape since John Bonham laid it down on Led Zeppelin.DEF LEPPARD—Pyromania (1983)
The album that formulated and proved the hair band theorem, pretty boys + loud guitars = megabucks. With mad-scientist producer Mutt Lange behind the board, Def Leppard made the transition from New Wave of British Heavy Metal lightweights to pop-metal heavyweights with flying colors and more overdubs than you can shake your Union Jack at. The unforgettable intro riff to the classic “Photograph” spawned a thousand low-rent imitations and the German count-in to “Rock of Ages” would yield another hit 15 years after the fact, when the Offspring sampled it for their ubiquitous “Pretty Fly (For a White Guy).”VAN HALEN—1984 (1983)
To all but the mentally defective, this is the last real Van Halen album, and it serves as a fittingly spectacular epitaph for the band that subsequently ceased to exist at all but in name. With their blonde lead singer, hot shot guitar player and chick-obsessed pop songs, the group had effectively created the template for a generation of big-haired rockers. It’s an association that King Edward would forever try and play down, but to deny that “Hot for Teacher” and the often-overlooked “Drop Dead Legs” didn’t serve as the inspiration for 10-years’ worth of inferior knockoffs is simply disingenuous.RATT—Out of the Cellar (1984)
If the metal world learned one lesson from Ratt’s Out of the Cellar it was this: a shit-kickin’ attitude and head-banging classics like “Round and Round” and “Lack of Communication” will triumph over shortcomings like gruesome looks and a piss-poor lead singer any day. Truly, the good, the bad and the ugly.KIX—Midnite Dynamite (1985)
Even those who consider the hair metal era to have had all the redeeming characteristics of say, a nuclear winter, are quick to give the Kix their props. Was it their self-deprecating sense of humor? Their AC/DC-meets-Def Leppard riffs? The fact that manic mouthpiece Steve Whiteman often sounded like he was recovering from a severe head cold? Well, whatever it was that actually made these perennial underdogs cool was fully in full effect during the writing and recording of Midnight Dynamite. Damn it, this record should have been as big as big Pyromania, and the fact that “Cold Shower,” a pioneering rock/rap fusion with balls of steel, wasn’t as big as “Ice Ice Baby” is a brutal injustice that can never be redressed.DAVID LEE ROTH—Eat ’Em and Smile (1986)
With top guns Steve Vai and Billy Sheehan backing him, David Lee Roth proved that he, and not Eddie, was the keeper of Van Halen’s fun-lovin’ spiritual flame. Combining shred and slapstick with an ease and grace that the overly earnest and lumbering Sammy Hagar-fronted Van Halen could never hope to achieve, Eat ’Em and Smile has all the elements of a great VH album. And while some will point to Passion and Warfare as the fleet-fingered Vai’s moment of glory, I think that he was a whole lot more fun to listen to when Diamond Dave’s off-the-cuff attitude prevented him from disappearing too far up his virtuosic ass.BON JOVI—Slippery When Wet (1986)
Had Bruce Springsteen been a big-haired pretty boy, it’s safe to say that this is the album that he would have made instead of Born In the U.S.A. Well, the Boss still hasn’t made his glam album, but his New Jersey neighbor Jon Bon Jovi did his best to fill the void. The fact that this record, with its guy-next-door narratives, mammoth choruses and whammy happy guitars (courtesy of current Heather Locklear main squeeze Richie Sambora), totally, completely and irrevocably blurred the line between candy-ass pop and hard rock, and sold a billion records in the process, still has many of us confused as to what kind of band Bon Jovi actually was. Nevertheless, “Livin’ on a Prayer,” “You Give Love a Bad Name” and the über power ballad “Wanted Dead or Alive” are bona fide rock classics.CINDERELLA—Night Songs (1986)
Given his gruff falsetto howl, it’s no surprise that Cinderella frontman Tom Keifer eventually managed to blow out his voice. But on Night Songs, the band’s debut, the singer’s pipes were just as strong as his songwriting and guitar chops. And even though the album cover depicts the band sporting some of the most hideous day-glo Spandex duds imaginable, Keifer’s bluesy instincts managed to imbue songs like “Somebody Save Me,” “Shake Me” and “Nobody’s Fool” with a righteous authenticity that so many bands of the Aquanet Army so sorely lacked.POISON—Look What the Cat Dragged In (1986)
First of all, all those who dare claim that their first reaction to the jacket cover of Poison’s Cheap Trick-inspired debut wasn’t, “Whoa! These chicks are hot!,” is a lying sack of shit. Second, C.C. DeVille was the funniest, coolest and most reckless player to ever sell out an arena. Third of all, if “Talk Dirty to Me” had been recorded by the Sex Pistols for Never Mind the Bollocks, snotty rock critics everywhere would be hailing it as the greatest punk rock song of all time.TESLA—Mechanical Resonance (1986)
While their comfortable jeans-and-T-shirts getups made Tesla the regular Joe’s of the hair-metal era, Mechanical Resonance, the group’s electrifying debut, was anything but average. Guitarists Tommy Skeoch and Frank Hannon were a formidable duo who graduated with honors from the Thin Lizzy school of dueling guitars and vocalist Jeff Keith sounded like he had stolen the gravel right from Rod Stewart’s driveway. Tesla produced a series of high quality albums, but this, the band’s debut, displays a combination of spontaneity and attention to detail that sets it above the rest of the band’s output.GUNS N’ ROSES—Appetite for Destruction (1987)
The massive ’do sported by Axl Rose in the “Welcome to the Jungle” video certainly justifies this landmark album’s inclusion on any hair metal best-of list. That said, it’s vital to note that Appetite, with its magic combination of angry, Stones-on-steroids riffs, unbridled attitude and punk rock nihilism may also be one of the 20 best rock records of all time…so good, in fact, that GN’R had no choice but to self-destruct in order to avoid the daunting task of topping it.FASTER PUSSYCAT—Faster Pussycat (1987)
It’s a shame that Faster Pussycat felt compelled to “evolve” after releasing this rough-and-tumble collection of three-chord gems. If they had stayed their simple course, they might now be regarded as L.A.’s snotty answer to the New York Dolls. True to Johnny Thunders’ “rock now, ask questions later” approach, it’s highly unlikely that guitarists Greg Steele or Brent Muscat bothered to tune up even once during the tracking of this disc, while vocalist Taime Down painstakingly emulated Dolls vocalist David Johansen’s total disregard for pitch. Perhaps more importantly, Downe also shared Johansen’s uncanny flair for injecting wit and wordplay into otherwise totally lowbrow lyrics.WHITESNAKE—Whitesnake (1987)
Hard-core fans of ex-Deep Purple vocalist David Coverdale’s more stripped-down, bluesy (and obscure) incarnations of the ’Snake may have found this album reeking abominably of sell-out, but those of us first introduced to the band via this highly-polished collection of Zep-inspired riffage couldn’t help but be blown away by its almost baroque majesty. Guitarist John Sykes’ wicked vibrato and Jack-the-Ripper technique never falter and sound infinitely more ballsy than the limp tone and uninspired pyrotechnics that Steve Vai would lend to the band’s following release. The epic “Still of the Night” is the best song that Led Zeppelin never wrote, and it’s no wonder that Jimmy Page later enlisted the manly Coverdale for a short-lived (but utterly slamming) collaboration in 1993.WHITE LION—Pride (1987)
No one will debate the fact that English-impaired Nordic beefcake vocalist Mike Tramp was the Fabio of hair metal. Or that former Anthrax drummer Greg D’Angelo was the scariest-looking poodle-haired motherfucker ever to hit rock’s big time. Or, to be totally honest, that Vito Bratta, the Staten Island-born guitar wunderkind with the buggy eyes and Farah Fawcett wings never once looked comfortable in a band photograph. Nevertheless, White Lion was one totally ferocious beast of a band and Bratta, for all his mysterious malaise, was hands down the most tasteful, lyrical and inventive guitarist of his generation, adding structure, style and an unerring pop sensibility to Van Halen’s oft-tapped fountain of inspiration. All of White Lion’s albums were strong efforts, but with such ditties as “Don’t Give Up,” “Wait” and “All Join Our Hands,” this is the record that the band should definitely have been most proud of.WARRANT—Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich (1988)
Yes, Warrant may have taken the oversexed himbo act to new and odious extremes in their horny live shows. And the guitar duo of Erik Turner and Joey Allen was certainly nothing to write home about. But Warrant’s few shortcomings should never be allowed to eclipse the simple truth that vocalist/band leader Jani Lane was one of the most accomplished song writers of the pop metal genre. If you can’t get down with anthems like the rousing “Big Talk,” the classic “Down Boys” and the disturbingly moving ballad “Sometimes She Cries,” seek medical attention immediately—your heart has stopped.WINGER—Winger (1988)
Endless vilification on Beavis and Butt-Head has insured that the Winger name can never be fully rehabilitated. Nevertheless, it would be cruel (but not unusual) to deny songs like “Seventeen,” “Madalaine” and “Headed for a Heartbreak” their due. Propelled by the fusion-honed chops of drummer Rod Morgenstein and guitarist Reb Beach’s Vai-like fluidity, Winger were actually in it for the music as well as the money, and the group never failed to throw at least one flawlessly executed prog-rock stunt into their otherwise slick pop ditties. All that said, the totally deplorable cover of Jimi Hendrix’ “Purple Haze” that soils this disc almost makes you feel like Kip and the boys got what they deserved.EXTREME—Extreme (1989)
Aerosmith they weren’t, but Extreme’s flawless musicianship, spot-on backing vocals and white-boy funk grooves, plus guitarist Nuno Bettencourt’s total domination of his instrument ensured that this hard-workin’ quartet would forever be remembered as Boston’s second best hard rock band. There’s nary a clunker on the group’s 1989 debut, and the mildly rebellious “Mutha (Don’t Wanna Go to School Today)” succeeds admirably in ripping off Van Halen’s “Spanish Fly,” “Eruption” and “Unchained” in one fell swoop.Skid Row—Skid Row (1989)
While they started out as meek protégés of Don Jon Bon Jovi, Jersey’s Godfather of Metal, this album, propelled by the riotous “Youth Gone Wild” and the “guns don’t kill people, screwed-up teens with guns kill people” ballad “18 and Life,” would quickly prove that Skid Row didn’t need to ride on anybody’s coattails for long. Vocalist Sebastian Bach quickly established that his good looks and the almost offensive power of his bullet-proof voice were only two of his three most important attributes—the third, of course, being his uncanny and totally sociopathic ability to get into shitloads of trouble. Others may disagree, but in my book, Skid Row were the real rock and roll deal; down-and-dirty working-class kids with the gift of riff.THE CULT—Sonic Temple (1989)
Were they a goth band? A new wave quartet? An AC/DC tribute outfit? All of the above, actually. After shape-shifting more times than that weird-looking alien on Deep Space 9, the Cult finally settled into a lushly produced hard-rock groove that suited Ian Astbury’s “I am the lizard king on steroids” voice and Billy Duffy’s bag of admirably well-recycled Jimmy Page licks to a perfect tee. Produced impeccably by Bob Rock, the King Midas ofmetal, Sonic Temple was one of the last great hair metal records or, perhaps, the first real neo-metal album. Thanks to the recent rise of cock-rock revivalists like Buckcherry and Loudmouth, Temple tracks like “Fire Woman,” “Sweet Soul Sister” and “New York City” sound uncannily au-courant 10 years after their release.MÖTLEY CRÜE—Dr. Feelgood (1989)
While Kurt Cobain was sitting in his bedroom plotting the demise of all things hair, Mötley Crüe were hard at work recording what would prove to be their magnum opus. With the infallible Bob Rock kicking their collective asses into maximum overdrive, the group reached new heights. The greatly underrated Mick Mars dished out sizzling guitar tones and ultra tasty solos. Vince Neil found his inner voice. And bassist/songwriter Nikki Sixx perfected his already rock-solid riff-writing. “Dr. Feelgood,” “Kickstart My Heart,” “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)” and “She Goes Down” are as good as pop metal ever got, and the album’s undeniable quality was reflected in its blockbuster sales. Say what you will, but Mötley Crüe made sure that the Eighties went down in a blaze of glory.
