The Top 40 Hair Metal albums of All Time : 30- 21

This might not be  genre most of you associate with me. It is one t I grew up with.Many of these s I still hold dear today . When the 80s were ranging I was not listening to the Cure, I did not get my interest peaked in them til 1990. I listened to music heavier and darker than this in the 80s for sure, but this was the sound of chasing girls at the mall and smoking pot in my cousins car.  I choose 40 since many of these acts represent a time when this kind of music cracked the top 40 . It was a time when MTV began to dominate so image became every thing. Many of these band would put out album that were not metal at all, nor would I consider them metal bands. Granted most are on the low end of the heavy scale, with a few evolvoing into something heavier. I will make a Top 40 Glam Rock albums of all time to clearly contrast the difference, glam rock being more in the vein of Bowie and T-REX. Yes, some of these artists also crossed over into glam , but hair metal has a more cock rocking flair to it and is less androgynous.

These albums are  more about doing cocaine and getting pussy, devoid of any political correctness, none of this would fly in 2020. It would get a hastag for sure. Any this list should speak for itself, in some cases it might not be the most popular album or the album that broke the band through , but the album I feel has the best songs when it comes to hair metal. Remember that as some of these bands have better heavy metal albums, but we are talking about the best to tease your hair up and get a blow job to. So here are the top 40 hair metal albums of all time.



30-Hurricane- "Over the Edge"

One of the most under rated bands from this genre. Kelly Hansen who is the current singer of Foreigner can outsing David Coverdale any day of the week.






29-White Lion- "Big Game" <- 1989="" a="" ait="" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" big="" blues="" but="" doesn="" door="" down="" for="" frameborder="0" game="" go="" have="" height="315" iframe="" ig="" it="" like="" more="" of="" opened="" organic="" single="" sound.="" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AkLzfk7LXCI" t="" the="" them="" tinged="" to="" width="560">


This album did not have a big single like "Wait". It did open the doors to a more diverse array of sounds that are more organic and blues based to prompt you to take them a little more seriously as a band.


 



28-Celtic Frost- "the Cold Lake 1988

 This album gets weird in more ways than just the hair supply on the band that went onto inlfuence black metal, There are also rap elements. It might highlight Tom Warrior's lack of vocal skills, but the songs are pretty good if you are not expecting "Circle of the Tyrants" .




27- Areosmith- "Permanent Vacation" 1987 

 These guys were a bigger influence on hair metal than they were an acutal hair metal band , but they gave into commerical pressure with this one, but it's a goof fucking album for what it is.



 



26- Whitesnake "s/t" 1987 

 They took it to a mainstream audience, but aside from the Micheal Bolton like powerballads there are some pretty cool songs.

 



25- Fastaway- "Trick or Treat" soundtrack 1986

 Dave King sang on this album which made a difference. Darker than your average hair metal ,it was in more of the zipcode of WASP.


 


24-WASP- "Inside the Electric Circus" 1986 


 These guys were more of a straight up metal ,band a while this album does have some of these qualitites it was slicker production wise and more anthemic when it came to the choruses and it was no mistake.


 



23-Alice Cooper - "Trash"



I always wondered if this was his idea or pressure from the label ? Alice doesn't have a bad album, and like Areosmith was leady a huge infleunce on the genre.


 


22- Warrior Soul-"God Drugs and the New Republic" 1991

I saw these guys open for Danzig and Soungarden when this album came out and went out and bought it the next day. Way ahead of their time, they bridged the coming gap between hair metal and alternative/.



 21-David Lee Roth- "Eat'em and Smile" 1986

 This album Dave proved he could hold his own without Van Halen which was a huge feat. His monster band with Steve Vai made this possible.
 

Warrior Soul : "Back On the Lash"

When I was in high school I went to go see Soundgarden direct support for Danzig. While Soundgarden who was touring for "Louder than Love" was awesome the band before them was Warrior Soul. They seemed to be a bridge from glam metal into something more cerebral. I went out and bought "Last Decade Dead Century" the next day. So I want Warrior Soul to sound just as incredible as they did then. We go way back. I am aware Kory Clarke has drug the name around from various incarnations of this band and none of the members that played on the classic first three album still remain. But at the very least I expect them to be within the same sonic range as they were in 1990. Granted they were ahead of their time. They even played with the former Killing Joke drummer at first so when this album opens with the same style of punk infused metal as Killing Joke, this makes sense. Kory's vocals are more aggressive here not unlike something Jaz Coleman would do.

 It's when they begin to sound more like Faster Pussycat on "I Get Fucked Up" that I begin to question the direction they are now in. Though is this more passable than what happens on the song that follows. It's the title track that dashes my hopes as Kory's voice sounds fucking awful. I am not sure what kind of fucking producer let that fly. His sounds like god damn Lemmy jamming with the Cult. It sounds like he was losing his voice in the recording booth. "Thrill Seeker " is marginally better with a little more balls to the guitar. The riff to "Goin Broke Getting High" is heavier and makes more of an attempt to rekindle their former glory. The rust on Kory's raspy pipes, flakes off a little, but this is far from "Drugs God and the New Republic". The riffs continue to fall somewhere between AC/DC and the Cult on "Black Out". The vocals are more spoken here. The bass really drives this one. 

The very straight forward manner they constructed these songs, feel like there is little trace of the acid fueled sense of space age surreal sonics that colored there older work, with the chorus of "I 've Got the Rock" sounding like a Motorhead b-side. The lyrics are even less inspired so Kory has to take some of the blame for this. When he tries to go up into his higher register it's almost painful though the makes a more successful attempt on "Further Decay". "That's How We Roll" sounds more like the type of rock these guys were becoming an alternative to back in the day. It pains me to have to give this album a 6.5, but even then I feel I am being generous.It id inspire me to go back and revisit all the old albums to hear when this band ruled.


6

The Top 100 albums of the 90s : 90 to 81

Here we continue with out Top 100 albums of the 90s a decade generally assumed to be dominated by grunge, while there will be some on here sooner or later its the open door to experimentation that alternative hitting the mainstream that brought out some of the interesting sounds we look at today in 90 to 81.


90- Entombed - "Wolverine Blues"
Continuing to be ahead of their time, this Swedish band also birthed the groove fill death n roll sub genre with this album that slayed things like "Far Beyond Driven". The title track alone was worth the price of the album.Yeah it was back in the days when you paid for albums.

89- Veruca Salt -"Eight Arms to Hold You" No, this is not the album with "Seether" on it. While that one is good, the song writing on this one is more mature , emotive and rocks out, with "Volcano Girls" having way more balls to it than "Seether' which fit more neatly into what was becoming expected of alt-rock at that time.

88-the Get Up Kids - "Something to Write Home About" Emo had been alive and well in the underground and this album pushed it towards a larger audience and prepped kids for bands like Jimmy Eat World who would later bring the word "emo" to mainstream audiences when things went wild with in on Myspace in the 2000s. But when this album came out it was just more thoughtful punk rock.

87- Judas Priest-"Pain Killer" Seeking to redeem themselves from being turbo-lovers, Priest came back to prove they could hit it as hard as all the thrash bands they influenced. A new drummer helped them pull this off and Tipton and KK, showed they had some impressive chops up their sleeves and could shred with the best of them. This album would be one of the last great metal albums before grunge.

86- Katatonia-"Discouraged Ones" They transitioned from being a gloomy doom ridden death metal band to switching over to clean singing and touching on more of a Cure like goth ambiance.

85-the Gathering-"Nightime Birds" Before the slew of symphonic melodrama that bands like Nightwish would be out of Europe, the Gathering brought a more majestic soaring to gloomy doom thanks to the vocals of Anna Maria van Giersbergen or Anneke as she would later be called. This album is way ahead of it's time.

84-Butthole Surfers- "Independent Worm Saloon" Gibby and the boys stopped clowning around and began rockin on this one , though it still retained much of their signature weirdness. Not hard enough to be metal, but to trippy to be punk. They would later really sell out with the album that followed.

83-Warrior Soul - "Drugs, God, and the New Republic" While they saw some popularity in Europe, they deserved to hit bigger in the States as they were better then bands like Tripping Daisy, who you won't see on this list. They toured with Danzig and Soundgarden, which is where I caught on to them.

82-Dj Shadow - "Entroducing" The drums sound is the only thing that sounds that dated to me, there are many other elements on this album they stand the test of time and find this to be an electronica classic.

81- Skunk Anansie "Post Orgasmic Chill" Another album that was an alternative to mainstream alternative.Skin their black lesbian lead singer has a set of pipes on her that take these songs to the next level. The songs held up well with the years as I can go back and easily listen to this one.