The Top 80s Hair Bands That Didn’t Suck
I know you may find it hard to believe due to our Wham super-fandom, but we were totally 80’s hair band fans.
It’s true!
It may have seemed that Joe had all of the “rocker” cred. in our little crew…but appearances can be deceiving. Proud owners of every hair-sprayed, rouge tinted rock record from 85-89. Some of our pop culture icons were very pretty 😉.
There were more than a dozen times a full blown Poison lip- sync was debated (full make-up and spandex included).
We’re pretty sure you’ll agree, here are a few of the top 80’s bands that had us “havin’ a good time”.
The top 80s hair bands that didn’t suck: Poison, Def Leppard, Guns N’ Roses, White Lion, and Bon Jovi. The ones whose songs outlived the hairspray.
Poison
Was there another hair band from the 80’s that left more of an impression than Poison?
Bret Michaels, Rikki Rockett, Bobby Dall, and CC DeVille weren’t just some pretty boys with great hair. They were actually some talented mother f$%kers!
Hit after hit that has cemented them as one of the best glam bands of the 1980’s. “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn”, “Nothin’ But a Good Time” and “Unskinny Bop” to just scratch the surface.
I’m sure some of you remember how crazy the Marquis boys would get when “Talk Dirty To Me” was played on the show. Talk about acting a fool!
There’s plenty more where that came from in our full Poison story.
Bobby – “What is cemented in my mind is not only the great songs they produced during that time period but also the videos. MTV would never be the same! “
“One of the few 80’s hair bands where I bought the LP and the cassette for cruising in the car.”
Def Leppard
These guys were just incredible band who’s unique sound that stuck out in the glam rock era.
Def Leppard were stadium rock!
I mean what other band do you know from the 80’s with a one armed drummer? Rick Allen played better than most guys with 2 working arms!
Their 1987 Album “Hysteria” was one of the best top to bottom albums released in the 80’s and cemented Def Leppard as superstars.
Rick Allen’s comeback deserves more than a paragraph, we tell the whole Def Leppard in the 80s story separately.
Bobby – “Even today when I hear “Pour Some Sugar On Me” I just get wild! Their music never gets old.”
“The Hysteria album cover was thing showed me that I had close to zero drawing ability. I remember trying to draw it over and over and failing miserably. If you need someone to draw you a stick figure, I’m your man.
Guns N’ Roses
I mean we can’t talk about the best 80’s glam hair bands without mentioning Guns N’ Roses.
Axl Rose really brought his A game along with Slash, Izzy Stradlin , Duff McKagan , and Steven Adler. Admit it, how many of you out there still sing and know all the words to “Sweet Child o’ Mine”?.
This hall of fame band was called the most dangerous band in the world and they owned Rock and Roll.
Its doubly amazing that after all those years of Axl saying he’d never play with Slash again, that they’re out on tour. More proof of the awesome 80s revival!
“I remember when these guys busted on the scene. For sure they changed the game in Rock and Roll.”
“Slash, Slash, Slash. Then as now I bow before the master.”
White Lion
Did these guys have great hair or what?
We had to include them in our list. White Lion may not be as famous as some others on this list but they sure did make an impact on the 80’s hair band scene.
Mike Tramp was so damn pretty with those long locks of hair but the guy could also sing.
The band didn’t burst onto the scene but when they started touring with AC/DC it helped put them on the map. Along with the fact that MTV was constantly playing their ‘Wait’ video.
For the full Mike Tramp saga, we wrote up White Lion’s run through the 80s too.
“Sure I was jealous of the hair! I imagine they spend many hours perfecting that look. “When The Children Cry” really hit home to me. That’s a great song!”
‘Tell Me’ was one I wish we did a lip sync to back in the day.
Bon Jovi
We can’t leave this group off the list or a certain Mr. White would kill us 🙂
But seriously this band was one of the best hair bands of the 80’s.
The release of “Slippery When Wet” followed by “New Jersey” cemented them as superstars. Plus the fact that they hail from our neck of the woods makes it that much sweeter.
Jon Bon Jovi and crew also did have some killer hair at the time but this band of much more than the superficial image of that time period. Talent saw them, took them to greatness and even today that continues.
Jersey pride runs deep around here, so naturally our Bon Jovi deep-dive got the royal treatment.
“Here’s a fun fact: Jason and I performed at a charity event in Philadelphia and none other than Bon Jovi performed after us.”
The first 80s hair band that I got to see real close up at a show in a small club in South Jersey. I hear they’ve done pretty well since then 😉
More 80s Hair Bands That Deserve a Nod
The five above are ours and we’re sticking with them. But no honest list of 80s hair bands stops at five, the Sunset Strip alone could fill a phone book with spandex. Here are the rest of the heavy hitters.
Mötley Crüe
The band that basically wrote the Sunset Strip playbook. “Shout at the Devil,” “Girls, Girls, Girls,” and 1989’s Dr. Feelgood, their only #1 album, plus enough backstage chaos to fill a bestselling book (The Dirt). If hair metal has a founding document, Mötley Crüe wrote it in eyeliner. The full chaos is chronicled in our Mötley Crüe story.
Whitesnake
David Coverdale went from Deep Purple to full glam superstardom with the 1987 self-titled album. “Here I Go Again” hit #1, “Is This Love” wasn’t far behind, and the Tawny Kitaen car-hood videos were basically a second career on MTV. We gave Whitesnake’s 1987 takeover its own page.
Cinderella
Philly’s own. Tom Keifer’s blues rasp made “Nobody’s Fool” and “Don’t Know What You Got (Till It’s Gone)” hit different than the LA bands. Night Songs (1986) went triple platinum, and Long Cold Winter proved they were a blues band in glam clothing all along. More on the hometown heroes in our Cinderella write-up.
Twisted Sister
“We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “I Wanna Rock” are two of the most recognizable anthems of the decade, and Dee Snider testifying before the Senate in 1985 is one of the all-time great rock and roll moments. Bonus points for casting Animal House’s Neidermeyer as the villain in both videos. Dee Snider’s whole ride is in our Twisted Sister deep-dive.
Quiet Riot
Metal Health (1983) was the first heavy metal album ever to hit #1 on the Billboard chart, the record that kicked the whole hair-band door open. “Cum On Feel the Noize” made Kevin DuBrow and that metal mask unavoidable for all of 1983. We covered Quiet Riot’s Metal Health moment in full.
Ratt
“Round and Round” belongs on the shortlist of perfect hair-metal songs. Out of the Cellar (1984) went triple platinum, and the video had Milton Berle in drag, peak 80s MTV logic. There’s more where that came from in our Ratt retrospective.
Skid Row
Late arrivals in 1989, from the same Jersey scene that gave the world Bon Jovi, Jon himself helped get them signed. Sebastian Bach’s voice on “18 and Life” and “I Remember You” closed the decade out loud. Skid Row’s whole story gets the full treatment on its own page.
Dokken
George Lynch was the guitar hero’s guitar hero, and “Dream Warriors”, written for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, might be the greatest horror-movie tie-in in hair metal history. “In My Dreams” and “Alone Again” still hold up. George Lynch fans, our Dokken page is for you.
Warrant
Jani Lane could write a power ballad with the best of them, “Heaven” went to #2 in 1989. (“Cherry Pie” is technically 1990, but we all know where that band’s heart lived.) We unpack Warrant’s rise and fall separately.
Europe
Sweden’s contribution to the cause. You’ve had “The Final Countdown” synth riff stuck in your head since 1986, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Blame Sweden, or read the full Final Countdown story.
Still not enough spandex? We also covered Winger and Night Ranger, plus a look at where all these hair bands are now.
The honest bottom line
Yes, half these bands were interchangeable pretty boys, the ballads were formula by 1988, and the whole scene died the week Nevermind came out. Did not matter then, does not matter now. The records were fun on purpose at a time when fun was the assignment, and the Poison lip-sync debate remains officially unresolved. Spandex optional. Volume mandatory.
80s Hair Band FAQ
What was the biggest hair band of the 80s?
By pure numbers it’s a two-horse race: Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet and Def Leppard’s Hysteria each sold over 12 million copies in the US alone. But if “biggest” means defining the whole scene, Mötley Crüe is the answer.
Hair metal, glam metal, glam rock, what’s the difference?
For the bands on this list, the terms mostly get used interchangeably. Strictly speaking, “glam rock” is the 70s David Bowie/T. Rex thing; the 80s version, big hooks, bigger hair, Sunset Strip attitude, got tagged “hair metal” or “glam metal” in the MTV era.
Why did hair bands disappear?
One word: Nirvana. When grunge hit in late 1991, radio and MTV flipped the format almost overnight. The good news is nobody actually disappeared, most of these bands are still out touring, and the songs never left.
A lot of those bands broke the mold and left the spandex and eye makeup behind as the years went by. Still you can’t forget where you came from and 80s music is nothing to be ashamed of!
Each of them for that period of time was one of our top 80s hair bands and still are to this day.
And when you’re done arguing with our picks, come argue with us directly, the hair-band debates never really end on the Awesome 80s Podcast.