'Rolling Stone' Readers Pick the Best Hair Metal Songs of All Time
Saturday, June 23, 2012 at 12:01AM Rolling Stone recently asked readers to choose the best hair metal songs of all time. The songs are all "top of mind" tracks -- there isn't anything obscure here. This means that some really great songs are missing but many of the best are fairly represented. The sad part of this list is that it is unfairly heavy with Guns n' Roses, Motley Crue and Def Leppard. There are many other great Glam bands, but you wouldn't know it by seeing this list. So the top ten songs are below. What do you think?
10. Guns N' Roses, 'Sweet Child o' Mine'
9. Whitesnake, 'Here I Go Again'
8. Poison, 'Nothin' but a Good Time'
7. Motley Crue, 'Girls, Girls, Girls'
6. Warrant, 'Cherry Pie'
5. Motley Crue, 'Home Sweet Home'
4. Guns N' Roses, 'Welcome to the Jungle'
3. Guns N' Roses, 'Paradise City'
2. Def Leppard, 'Photograph'
1. Def Leppard, 'Pour Some Sugar on Me'
Reader Comments (29)
Not to mention there is no such thing as "hair metal" anyway, it's totally a media creation after the scene it supposedly represents was not popular anymore.
Rolling Stone readers are very similar to Rolling Stone's executives... A complete bunch of musically clueless f*cktards.
And I see that the anti-Winger/Firehouse/Queensryche sentiment still continues...
My opinion of RS readers are that they're still stuck in the seventies...
Still, the fact this list even exists gives creedence that our cause to Bring Back Glam! is working.
Thanks to iTunes, "Rock of Ages", Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Metalmania, Hair Nation, Boneyard, rampant Internet Music Piracy, Sites like this one and Moms and Dads everywhere, Hair Metal (the term has existed since the beginning) is bigger than ever.
Here's what the list might look like if voters were at least culling from their memories of MTV's "Headbanger's Ball" (Oh, and I made the list go to eleven as that only seems appropriate):
The Top 11 Hair Metal Songs of All Time:
1) "Round And Round", Ratt
2) "Photograph", Def Leppard
3) "Come On Feel The Noise", Quiet Riot
4) "Living After Midnight", Judas Priest
5) "Rock You Like A Hurricane", Scorpions
6) "Home Sweet Home", Mötley Crüe
7) "Talk Dirty To Me", Poison
8) "Sweet Child Of Mine", Guns And Roses
9) "Don't Know What You Got ('Til It's Gone), Cinderella
10) "Heaven", Warrant
11) "Don't Close Your Eyes", Kix
Note: This list is hypothetical. It is not based on my personal preferences.
p.s. Al! Like I've said before, I wish we could refrain from using the word "obscure". I prefer to think of them as "hidden gems". Thanks!
The main problem with this kind of list is that the term "hair metal" (an idiotic term, as Jack noted above -- I prefer "pop metal") is pretty ill-defined as it frequently incorporates bands that don't really fit into the genre. It seems to encapsulate any vaguely hard rock single released from the early '80s through ~'91-'92. For example, I don't consider GNR to be "hair metal" at all, but they are associated with that era and certainly had big hits. There are also a lot of classic metal/hard rock bands that dabbled in poppier fare and had some hits, but I wouldn't say they are "hair metal" bands in the sense of, say, Pretty Boy Floyd or Trixter. The term gives people an easy way to either completely dismiss all of these bands and albums as a dreadful period of silliness or, if they're a bit more generous, declare some of the radio hits of their youth to be a "guilty pleasure" relegated to the ash heap of nostalgia. There is almost never any actual engagement with or discussion of the music itself.
Plus, some bands had a sound that sort of transitioned from pop metal to somewhat heavier fare. The best example of this is Skid Row's Slave to the Grind, which is pretty much just a straight-ahead metal album (balladry aside) that had them sharing bills with Pantera. The Skid Row debut falls much more into the pop metal category. There are obviously many more examples of this.
My "hidden gem" would be "Scared" by Dangerous Toys.
The issue not only has a beautiful portfolio, if you will, of over a dozen black and white Seliger photographs that also bridge two great cover stories, one about Skid Row and the other called "Heavy Metal Nation", a well written study of the U.S. Metal Scene including L.A.
Rolling Stone still, overall, houses great writing, purely journalistically speaking, especially when the subject turns to politics. It's their coverage of real Rock and Roll that lacks consistency.
Founder and Publisher, Jann Wenner, always seems to cast a pretty wide net when it comes to coverage of Rock and Roll but that's just because he needs to sell magazines.
p.s. And let's not forget how he and his writers and editors all ignored and hated both Led Zeppelin AND the entire Punk Rock movement until the fan buzz could no longer be denied.
p.s.s.t. I don't know how the hell I forgot "We're Not Gonna Take It", Kenny O. I had it on paper but didn't transfer it over, I swear. I'm gonna do a revised list here shortly as I realize many of you have mentioned a few other far more legitimate entries than some of the ones I threw in. To be honest, I hope one of you beats me to he punch. I get a kick out of the lists y'all come up with when on BBG!
See ya in an hour or two with a revised list.