Top-10 Favorite Sleazy Hard Rock & Glam/Hair Metal Bands

Anyone who's been reading this blog before will know what an open-minded kind of metal listener I am. During my early days of exploring and discovering metal music, my biggest genres were NWoBHM, thrash and typical glam/hair metal. Just like with any metal sub-genre there were some bands which I liked in particular and some others not so much at all.

During my first five years as a metalhead I was still somewhat of a casual listener to hair metal and similar sounds. I pretty much stuck to the more obvious choices - GN'R, the Crüe, and so on - as I spent so much time discovering all kinds of metal sub-genres during those years. Around 2008, however, I really got into this particular style of metal and I kinda considered myself a "hair metalhead" between 2008 and 2010.

For two years there I really dug into the genre and all of its largely unnoticed bands. I quickly realized that my favorite era of hair metal was 1988-1992, where the genre kind of bloomed better than ever, but with many great bands unfortunately slippin' under the radar due to the success of thrash and death metal, but also particularly (and obviously) grunge in the early 90's.

I will now present to you: ten of the greatest bands in glam/hair metal and sleazy hard rock music, all according to my personal taste. I hope you enjoy!

Starting at...

10. Mötley Crüe

Comment: The kings when it comes to glam metal and for good reason. Nikki Sixx sure knows how to make great songs, but at the same time I can't really say that I'm a huge fan of all the Crüe's albums. I'm the kind of fan who jammed "Too Fast For Love" a lot, truly loved "Shout At The Devil", was confused by "Theatre Of Pain", thought "Girls, Girls, Girls" was misunderstood, and absolutely hated "Dr. Feelgood" (ironically enough felt very bad about it). I'll just leave it at that.


9. Ratt

Comment: Possibly the best guitar tone of the genre. I just love that crispy guitar sound! The guitar work is overall great as well, accompanied by some very distinctive vocals and great grooves. Ratt is just one very solid band in the genre. Particularly the first two full-length albums are great.


8. Skid Row

Comment: Back in my teens I wanted to be Sebastian Bach (or have his looks at least) to get the chicks. Around 2009 my buddy started calling me "Seb Bach" because of my long and straight blonde-ish hair and feminine face features. It felt good, in a way. But it was not all about Bach either. Skid Row's one of the best bands in the genre. The debut is great but "Slave To The Grind" stepped up things even further. I just love how heavy it is.


7. Warrior Soul

Comment: With no disrespect meant against these guys, I'm aware they might not really qualify for this genre. Seeing as they are often put in the same batch as these bands, however, I will use that to my advantage of praising them. Hailing out of NYC, a city I've got an obsession with and a dream of moving to, I just love the dark and gutter-y vibe to their sound. It's hard and straight to the point. The lyrical themes are also real, unlike most bands in this genre who are - well, honestly - quite a bunch of posers and love failures.


6. Cinderella

Comment: Something with this band is just perfection to me. The vocals, guitars and vibes are all there. They are great at combining gutter-rockers with really good ballads. I usually despise a lot of glam ballads because of how cheesy they are, but Cinderella are just pros at their craft. "Night Songs" and "Long Cold Winter" are two of the genre's very best albums.


5. The Almighty

Comment: One truly underrated band in my opinion. These guys were, according to themselves but also somewhat accurately put, a bunch of Motörhead wannabes. With that said, I love their first two albums - "Blood, Fire & Love" and "Soul Destruction" - which are great sleazy hair metal. The rest of their albums, however, changed in musical styles and did not fare too well me though.


4. Sleeze Beez

Comment: These guys hailed from the Netherlands but they sounded very much like genuine L.A. hair metal, albeit better than a lot of those bands. Their sound was quite heavy and definitely rockin' with a high energy level. Great songs, great vocals. "Screwed Blued & Tattooed" and "Powertool" are two of the best albums you can get your hands on.


3. Saigon Kick

Comment: A very unique band within the genre. They actually covered a lot more musical styles than just typical hair metal of the time, which is something I enjoy a lot. Any fan of these guys will know what I'm talking about. On a single album they would go between playing thrash-y hair metal to acoustic ballads to funk to soul-esque stuff. They were rather musically entertaining as they made anything turn out great. The first album is the most pure hair metal release they did, but I'd really recommend anyone of their first four(!) albums, which I think is saying a lot.


2. W.A.S.P.

Comment: It's been well-discussed over the years whether they are glam or simple heavy metal. Considering they dressed like trannies and made glam-esque music on their first three efforts, I'd definitely include them as a glam metal band, even if they actually were rather heavy. There's just something magic about 'em. Blackie Lawless voice is so haunting and one of the best voices I know. His voice's also aged gracefully in my opinion. Just an amazing band with many truly great albums under their belt.


1. Spread Eagle

Comment: And the winner are these guys from NYC. These guys came too late, debuting in 1990 and basically failed to make an impact in the then-dying hair metal scene. It's kinda funny that they would take the first spot considering they only made two albums, with one of them (the debut) being fuckin' awesome while the second is no good at all (in my opinion as well as many others'). Quite interesting, I think. But at the same time it's just a proof of exactly how good the debut is! Think of a rawer and heavier Skid Row and you've got these guys. Too bad they never did any more good stuff.

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So that was my top-10 favorite glam/hair metal and sleazy hard rock bands. I think it's safe to say that I definitely prefer the heavier bands in the genre, and also the bands with the least amount of make-up and emptied cans of hairspray. Not that most of those "girlie" hair metal bands (if I may call 'em that) were bad or anything, I just like the bands that, obviously, were into heavier sounds. As far as hair metal hairdos go, I definitely like it on band members in bands such as Vixen. Not so much Poison or Tigertailz. Chicks with big 80's hair are great. The males just looked like my grandmas.

Just my five cents thrown here. I hope you enjoyed the list at least! Maybe there was some surprising choices and maybe even a new band or two to check out? I hope so!

Review: CRASHDÏET - The Savage Playground (2013)

Background story: Having been a fan since my early teens when they first appeard on the Swedish TV-channel ZTV, with their "Riot In Everyone" video that rotated real good for quite some time. I believe the year was 2004 and I loved their sound and just wanted them to do an album. In 2005 things started to happen and their infamous debut "Rest In Sleaze" was released in September, I believe. I remember buying the album the day after it came out and I pretty much loved it. Then in early 2006 I was saddened to hear of Dave Lepard's death, as CRASHDÏET was a band I was looking forward to follow over the years. They split-up, got back together and the rest is history. I never liked that muscle Mary guy they replaced Dave with, he pretty much sucked big, mean horse balls. In 2009 they announced that Simon Cruz and I got excited again, CRASHDÏET was reborn for real now. The guy sounded a lot like Sebastian Bach but I always loved Skid Row, so I didn't have any problem with that. He's pretty much everything the muscle Mary wasn't for CRASHDÏET. 2010 saw the release of my personal favorite CRASHDÏET album, "Generation Wild". Now it's 2013, I've waited almost three years for a new album and now it's arrived, "The Savage Playground" ...

Before I start listening, my thoughts and expectations are something like "it's their forth album over an eight year spun, their second album with the same singer as the last album. Things will probably sound more mature and maybe somewhat different than their old stuff." Well, this album actually did live up to all those thoughts of mine, but after listening to it, I honestly don't really know to think about it. My first impression is confused. Very confused. The album starts off promising with a track called "Change The World", which also reminds me that some of the song titles on this album feel different in some way, for being CRASHDÏET songs I mean. They don't sound like the "typical" titles the band would go for, but they did it and however, the first song is a solid one, if maybe not the best. I like it a lot at least and it did its purpose: it made me excited.

The second track is the album's lead single, "Cocaine Cowboys". Not an original title and not very cool anymore neither, but the song rather is, though. As much as I usually hate it, I think I have to admit that this is as good as it gets on this album. The songs starts off with a cool cowboy, steel guitar kind of intro, which just makes me (yet again) connect them to Skid Row. If "Generation Wild" was CRASHDÏET's "Skid Row", then this album is starting to sound like their "Slave To The Grind". Now that is not a bad thing as it's my favorite Skid Row album, but everything's about to change, and that quickly. The next three tracks are rather a dull and bland collection of what can be classically called "fillers", but when "Circus" and "Sin City" kick in I'm enjoying the music again.

With my hope up somewhat again, the album unfortunately enters a new and longer stretch of bland tunes, and this time I'm losing it. When the chorus in "Damaged Kid" kicks in I react like "what the fuck?!". It sounds nu metal-ish and sounds like something any emo, Korn, or whatever band could've come up with. I'm not generally a close-minded music listener, I listen to all kinds of metal and music outside of metal, but I never, ever liked nu metal. This song just blows.

At this point I actually took a break from the album to listen to something good, but as I got back I saw the title of the next track - "Excited". How ironic, huh? This song does however make me satisfied, it's pretty okey. Up last we have "Garden Of Babylon" which is a pretty good one as well. Now this is probably the most interesting song on the whole album, as it sound very different from the typical CRASHDÏET we know. It also doens't sound pretty much like anything else on this album. It's not an awesome or very fun track, but it's solid and probably does the best closer this album can get. But then there's a bonus track called "Liquid Jesus" as well, and rightfully so, because it sounds like gospel glam and I'm not very fond of it.

Now this was the album and its songs. A kinda strange bunch if you ask me, but it is what it is. Beside some frustation during the tracks, I also noted that the album's production is somewhat raw and muddled, maybe? I don't think it really gives much detail to the different instruments and sounds. I feel like the riffs sometimes are hard to really hear fully out, and at times the vocals sound like rough mixes. Now I do fancy raw productions with little polished effects - if it's done right. This just feels poorly done, it's easily the worst sounding CRASHDÏET album so far.

Musically the guys are as good as ever. They do their thing like nothing's changed and I still really like Simon Cruz, he's a great singer and very charismatic for this band. There are not too many memorable riffs, drum fills or whatever to be found on this album, though. I don't know if the riffs ever where CRASHDÏET's strong side, I think it rather was the vocal melodies and harmonies that was "that special thing" about 'em.

At the end of this album I stand confused and ... disappointed, to be honest. I'm not a conservative person who wants to stay in the same way forever unchanged, but if for instance Simon Cruz made the band evolve this way, I'd rather see the band let him go and find yet another singer for the next album. But I simply just hope they did their little failure and will get back on track again, before it's too late. All I can say about my personal feelings about this album is that it feels like an unfocused mashmix and is experimenting into new sounds, which I approve of very much, but it does it in the wrong territories. While it has a lot of pretty shitty moments, it also has some mediocrity and some great ones. Maybe the album will grow on me in due time, I can only see about that.

Final rating: 4.5/10