Greatest Hair Band Albums of All-Time
This is a follow-up to my hair band lettering post. I enjoy connecting posts like this, and after a friend sent me the old Monster Ballads commercial, I immediately started digging into the old albums. I've got two shout-outs to give. The first is to Cinderalla for the purple color scheme inspiration. And the second is to Mathieu Triay for his beautiful revival of Marvin Visions. It seems like cassettes are somehow making a comeback, so all the physical links are to buy the cassette off the Discogs marketplace. This list is in no particular order, but let me know if you have a favorite album that I missed.
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Hysteria
Year Released: 1987
Label: Mercury, Phonogram
Initially, Jim Steinman was signed on to be the producer of Hysteria due to the unavailability of Mutt Lange. But Steinman was a mess (he had also never produced), and the sessions lasted only eight weeks before the band fired him. Those tapes have never been released.
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Look What the Cat Dragged In
Year Released: 1986
Label: Enigma
Bret Michaels refers to Poison's debut album as a "glorified demo," recorded over just 12 days at the cost of $23,000 (mainly funded out of the band's own pockets). The pouty face cover, which went on to be a hair band staple, is said to be a parody of the Beatles' Let It Be.
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Metal Health
Year Released: 1983
Label: Pasha
Quiet Riot effectively broke up when guitarist Randy Rhodes left the band, and bassist Kelly Garni hatched a plan to murder lead singer Kevin DuBrow. The band was reborn under DuBrow and went on to record Metal Health, the first heavy metal album to ever top the Billboard 200.
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Night Songs
Year Released: 1986
Label: Mercury, Vertigo
Legend has it that Jon Bon Jovi caught a Cinderella show and convinced Mercury to sign them to a record deal (it's also rumored that Gene Simmons originally discovered them, but they weren't interested). They ended up opening for Bon Jovi on the Slippery When Wet Tour.
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Out of the Cellar
Year Released: 1984
Label: Atlantic
Tawny Kitaen was the actress on the album cover, famous for starring in the movie Bachelor Party and numerous Whitesnake videos. She dated Ratt guitarist Robbin Crosby and was later married to Whitesnake lead singer David Coverdale.
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Skid Row
Year Released: 1989
Label: Atlantic
Lead singer Sebastian Bach was discovered by Jon Bon Jovi's ... parents. They saw him performing at a wedding and recommended him to their son. Bach replaced original lead singer Matt Fallon, and Skid Row went on to open for Bon Jovi on the New Jersey Syndicate Tour.
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Slippery When Wet
Year Released: 1986
Label: Mercury, Vertigo
Slippery When Wet was the top-selling album of 1987 and is the 33rd best-selling album of all time. The band wrote 30 songs with songwriter Desmond Child for the album and auditioned them for local New Jersey teenagers. The most well-received songs made the final cut.
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Stay Hungry
Year Released: 1984
Label: Atlantic
With Twisted Sister, it's all about the videos. They performed "Burn in Hell" during a cameo appearance in Pee-wee's Big Adventure. There's also Mark Metcalf, semi-reprising his role as Douglas C. Niedermeyer from Animal House, starring in "We're Not Gonna Take It" and "I Wanna Rock."
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Too Fast for Love
Year Released: 1981
Label: Leathür, Elektra
The band's antics on the Too Fast for Love Tour are probably as notorious as the album itself. According to their biography, their favorite pastime was throwing furniture and televisions out of their hotel windows, which eventually got them banned for life from Edmonton, Canada.
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Whitesnake
Year Released: 1987
Label: Geffen
The release of Whitesnake marked a bittersweet transition for the band. They abandoned their original snake logo (which features some of the greatest band lettering of all time as seen on their first six albums) in favor of the more polished "etched" logo.
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