Hair Metal

There was a time when the ultimate statement of hell-raisin' masculinity was a salon-fresh cascade of lovingly tousled locks, so long as it was accompanied by a skinful of naked lady tats and anthems like Mötley Crüe's "Girls, Girls, Girls", Skid Row's "18 and Life", and Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It". Oh, yes, these classic MTV video hits marked the glory years of hair metal, during which groups like Bon Jovi and the Scorpions transformed the power ballad — perhaps the most potent weapon in hair metal's mighty arsenal of charms — into a vehicle for slow dances at denim-heavy parties. Get a haircut! Just kidding. Shake those rockin' tresses through to Next Steps.

With hair metal, the culture of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll that took flight in the '60s and '70s reached its inevitable apex in the '80s, exploding like a fireworks display — and what a display it was! Everything was high: the hair, the scissor-kicks, the voices, the volume, the fellas in the band . . . the audience. And we wouldn't have had it any other way. Relive the hirsute glory with Finland's "Hanoi Rocks" (covering Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Up Around the Bend") and David Lee Roth (crossing over into pop territory with "Just Like Paradise"). Screw the ozone layer — your hair needs the ultimate spritz of our Deep Cuts.

Was it a reaction to disco? Was it Thatcherism/Reaganomics? Was it The City/Wall Street? Pundits and critics don't seem interested in dissecting the whys and wherefores of hair metal. This suits the genre perfectly: nobody knows why it happened, but we're all glad that it did. So lose the thinking cap, or any other headwear for that matter, and CRANK IT UP with the likes of Judas Priest (whose crome-domed frontman Rob Halford never had much of a thatch, ironically enough) and Whitesnake (David Coverdale, on the other hand, had prettier locks than Tawny Kitaen's).

Nothing quite defines the '80s like the leather 'n' lacquer phenomenon commonly referred to as "hair metal". Like the decade itself, the music/scene was a celebration of pure, unadulterated excess. Ostentatious in presentation and performance, politically vacant, and cartoonish in all aspects, it was a gleeful wardrobe malfunction, a makeover gone haywire, a loudly exclaimed hair don't — and we loved every last second of it. With a special shout-out to retro hair-metallist Justin Hawkins from the Darkness, we give all the hard-rockin', barnet-thrashin' originals . . . so shake up that spray can, set your locks, and make the Sunset Strip circa 1987 the centre of your universe.