Hair Metal Domination

Let’s face it: everyone from skate-shorts-sporting thrashers and isolationist of ‘troo kvlt’ black metal church burners to gurgling death metalheads and flat-brimmed hardcore heads loves hair metal. If they say they, they’re fucking lying. If it’s not the good time, formulaic party music, it’s the fantastical lyrics and ongoing hope that all it takes for a bunch of socially awkward, borderline anorexic geeks to get laid is a couple guitar lessons, a catchy chorus and enough hairspray to burn a hole in the ozone? By the way, whatever happened to all that hullaballoo about the ozone layer, anyway? Did hair metal’s expiration date at the end of the 80s really solve this particular environmental issue? Fuck the music industry and atmospheric science – hair metal will never die, at least in the eyes of the Decibel cabal, to whom I asked: what’s your favourite hair metal video ever (with notes, where applicable)?
Jeanne Fury
Ratt
“Round and Round”

Kirk Miller
Britny Fox
“Girlschool”

Adem Tepedelen
Bang Tango
“Breaking up a Heart of Stone”
I’ve got a real (embarrassing) soft spot for Bang Tango. So, go ahead and throw “Breaking Up a Heart of Stone” up there and let the bastards take their shots. The truth is this shit is indefensible and I should be pilloried.

Greg Moffitt
Whitesnake
“Still of the Night”

Rod Smith
Motley Crue
“Saints of Los Angeles”

J. Bennett
My go-to is Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again.” Awesome song, awesome Tawney Kitaen action. But I realize that’s a bit pedestrian AND someone else is gonna pick it. So, I’m gonna go with Vinnie Vincent Invasion’s, “Boyz Are Gonna Rock.”

Nick Green
Bulletboys
“THC Groove”

Richard Christy
Stryper
“Free”
I used to vote for the video every day on Dial MTV. Stryper’s poofy hair reaches to the heavens in this video!

Jonathan Horsley
That’s a tough one, man. I would have said “Too Young to Fall in Love” by Motley Crue, seeing as it makes me want to wear make-up, smoke opium and eat Chinese food. But it has to be W.A.S.P. “I Wanna Be Somebody,” principally for the man I wish I was, Chris Holmes, smashing a beer can against his head and the get-up-and-go sentiment of that bug-eyed, bouffant fool, Lawless. I would mention the “Wild Child” promo clip in dispatches, too, mainly for the synchronised jumping and the admission that Lawless is a “naked heat machine.” I might incorporate that in my next (to-be-doomed) mating ritual. I’ll report back with results, for sure. So yeah, I know there was no need for justification but emailing a link to a W.A.S.P. video needs some sort of justification, or apology, both probably. Shit, I really like W.A.S.P. I’m 33 and expecting big things from this blogpost; namely big boobs, bigger hair and spandex. Cheers!

Shawn Macomber
It’s hard to narrow this down to one. The VIDEO that I think best captures the divergent pomp and pretense of the hair metal era – which I, as a man of a certain age, have a real fondness for – would be Warrant’s attempt at post “Cherry Pie” social commentary, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”:

(note that Shawn also selected Nitro’s “Freight Train” but the video has been pulled from YouTube, likely for being so ridiculous in its excess…)

Anthony Bartkewicz
I remember being a big fan of the Vinnie Vincent Invasion’s “Boyz Are Gonna Rock,” so much so that when MTV aired it’s final afternoon metal show (WTF was this called? I think Dee Snider hosted it) I hoped they’d run it one last time. They didn’t. In 2011 I do not remember a single thing about this video.

(and since Bartkewicz can’t remember anything about it and Bennett thought no one would select “Here I Go,” here we go…)