Hair Metal. Loves me some hair metal. Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, XYZ, Hurricane, Europe - love em all. I recently went looking for bands still doing hair metal and came across a couple that have moved into my top 10 bands:

H.E.A.T - after switching lead singers, they've done two studio albums and a live album. That live album - Live In London - is off the charts. 

Eclipse - their catalog is a little all over the place but their last album, Armaggedonize, is incredible. Get the deluxe version - it has several live tracks and some fabulous additional studio tracks. 

Wonder if it's a coincidence they're both Swedish... 

So who else is out there? Gimme some recommendations. 

Whitesnake are still active afaik. Put out The Purple Album like a year and a half ago.

Yes they are. Their 2008 album Good to Be Bad is terrific. 

That I can't comment on. My last Whitesnake album was on a cassette tape.

I grew up on this stuff. Skid Row on the Slave to the Grind tour was my first concert.

Time has not been kind to a lot of it, but there's bands that still hold up beyond the huge bands like Motley Crue. Tesla, Cinderella and Skid Row were really good. I've also been jamming White Lion recently. Say what ya want about them, but Vito Bratta is an incredible guitar player.

Also, the song Uncle Tom's Cabin by Warrant is a fucking RIPPER.

I've seen two prominent hair metal bands live. Great White as the support act for Queensryche a couple years ago, and the one, the only, Stryper!

So thanks to seeing this post, I have 2 new bands to follow and have been listening to algorithmic suggestions via Spotify all day. I'll find youtube links for a few of m faves after work to throw at you. I have heard some shit today that sounds like the lost soundtrack of a nonexistent JCVD movie and it was great.

 

How do you define hair metal, btw? Are you looking for gang vocals, or power ballad guitar beds, or just "hard rock that reminds me of the 80s?"

 

Okay @Tabe, here's a few you'll probably like culled from a whole day of listening to recommendations on Spotify, and finding some shit I gotta spend money on.

 

First off, since you dig Eclipse you probably want to look up the supergroups and collaborations with members.  There's W.E.T (with members of Work of Art and Talisman):

 

and Nordic Union (with members of Pretty Maids)

 

[/spoiler] Lionville are another suggestion I got from Spotify; they're a little more to the AOR side but still in the same ballpark. 

 

[/spoiler]

Treat seem pretty good too.

 

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And lastly, while I wouldn't really call them "hair metal" I can't imagine anyone liking Eclipse and not Sonata Arctica:

 

You may also wanna check out Heavy Harmonies which is devoted to this kind of music, and divides it into pretty distinct subgenres.  The mods all posted best-of lists for 2016 that I'm going to dig thru soon, because I've gone and got hooked.

EDIT: I fucked up the spoiler tags and can't figure out how to fix them. They're all nested instead of each video being separate.

This is the only hair metal song I really need which is funny since they hate being called hair metal.

 

 

Steel Panther! That is all.

No love for Rising Force, Zebra or Britny Fox?

I couldn't stand Britny Fox, even as a little guy. Dude sounded like Gonzo. 

Some more that I've found I really enjoy:

The Magnificent

Nordic Union 

Palace 

Find Me 

And a bunch of others. The site linked above has been a tremendous resource for me. I've heard more new bands I enjoy in the past 6 months than the 15 years before that combined. 

On Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 2:26 PM, driver said:

No love for Rising Force, Zebra or Britny Fox?

I have mixed feelings on Britney Fox. Long way!!! Long way to Loouoove!! Not a band that holds up. 

Love me some Zebra! Well... one song... 

 

On 2/12/2017 at 11:40 AM, Brian Fowler said:

Whitesnake are still active afaik. Put out The Purple Album like a year and a half ago.

That's good to hear. I was going to see them in 2009 and they had to cancel the show because David Coverdale's voice was shot. Glad to hear that he's recovered.

DOKKEN ruled!!! And George Lynch(guitarist) became obsessed with bodybuilding, he became cut!   Rockin' with DOKKEN!!!  

On 3/12/2017 at 10:08 AM, cwoy2j said:

That's good to hear. I was going to see them in 2009 and they had to cancel the show because David Coverdale's voice was shot. Glad to hear that he's recovered.

Coverdale's been having problems with his voice since the early 80's.

Spotify dropped this into my Discover Weekly and it seems like it'd go down well with @Tabe et al.  And best worst band name of 2017?

 

H.E.A.T. have a new album out (it's awesome).  Stan Bush does too, if you want to count him (haven't heard it yet).

A little thread necro because this month's episode of the Hit Parade chart-history podcast is about the genre. The focal-point song is "You Give Love a Bad Name", but host Chris Molanphy covers everything from Van Halen I through Bon Jovi's "These Days" (selected because it was BJ's first big chart disappointment and the end of the genre having a strong radio presence) in context. He talks more briefly about the origins of heavy metal, the way that the term is policed with bands like Deep Purple being retroactively de-metalized, and how much he loathes Bon Jovi (though he seems to have a lot more respect for Def Leppard and other genre stalwarts).  It's one of my favorite less-frequent pods (it's monthly) and this ep was no exception.

 

Also there is a new W.E.T. album and I haven't got to it yet.

I'm down with anything that hates Bon Jovi

The old saw about "if I knew then what I know now" is something I'd liberally apply to my Bon Jovi-friendly childhood.

I've always been of the mind that, in popular music, the measure of greatness is how many shitty imitators you spawn, and man, was Van Halen great. I guess that also means Alice in Chains won the 90s.

181.FM's "80's Hairband" channel is pretty great. Every once in awhile you get something like Dokken's "In My Dreams" and I'm suddenly in high school all over again.

1 hour ago, Contentious C said:

The old saw about "if I knew then what I know now" is something I'd liberally apply to my Bon Jovi-friendly childhood.

I've always been of the mind that, in popular music, the measure of greatness is how many shitty imitators you spawn, and man, was Van Halen great. I guess that also means Alice in Chains won the 90s.

I should say, by pretty much all accounts Jon Bon Jovi is a good guy.

But fuck they are terrible

37 minutes ago, Brian Fowler said:

I should say, by pretty much all accounts Jon Bon Jovi is a good guy.

But fuck they are terrible

I dunno... I saw them at Giants Stadium back in 2006, and it was something else. "Local bands done good" is absolutely something you need to experience live and up close, especially in a jam packed stadium surrounded by fans in full on "come to Jesus" mode.