If hair metal was a genre that was about being larger than life and about image, presumably the aim was to have the biggest image possible. So who was it that really had the biggest hair of them all? I can't decide, but here are some seriously poofy hairdos for you check out, in no particular order…

Click on links to see pictures of the atrocities against hair, then use the "Back" button on your browser to return to this page.

1) Greg D'Angelo (White Lion, drums): Ask any musician and they will all tell you the same thing: Drummers are stupid. What do you call a bloke who hangs around with musicians? A drummer. What did the drummer get on his IQ test? Drool. It is unsurprising then that this top ten of stupid hairstyles is kicked off by a drummer. He sports the huge black curly look, which in my travels through time and space to find you the stupidest haircuts of all, has proved to be the most popular. It kind of compliments D'Angelo's enormous nose to have such big hair; he looks as though he killed a black sheep and put it on his head. Check it out!

2) C.C. DeVille (Poison, guitar): If you show any bloke not in the know the cover of Poison's debut LP, Look What the Cat Dragged In, the response is the same, "Hey, these chicks are hot!" Then you can watch the disgust spread across his face as you reveal that these are in fact men he is lusting over. Well, the response is in stages. First there is denial: "No way, they have got to be women." Then disgust: "Eurrrrrggggh!" And finally, acceptance: "Ah well, at least I found out before I used this album cover as a visual aid." Even now I have to be careful when looking at pictures of CC in his heyday because he looks dangerously similar to a girl who I, er… rather like. If anything, his Poison bandmate Bobby Dall had, on occasion, even larger hair, but its CC's peroxide-blonde locks which give him the real glam image. See what I mean?
Poison pictures courtesy of www.PoisonCris.com, a great source for Poison info!

3) Tim Skold (Shotgun Messiah, lead vocals): Have you seen Christina Aguilera's hair in the Moulin Rouge  "Lady Marmalade" video? Well, you don't think she was the first, do you? Nope, long before Agui was around, hob-nobbing (or merely nobbing) with Fred Durst and dressing (or not, as the case may be) like a stripper, there was Shotgun Messiah, who along with Twisted Sister's Dee Snider (see below) wrote the book on huge blonde haircuts. I've merely selected frontman Tim Skold as a representative of the group; either this dude or this other bloke could qualify for an award in the big hair stakes. LOOK!

4) Dee Snider (Twisted Sister frontman): Speaking of Snider, here he is. Snider observes that Twisted are not a glam band, because that implies that they are glamorous. No, says he, they are a hid band, because they are hideous. Indeed, with Snider's kinky outfits, garish make-up and hair sprayed so large and so solid he would probably have trouble negotiating most doorways, I don't see many people arguing. Still, Dee is probably hair metal's most infamous and recognisable figure, and he certainly typifies the image. Sneak a peek… if you dare!

5) Eric Brittingham (Cinderella, drums): Oh, what a surprise… another drummer. There are probably Cinderella dudes with bigger hair but while they're all busy with the Greg D'Angelo dead sheep look, Brittingham offers the dyed-blonde, blown dry and sprayed mullet to end all mullets. Def Leppard's Joe Elliott's famous mullet (thankfully no more) was voted the best hair of the '80s, and while it looked a sight better than this Eric bloke's shock,  in terms of sheer size and sculpture, it couldn't hold a candle to it. Here he is.

6) Some dude from Britny Fox: Back in the '80s, Britney wasn't a teen sensation with silicon enhanced "knees" (hmmm…) and a curious insistence in her own (patently non-existent) virginity. Ask someone in '89 about Britny and they'd tell you about a heavy metal band who were essentially a poor man's  Twisted Sister/ Poison (and that's very poor indeed), complete with trashy lyrics keen to inform you that they were definitely not virgins. When it came to hair and clothes, however, Britny and Britney are not that far apart. I'm proud to say I don't know enough about them to know who this is, but whichever member of the Fox I've got pictured here, I must inform him that it's not a good idea to carry around a bale of hay on your head. Honestly!

7) Oz Fox (Stryper, lead guitar): Second only to Stryper's strong convictions were their simply embarrassing looks. A friend of mine who, unlike me, is old enough to remember the '80s once refused to take his then-girlfriend to see Stryper because he was more attracted to Michael Sweet than to her. It is not that my friend is gay (Mike Tyson is more likely to come out of the closet), but that Stryper were simply… babes!! Drummer Robert was the prettiest, but always had a disconcerting amount of chest hair on show. Oz Fox has a similar haircut to Greg D'Angelo, with tighter curls for an all-round look that closely resembles an enormous black ball of cotton wool. Thankfully his guitar playing was an improvement on his dress sense. Prepare for a yellow and black heart attack...

8) Some dude from Winger: Ever seen Beavis and Butthead? Course you have. In which case you'll probably already have heard all about Winger, a band more vilified by the pair than any other. Fortunately for my own street cred, I am sufficiently clueless about Winger not to know who this is. I know it isn't Kip Winger or his axe-slinging partner in crime (and I do mean crime) Reb Beach, but I don't know who it is. Whoever he is, his haircut should be illegal, not just because it looks monstrous and furthermore could probably cause road accidents if seen in public, but also because anything containing that much hairspray has got to be a fire hazard. Call the fashion police, now.

9) Frankie Banali (Quiet Riot, drums): Here's how Frankie got his hair: Being rather stupid, as drummers are prone, nay, doomed, to be, Frankie decided to conduct repairs on a very old, very large, and very powerful old valve amplifier, about which he knew nothing. In order to tell if he had fixed it or not, the stupid drummer left it plugged in, and, upon finding the live part of the amplifier, was blown across the room. Frankie was fine, but his hair has never been the same since. Liberal quantities of conditioner, blow-drying, and hairspray have ensured that it has continued to reach new levels of enormity. If the US government ever introduced hair tax, Banali, even in spite of Riot's multi-platinum success with Metal Health, would be bankrupt in no time. Can you believe it?
(Please note: For all the stupid Americans who do not have a sense of humour, that is not really how Banali got his hair)
(Second note: For all the stupid Americans who do not have a sense of humour, I was joking when I said you were stupid and
humourless)

10) Jon Bon Jovi (lead poser, Bon Jovi): My gripe with Jon Bon Jovi is that he is not a musician with a love of the music; he just wants to be a pretty boy superstar. Therefore, he has done his best to bury the big hair image, but we're not going to let him forget it, are we? In a version of heavy metal that was devoid of anything remotely heavy, and where anger was replaced with smiles, Jon Bon Jovi was the leader. After all, with Bon Jovi the question is not the size of his hair, but this: Which is bigger -- his hair, or his ego? Discuss. Here's the case for his hair.

Honourable mentions: Anyone stupid enough to cultivate such ridiculous crops of hair and then brave enough to be seen in public with them or even allow them to be captured on camera deserves credit… after all, such terrible 'dos actually take some serious maintenance! So let it be known that any member of any of the above bands deserves to be noticed. Additionally, Motley Crue and Warrant had some serious mullets, and then there's Firehouse, Slave Raider, Shout… the list is endless. And whilst Def Leppard fans will despise me forever for saying this, Rick "Sav" Savage actually had quite a mop back in the day… I once read that he used ten cans of hairspray to get it like that, and whilst I refuse to believe that, I can believe it was a serious quantity. Sav was recently asked which member of Def Leppard is most in need of haircut, and he claimed that his hair is naturally very curly. Whatever you say, Sav, whatever you say.

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