10) Stryper, The Yellow & Black Attack (1984)
"WHAT?" you say, "Stryper, influential?" In a word, yes. With this album Stryper single-handedly launched the white metal movement. Whether this is a good thing or not is, however, entirely questionable. Stryper were genuine members of the LA Metal scene of the early '80s, playing gigs and hanging out with Ratt, Motley Crue, and Poison. The Christian bands arising in their wake, on the other hand, foolishly segregated themselves into their own subculture, producing "safe" Christian albums to "protect" the Christian kids from "evil metal". Nevertheless, with their flash guitarist, polished harmonies, and frenetic drumming, Stryper were the best white metal band by far… all the others were merely imitations.

9) Ratt, Out of the Cellar (1983)
Close friends of Motley Crue, Ratt gave the world little that Motley hadn't already given it some two years previously, but their pioneering pop-metal fusion with a funky swagger courtesy of a healthy dose of Aerosmith meant that these original L.A. Metallers deserve their place in rock history… the tacky hair metal bands of the mid- to late-80s owed as much to Ratt as anybody else.

8) Poison, Open Up and Say Ahh! (1988)
Poison's glammy image and commercially-friendly sound had first been unleashed on the world in 1986 with Look What the Cat Dragged In, an album which spawned its fair share of hacks. But with Open Up and Say Ahh! Poison not only made their songs even catchier, they produced the power ballad to end all power ballads -- "Every Rose has its Thorn". Other bands had done ballads, but they (luckily for them), had not produced "Every Rose". Topping the US chart for seven weeks and charting strongly around the world, Open Up really did give the power ballad the status it would hold ever after -- as the icon of what hair metal is about. Ask anyone about hair metal, and they'll talk about a) Poison, and b) power ballads. Ask anyone about power ballads, and they'll talk about "Every Rose has its Thorn". The song was immortalised in the film Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. The archetypal power ballad from the archetypal glam band.

7) Tesla, Mechanical Resonance (1986)
Sometimes a band will come out of nowhere and revolutionise music. The Beatles did it. Led Zeppelin did it. Montrose's debut album set new standards for rock, and a few years later Van Halen's first one did the same again. Tesla's first effort is in that league. As metal got more and more toothless, less about music and more about image, Tesla put the guts back into metal. With a pleasant absence of stage costumes and make-up, and a relatively small amount of hairspray, Tesla were big on grit and small on frills -- a much needed shake-up, just at the right time.

6) Guns 'n' Roses, Appetite for Destruction, (1987)
Everybody's heard of this album, and  everybody's heard this album. Aside from selling in simply obscene quantities, Guns'n'Roses had more attitude than most of the other pansy-rock bands out at the time put together. In Slash they had a guitarist with feel, power, and technique, and they displayed songwriting savvy without compromising heaviness. Today, it's probably the only hair metal record you can play in any company without being laughed at. And to those who say they weren't a hair band… Have you SEEN Axl in the "Welcome to the Jungle" video?

5) Bon Jovi, Slippery When Wet (1986)
Hair metal had always been a melodic strand of heavy metal but when Jon, Richie, and co. came out with this little set, the line between pop and metal was not so much blurred as wiped out. The storming anthem "Livin' on a Prayer" pretty much sums up the look, sound, and attitude of the entire genre and as such may be the best hair metal single of all time. Another anthem, "You Give Love a Bad Name", cowboy über-ballad "Wanted Dead or Alive", and the mushy ballad "Never Say Goodbye" were all great hits and although the rest of the album sat barely above "average", the damage in terms of crossing over from metal to pop was irreparably done. Bon Jovi had that other required component of a great hair metal band, too -- pretty boy good looks. To diehard headbangers, it was anathema, but there was no denying the sheer quality of those rousing anthems.

4) Van Halen, 1984, (1983)
Released on New Year's Eve of 1984, MCMLXXXIV took Van Halen stratospheric worldwide. International super smash hit "Jump" led the invasion, while "Panama" was not far behind. With their debut album, Van Halen created the sound of a decade; five years later 1984 established them undisputedly at the top of that sound. Eddie Van Halen was the guitar hero who everyone else wanted to be, and David Lee Roth the ultimate rock'n'roll frontman -- outrageous and gymnastic.  1984 had a greater radio-friendly (and MTV friendly) element than ever before, and try as Edward Van Halen would to deny it, this was the sound every other band wanted to have, and in the process, Van Halen had a ten-million seller on their hands.

3) Def Leppard, Pyromania, (1983)
With the nutty professor producer Mutt Lange (AC/DC, Foreigner, Bryan Adams, et al)  at the controls, Def Leppard were driven to produce their finest work to date. Pretty boys singing pretty tunes over hard rocking backings meant megabucks. Pyromania was second only to Michael Jackson's Thriller in the USA in 1983; it went on to sell 9 million. More importantly, though, it led to bands like Warrant, Winger, and countless others lost in the shuffle, who sounded exactly like them. Oh yeah, and it had "Photograph", one of several huge hits you'll still hear today. Def Leppard's worldwide success wouldn't come until 1987, but their impact on the music scene was stronger long before then; elements of early Leppard are clear in the excellent work of such luminaries as Tesla. In a time of gutless pop-rock ruled by Journey, Def Leppard shook the rock world.

2) Van Halen, Van Halen, (1978)
Somebody had to be the first to make the electrifying hard rock that ruled the 80s, and here it was: Van Halen 1. Eddie Van Halen simply revolutionised guitar playing as thousands sought to emulate his intense soloing virtuosity. The album went platinum, but now it's an all-time classic, having sold ten million worldwide. Like it or loathe it, without this CD, there would have been no '80s. Van Halen weren't really a hair metal band, but they set the precedent.

1) Motley Crue, Too Fast for Love (1981)
First to come exploding out of the hot LA metal scene onto the world stage was Motley Crue. This was the album that launched a thousand bands -- the power pop of Cheap Trick with heavy doses of Kiss and Aerosmith thrown in. Bassist Nikki Sixx didn't want anyone to be like him, but that was tough -- this is the first hair metal record ever.

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