The Best Album by 11 Legendary Hair Metal Bands

If you think it was easy to pick the best album by 11 legendary hair metal bands, you haven’t listened to enough hair metal.

Although many critics dismissed the genre as lightweight fluff, there’s no denying that hair metal’s biggest and best bands brought top-notch musicianship and smart, hooky songwriting to the table. It was a genre that prided itself on guitar heroics, vocal acrobatics and anthemic, crowd-pleasing hooks — and to consistently deliver that level of technical excellence in an accessible package is no small feat.

And, while the uninitiated might think of hair metal as a one-size-fits-all genre, its best and brightest bands had subtle calling cards that distinguished them from one another — and that made the best albums in their catalog stand out.

That’s where assembling this list got tricky. Consider bands such as Def Leppard, Bon Jovi or Motley Crue, all of whom sold tens of millions of albums and helped define an entire generation of rock with consecutive smashes. Each band had, at minimum, two enormous albums that could have easily made the cut here.

READ MORE: The 5 Best Hair Metal Bassists of All Time

But there’s a huge difference between Def Leppard’s Pyromania and Hysteria, both of which are frequently cited on best-of lists. The same goes for Motley Crue’s raw, early albums Too Fast for Love and Shout at the Devil versus the ultra-polished Dr. Feelgood, all of which are worthwhile contenders for their best work.

To make matters even more challenging: Some hair metal bands made their best work when they broke the genre norms. Other bands were categorically un-hair metal when they started their careers, only to evolve and beat the hair metal originators at their own game.

In other words: There’s more to this genre than meets the eye and there are way more kick-ass hair metal albums than you may remember.

Revisit some of them below as we name the best album by 11 legendary hair metal bands.

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