10 Greatest Hair Metal Albums Of All Time

The year 1987 tends to stick out like a sore thumb in the hair metal scene. Though this was the moment where some of the biggest names in rock were dealing with colossal albums, you could also feel the moment where fatigue was starting to set in as well. Even though most fans may have been getting tired of the same old riffs coming out of the hair metal scene, Guns N Roses emerged like they had fallen directly out of the gutter.

Armed with some of the most dangerous sounding music out there, Appetite for Destruction was the one album from Sunset that seemed to have a foot planted in both camps. For the hair metal fans, this was the kind of music that made the Strip sound dangerous in the first place. As far as fairweather fans are concerned though, this was the of sleazy rock and roll that we hadn't seen since the early days of rock in the '70s with the Rolling Stones and Aerosmith.

Then again, that acts as sort of a double edged sword. Since this record was one of the baddest to come from Sunset, there was nowhere to go but down once other bands tried and failed to live up to the Guns' legacy. Even though the riffs were amazing, this marked both the beginning of rock's resurgence and the death knell for hair metal as a whole. Once you got ahold of this, why the hell would you want to go back to something like Stryper ever again?