10 Greatest Hair Metal Songs

But there's no reason to have the killers of hair metal taking the top spot on the list. While GNR definitely had the makings of a great hair metal band in them, they had much more in common with a group like the Rolling Stones than David Bowie. You need something a little more glam to its core, and you can't do much better than the Crue.

Though bands like Van Halen may have shattered the mold for what hair metal would become in the next decade, Motley Crue were the first band to truly embrace the glammy side of things, almost being a cross between KISS and Aerosmith in their presentation. For their best song though, Wild Side has just the right amount of familiar and different to keep fans hungry for more, having some of the darkest lyrics in the Crue songbook as well as a galloping rhythm that makes you want to bang your head immediately.

What really seals the deal though is the bridge, which changes the entire song around and brings a swing beat into the mix, almost turning it into a glam metal take on the blues. If you ever wondered what hair metal would sound like in its purest form, this is like if the lives on the Sunset Strip were all condensed into a single track.