10 Greatest Hard Rock Songs Of The 1980s

The greatest songs that were coming out of hard rock towards the end of the decade normally had to come from California in some way. If you're thinking LA though, chances are you're describing people like Poison or Guns N Roses, who were either taking the glamorous side of rock or just turning in the straight up rock and roll of the '70s. Just left of the dial though, you had a little genre called alternative rock rising up with Jane's Addiction.

This wasn't just the kind of alternative rock that you were seeing out of the Pixies or the Cure either. With Dave Navarro's guitar kicking everything off, this is the kind of monster groove that fit somewhere between hard rock and the harsher side of metal. What made them really alternative though was the blend of influences, combining the monstrous sounds of metal with everything from funk to R&B.

Listening to this one song feels like these guys listened to someone like Led Zeppelin and thought they were a funk band. Even when they completely missed the point, they still turned in one of the decade's greatest riffs, becoming the forerunners of the alternative movement with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. We may have only had Jane's Addiction around for a short time, but the shine that they had at this point was more than enough to put them into classic territory.