What hair band do you think is the most overated?
I understand, I get criticized too but everyone has different options
I know, but I just get tired of being down-voted for mine in threads where they're asked for. I think I must've figured that threads like these were safe zones.
I will make sure they are. Trust me 😉😉😉
OK, time to make a real reply then.
Yep
Cannot agree on Crue. I’m going to go play Red Hot louder than I should just to protest these votes.
You know ! As those first 5 albums came out and the shenanigans reported in the rock mags became legendary (whether true or not), this was the opposite of the most over-rated hair metal band, this is known as iconic! We know what they’re up to now, but now is now. Old men hang on to glory as long as possible!
The first two Crue records are good, everything after was overrated, to outright corny.
Agreed. First two, still will listen to. Faily often.
Anything after, nothing really hooked me again.
I wish them well, but I haven’t cared that much about Mötley since Dr. Feelgood
First album is great. Shout at the devil is overplayed to where I don't care about it anymore. I would rather hear theater of pain, at least that has a raw sound like the first album. Anything else after that not really because I just don't like their commercial sound. I'll listen to the self-titled album and generation swine because it's different. I also like that song of the greatest hits album if I die tomorrow or whatever it is. As far as I'm concerned motley Crue died in 2005.
I must ask, where are you that Shout is overplayed? I mean, I know that Too Young to Fall in Love was way overplayed on MTV when it was released, and ditto for Looks That Kill, but I haven't heard anything from that album played on the radio in literally decades.
You can say that about most bands throught history.
Shout At The Devil and Dr. Feelgood...then crickets. Sorry.
Too Fast For Love was kickin
Live wire rocked
Tell us you never heard their first record without telling us you you never heard their first record
In their day, I loved them but listening to the catalog now, meh. Unpopular opinion, but their album with john corabi is the only one i can still listen to all the way through and enjoy it. The others, after one chorus, i have to skip to the next track.
I get it.
Definitely a r/trueunpopularopinion
Bon Jovi, started out in the genre then only kept the look
Bon Jovi is the vanilla ice cream of hair metal.
Bon Jovi is the Wayne Brady of metal
I enjoy the first 2 albums alot, but this made me laugh pretty hard!!
That is the best comparison ever😆
Wanted Dead or Alive is a great song but the rest is just so meh. Way overrated due to Jon's looks.
Try dry county, you wont regret it
Keep the Faith is a criminally UNDERRATED album
The first album is great, it's the only one I really listen to
I blame the down turn of hair metal squarely on the shoulders of Bon Jovi and Poison
I blame Nirvana. And I loved both Poison and Bon Jovi
I love Bon Jovi, I always feel like they get hate because they were so popular and people want to be contrarian. There is a reason they survived and then thrived in the post-hair metal implosion and the others just became "greatest hits-remember us" acts.
Bon Jovi isn't even close to being my favorite band, I just respect what they did.
They became pop after Slippery and I think they should've been viewed differently than in the same genre as Ratt, Motley Crue, Dokken and Poison
How is You Give Love… or Bad Medicine any more “pop” than “home sweet home”, “unskinny bop”, or “dance”?
I'm from NJ. I think my friend and I were the only people here who DIDN'T like them in the 80s. 🤣🤣🤣 That being said, I've come to appreciate the first four albums over the years. Solid Pop Metal IMO, with some great hooks and guitar playing.
saw the Smithereens in concert never went back to pop-metal or anything else from NJ
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes , interesting change they did
These Days is a fantastic rock album.
I wish These Days is the sound they would have stayed with instead of the It’s My Life sound
I agree with this. I liked Slippery and Jersey but before and after those is just weak. Saw em live in 95 and by far, the 2nd most boring concert I’ve ever been to. I mean holy ballads Batman!!
Having said that. I watched their doc. It stuck out to me when he said they wanted to open for Bryan Adams and people like that. Doc McGee said they had to win over the “black tshirt crowd”. That’s when I realized they don’t belong in the Arena Rock genre. They just had the look for a few albums.
Agree on Bon Jovi 100%
Guns N Roses - 1 amazing album and nothing else
Use Your Illusion I & II was probably 1 great album between them. So GNR had 2 amazing albums.
Nothing holds a candle to the perfection that was appetite but they had many good songs on both lies and use your illusions. They weren't all home runs like Appetite but in my opinion if an album has 3 good songs, it is a good album.
I agree with this 3 good songs rule.
I have always said if you took the best songs of both albums, and released that as THE album, it would be better than Appetite. They had so many great tracks on those two albums, but as a whole they were buried between a lot of good filler.
Better than Appetite is a tall order though.
it is, and that is what I am saying. They buried another classic album by releasing so many "good" songs amongst the great songs across two albums and not one.
Here's the thing though: nobody agrees on what's filler & what isn't. I struggle to think of bad songs on those albums. Some balked at the longer tracks & power ballads, while others preferred those to the harder rock songs.
They weren't as good as AFD but that's hardly an insult.
I dont think there are bad songs, I think the albums are filled with great songs and good songs. And if they released 1 album of just the great songs, then it would be comparable to Appetite imho.
My go at what the Great album could have been, everybody's list will be diff as you pointed out:
Civil War
Dust n Bones
Bad Obsession
Double Talking Jive
November Rain
Don't Damn Me
Dead Horse
14 Years
Yesterdays
Breakdown
Locomotive
Estranged
You Could Be Mine
Where the hell is Coma?
It’s on YOUR list!
Hahaha. Good one.
More than most bands. Also, greatest selling debut of all time.
Lies was better
I always thought Lies was an EP but I think you're right. It was an album, and not a bad one at that - Patience, I Used to Love Her, etc.
Gnr was the real version of what every other band pretended to be.
You should give 'Live Era 87-93' a try.
Some fantastic live performances on there!
I'm a huge Axl fan and this comes with sad embarrassment, but many MANY of those vocal lines were studio overdubs. Like basically the entire album
I get your point, but Appetite was so monumentally good that it almost cancels out any crappiness of the rest of their over-produced efforts.
THANK YOU! Glad to see I'm no crazy. Appetite and a few solid tracks off Use Your Illusion, what else they got? GNR Lies, the Spaghetti Incident? garbage filler.
I never understood a band of their style and genre, such a late entry to that decade in terms of their released work got put SO HIGH on that pedestal. They're viewed as a staple of 80's rock, but released so little work.
Now I know, even outside Hair Metal they're far from the last to be catapulted to super stardom with limited material. Their work isn't bad, but in my eyes never warranted the level of praise they got.
SO many other great bands from that decade are viewed as "equals" to GNR despite releasing 2-3x more material and being commercially successful the entire decade, even amidst the transition into Grunge.
I mean, it does help that the first album had like 5-6 bonafide hits that are some of the most famous classic rock songs ever.
I hated GNR , then someone left Appetite cassette in my car. Kept it for a year. Every song was good.
All you need is one killer album. Unpopular opinion- Hair metal had just started to wane when Appetite came out and GnR wasn't really a hair band, they were more in the hard sleaze-blues vein. But that one album energized the genre anyway and helped keep it alive. Didn't hurt that it was followed by Crue - Girls Girls Girls.
agree mostly. Crue released Feelgood after Appetite though, Girls came out a year before and was not a good album. But I always thought that Appetite changed hair metal, after this came out the hair image started getting toned down and the sound started gravitating towards a more "dirty" vibe.
I thought it was followed by Crue's Dr. Feelgood
- Not a hair band. 2. UYI would have been one killer album. So how many classic tracks is that? Compared to the average band with what, 4-5 “classic songs”.
Did you see Axel’s teased hair in the video for Welcome to the Jungle?
Axl's teased hair was the only thing even remotely making their look "hair metal". The music was in another universe compared to hair metal.
Sure. They still weren’t a hair band.
What?
November Rain. Don’t Cry. You Could Be Mine. Patience. Civil War. Yesterdays. Coma. Estranged.
😂 at “nothing else”. November Rain is one of the most popular songs in rock history. Their “nothing else” is better than 99% of band’s entire careers.
November Rain, Estranged & Coma are about half an album on their own.
Knockin' on Heavens door was a pretty massive hit too.
It's not like album tracks like Double Talkin Jive, Pretty Tied Up, Breakdown, Don't Damn Me & Dead Horse weren't good songs either.
I think what happened is some critics didn't like the idea of praising someone like Axl Rose for producing anything progressive while metalheads whined about Don't Cry & November Rain, like Sweet Child O Mine & Patience didn't exist.
Those 1st ones are classics
GNR was one band I could never get into. I could never get past Axl's vocals. Slash is a pretty cool guy and decent guitarist, however.
Not my 1st choice, but great answer
Not a hair band! Just because they came out in the 80’s doesn’t make them a hair band.
I looooove hair bands as well, by the way.
GnR's overall body work destroys any hair metal band b/c GnR is not hair metal.
Guns were like their own separate entity. They were elements of punk, elements of glam. Elements of AC/DC, classic Aerosmith and the Stones with a little Sex Pistols thrown in for shits and giggles.
They were the best band out of the second half of the Sunset Strip. VH or Crue the first half.
Poison
Look what the cat dragged in has a good riff tbh
From what I’ve noticed people only say Poison and bands like Winger to bandwagon and just agree with everyone else who says they don’t like them. Have any of these people who don’t like said bands listened to any deep tracks or are they solely basing it off of hits? Bret has a great voice and is a down to earth, sweet guy. C.C. Deville went to The Juilliard School of Music, an awesome skillful guitarist. Poison worked their asses off on the strip back in the day plastering their posters everywhere. Not to mention, Poison is one of the very few hair metal bands today that still sound fantastic live AND all members are still in the band.
What exactly is an Unskinny Bop???
Slang for CC banging a porno queen.
I’ve always been told it’s sex without a condom
I've never understood the appeal of this group. Never liked any of their songs. And Bret Michael's just needs to own his baldness already. Jesus. It that bandana hair thing glued on?
The older I get the more I appreciate Poison. They're like chicken fingers. It's not the greatest food in the world but in a pinch it'll fill you up and is always decent. Poison is a simple but fun band that puts on a good show.
I get that. They just aren't for me. But you enjoy. 😊
Out of all the hair metal era acts still touring, Poison is always the most fun live. I took a friend who hated Poison to one of their shows. He came away a fan.
Talk Dirty to Me is a good song, and a few others off the next couple albums are...OK? Nothing spectacular, for sure. This was the band I came to mention, so I'm with ya
They are definitely glam , they are my favorite band
I'm telling you Crack a smile is an awesome album that doesn't get enough credit. I know cc isn't playing guitar but there's some good songs on there
I have grown to consider that since Poison did a cover of Loggins & Messina they knew exactly how not hard they were compared to the competition.
But then again, what do I know, because I consider Motley Crue doing Brownville Station to be a sign they have both a good sense of humor and maybe an appreciation for a band that never really got credibility despite being truly able to crank shit up and put on a great live act.
Motley Crue. I said what I said.
Nikki forced out two singles per album for the better part of the 80s and made a career out of it. It’s pretty impressive, tbh. TOP should have flopped, but one song saved it. Girls had two hits, and then Feelgood set them up as the genre was dying, and they spent legitimately the next 14 years in traction and have coasted on those fumes since 2005. I’ll give them their due for kind of creating the genre and the scene, but they would have been victims of it if they didn’t have the clout from SATD. Their image was always what kept them around, not their music, and I think that’s what the defining factor in being overrated. I’ll close in saying no one hates Motley like a fan of Motley, and they did hit quite hard, but it’s incredibly inconsistent and in spite of themselves.
The first two albums and Dr. Feelgood were great. TOP and GGG were ok. The Corabi album was good too, IMO. I didn't care for much else by them.
I love the Corabi album. It’s definitely my favorite, but it’s undeniable that it was a commercial failure as well as a touring bomb.
I was fortunate to see them on that tour.
That is the right answer!
They did not create the genre and the scene. That was Van Halen
creating the genre and the scene
Creating what? They just saw what was cool in California at the time and learned how to cash in on the trends. Tons of other bands were doing the same thing.
I'm not insulting the band but, no way those guys deserve credit for creating the 80s rock scene on the sunset strip single handedly... but I bet you there's an interview somewhere where one of them made that claim.
The only difference is that they were helplessly stuck with a blues rock guitarist who technically isn't a shredder like his contemporaries but made up for it with some OK riffs, which were then tuned a whole step down, and played faster.
Yep
Another for Crue.
And we have ourselves a true motley crue
The crue and it’s not close. Vince was/is/and always will be bad at singing and not a great human being
Terrible human.
I mean, he killed a guy and got a slap on the wrist
Kiss has entered the chat. limited talent. all show. I never understood the love
The love is for the show they put on.
Also they’ve made pretty good music, Paul Stanley has a really good voice (or at least had idk)
Great White.
I’ve tried to like them. They just suck
Agreed. I just don’t like their sound at all.
It's a shame they had that station fire
Guns `n Roses, first album killer, front to back and then...meh...good song here and there but nothing consistent.
Sea Hags. They are Not Junkyard, L.A. Guns or Faster Pussycat. They are Not even Rock City Angels. I don't get the love.
To me, it's Poison. Vocals are just lackluster and no-effort, and they have this overall all looks no hooks vibe. Sure they have some good hits (Unskinny Bop comes to my mind) but there's just so many better bands out there.
"Honorable" mention for Twisted Sister. I believe that their success is 100% tied to Dee Snider. The rest of the band is totally replaceable.
Motley Crüe
Crue came to mind immediately just from seeing the title of this. Good to see I'm not alone in that thought.
Crue.
If it wasn’t for VH1 Behind the Music they wouldn’t be nearly as over as they are because after too fast most their shit is filler.
Has to be Quiet Riot. First metal band to go #1 but could not write a hit song. Fizzled a few years later.
Twisted Sister. Two hits but they never built on that. Now to me they sound like a joke band.
Crue. Two amazing first albums, then crappy shit until Dr feelgood. Loved the Corabi album.
Ratt and Dokken, great songs by both bands, but they never could get THAT BIG SINGLE out. Ratt kinda did it on their first album, but never really followed up.
Poison: made it big. Talk dirty to me and Rose were good songs, but such a lack of talent, musicianship but they they still sound like a high school band.
Cinderella: Good singer, would have been better in the 70s, kinda stuck between 70s rock and late 80s metal, never found their true identity.
Has to be Quiet Riot. First metal band to go #1 but could not write a hit song.
A Slade cover band.
Quiet Riot was the original Sunset Strip band. They started it all, with VH right there with them. Can’t say that any band that had RR as their lead guitarist is overrated..
I see some love for Britny Fox on here. They are god awful and I have no idea how they have any fans period. They are just a terrible generic ripoff of a ton of other bands from the era
One of the bands I always mention when I speak of the over saturation of the market which killed the genre. Most blame grunge. It was shit like this that killed it.
Two of the original members were In Cinderella so they are gonna sound similar to them
Aren't they all? Except Dokken.
Aren't they all? Except Dokken.
Poison
Great White is the only band I just couldn't ever get into, aside from once bitten twice shy. Their sound is just bland to me.
I like but don't love Warrant. Handful of good songs but a lot of filler.
Everything else yikes, I don't get all the Crue hate, best party band ever and dabbled in a lot of sounds too.
Aerosmith
A classic band that will never go out of style
As a kid, it worked. Now it’s just Stephen Tyler screaming into a Mike. (AC/DC is the same)
Both kinda similar
Crue.
Europe - BUT Rock the Night is a great song.
Europe rocks man
Sure Final Countdown was and is overplayed but they have great songs there.
7 door hotel, Supersticious, Future to come, Cherokee, Last look at Eden are great
Never got the hype for poison, fine music but kind of generic
AC/DC although not considered a true hair band. To me all their shit sounds the same.
I love to point out this out to people. Example: the chorus for Problem Child and Have a Drink on Me are the same thing with just different lyrics.
To me the bon Scott stuff sounds more punk/hard Rock influenced. Then the Brian Johnson stuff sounds more blues rock influenced. Powerage and highway to hell sound way different from each other. I don't think it sounds the same at all. Also the late '80s albums with reverb on the drums makes makes AC/DC sound different for once
I mean I don't literally think it all sounds exactly the same but they have so many songs that seem to use the same template and often sound like copies with different lyrics.
Bingo. AC/DC is NOT a hair band.
Overrated and why -
Guns N' Roses - The steam ran out on the genre and Axl wanted to do arena rock arrangements. The initial hype on this band was that they could have become the American version of Led Zeppelin given time; but such was not to be given the market and the personalities.
Motley Crue - If this band is a popular "over-rated" choice it's not because of what they did during the 80s but what they became after it given comparison to other acts. There is no "80s hair metal" scene without this band. However, there is also no hard shift against development of marquee metal acts by the recording industry without this band.
They are over-rated musically because of their success and because Vince was used as a vocal barometer for other bands. Vince was the minimum standard for tenor work and the bluntness of his performances was a counterpoint to David Lee Roth. The two musicians in the band were Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx in that order but both equally important. Without Mick you don't have the signature guitar sound or the brand that made them; and without Nikki there's no songs.
If I were to do this band over I'd replace Vince with Blackie Lawless. Nikki and Blackie have a history though I don't know off top of head if it's a good one and from recent shows; Blackie kept himself together vocally. In terms of drummer; Tommy's icon status is due to hitting hard and the notoriety of his actions, relationships and stagecraft, not musicianship. If we were to do this position over I'd swap him out with Eric Carr. That said, there'd be a huge drop in notoriety in favor of musicianship and I don't know that that's a good swap if the material remains the same.
If we go off of pure skill I'd replace Tommy with Tommy Aldridge. I've seen him play live and holy crap was he amazing
No disagreement from me. You've just got a skill mismatch between Aldridge and Sixx in the rhythm section that I'd be careful with, which is why I penciled in Carr. Put Aldridge in Motley Crue and he's immediately the most competent person in the band.
Definitely a skill mismatch there, but having seen kiss, white snake and crue live I'm still blown away at how much precision AND impact Aldridge has while having the ability to absolutely steal the show for 10-15 minutes at a time
As long as we're talking about dream lineups.. here's something I'd put together if I were working with Aldridge.
Drums - Aldridge (default assumption)
Bass - Trujillo (flamenco plus groove/funk plus metal and a reliable touring career with Ozzy)
Lead Guitar - Bettencourt (good match with Trujillo's background and used to working in one guitar lineups.)
Vox - Matijevic - Because his voice is iconic even if he isn't at the moment.
If we had to go with a five piece there are two options.
Keys - Rudess (as he knows how to work with a bassist but could also replace one)
Rhythm guitar - Wilton (because he knows how to weave a good rhythm line into just about anything)
Blackie kept himself together vocally?
You realise he has been using a backing track for years now, it's not even subtle at times
I've seen WASP a few times over the last couple years and saw Mick's last show with the Crue in Vegas a year or so back.
The expectation is that a vocal backing track is going to be used when the singer is 40 years older than when an original track was recorded. Vocal cords get thicker as you age and there's nothing you can do about it but train through it. Tenors die young.
The comparison between Blackie and Vince is more what I'm on about considering that Vince at times won't even try to handle the lyrics of a tune; opting to take the enunciation tricks of a singer so far afield that people can easily tell he's not hitting a standard appropriate for live performance.
Point is Blackie makes sense over Vince given a certain point of view.
Subtitled: Yes, I get that Geoff Tate and others sound better 40 years later; but they're different cats and to a different standard based on their original works.
Steelheart
They are for me and in South Korea ( I think) but they are very underrated
Bon Jovi and Motley Crue
Poison
White Snake comes to mind. Outside of Here I Go Again and Still of the Night, I find their catalog pretty basic and bland. But. They did get my money for the cassettes back in the day on the strength of those songs. Just didn’t like the rest of it.
Sammy era Van Halen🥱
I second this recommendation!
Tesla. I don’t like a single one of their songs.
Modern Day Cowboy?
I've seen them live back last March and they did great
Poison
Motley Crue
Extreme
Jon bovi
"COS I'm unwanted... alive and dead"
Bizarro Bon Jovi
Guns and Roses.
Pantera. They sold out.
Kiss, the most overrated band of every genre they've tried to mooch popularity from over the years.
Kiss.
Definitely
White Lion (After Motley Crue).
Mike and vito are well known but a pretty underrated band
Guns-n-Roses. One of those bands you were supposed to like but the overstated talent was never worth the controversy. Consider how history had erased them until very recently. Consider how puny Axl's voice sounds when he sings for ACDC. He's got no more power live than Don Dokken and Don's been through a lot more and writes better lyrics to boot. (Not that that's saying much, honestly, as Don's a tad literal. But that's a story for another day.)
KISS. Feel the heat. Taking you higher. How about no. Also: Uh uh uh uh. Hey hey hey. Do do do do do do do do do. Yes I know they didn't write that one, they still recorded it and had the option to improve it. They didn't. Makeup, no makeup, doesn't matter.
Bon Jovi. I love Bon Jovi, and hate how they don't realize they were part of this genre. I'm not saying they weren't great, they were. But relative to their status at the time? Overrated. Their best albums will always be their Greatest Hits compilations, and their best moments will always be live shows, not recordings.
Van Halen. Bad songs, bad singer, a guitarist that in retrospect was more flash than substance. Yes he set a template but others exceeded him in ability too easily and too completely for me to take him seriously. Hagar improved them some but he can only take it so far.
Damn Yankees. They needed a real guitar player. Yes I know who their guitar player was.
Ok, OP, let's see how this goes for me!!
I agree. Ted nugent is a great guitar player though
Thank you. That second sentence though I do not agree with.
No problem it's ok
Whitesnake
I prefer the moody/marsden era, pre hair band.
Absolutely - those chaps and just ex-members of Deep Purple. Before Vandenburg and the switch to heavy, leather-clad showboating.
Awesome guitar playing
Kiss
Kiss
Dokken. Yes, George Lynch is a good guitarist. Don Dokken is a dork. They have 0 good songs.
Overrated? Motley Crue, Poison, Great White.
Underrated? Winger, Y&T, Cinderella.
Motley Crue really suck
Motley Crue.
For me White Lion, never got into them.
All of them.
Dokken.
Yep
There not a bon jovi or motley crue but they were still a arena act
WHAT!
The 3 big the W’s (apologies to WASP) Winger, white snake, white lion.
There are alot of w bands
They all suck in retrospect. MTV fodder for 12 year old boys.
Wtf are you in this sub then?
I'm entitled to my opinion. I mean, come on: if you're a 50 year old man listening to Motley Crew you never developed any refined sense of art and culture.
Ha ha. Not falling for this again. I have enough downvotes, thank you!