"Hair Metal" That Does Not Suck

This is a post that I have been thinking about doing for a long time actually.  My wife has really gotten into 1980's hard rock/metal over the last couple of years, so it is the primary thing playing in her car when we go out of town, which is fairly frequently.  Now, I was obviously very aware of the genres for a long time, having grown up in the 1980's.  And for the most part, it is not a genre I care all that much for, though I definitely prefer it to pop, rap and country.  There are definitely a few great bands mixed in there though.  A lot of bands got kind of lumped into the "hair band" category due to it being such a popular form of music at the time, and a lot of those bands did not really qualify.  Basically, if you played rock music and had long hair, you were a "hair band".

Below are some of the better 1980's metal bands that were lumped into the "hair band" genre: