The 6 Best Hair Metal Albums of 1986 (Ranked)

Move over, thrash — these are the six best hair metal albums of 1986.

As the Bay Area headbangers were catching fire and pioneering a subgenre based on full-speed-or-nothing brutality, a different scene just a few hours south was asserting its commercial dominance on a global scale.

Glam metal — also known as pop-metal and, more retroactively and derisively, hair metal — had gone from a Sunset Strip novelty to the defining hard rock genre of the 1980s. Bolstered by epic riffs, anthemic choruses and a nothin’-but-a-good-time philosophy, the subgenre graduated from dank, beer-soaked clubs to arenas as countless hair metal acts climbed the charts and sold millions of records.

How Hair Metal Bands Managed to Distinguish Themselves

Not every hair metal band was created equal, though. Even within this fairly narrow subgenre, there were key musical and aesthetic differences that helped these bands distinguish themselves.

In one corner, you had the garish, over-the-top androgyny of Poison, who were proud purveyors of cheeky pop-metal (emphasis on the pop). Elsewhere, you had Cinderella and Tesla, who tempered their glam aesthetics with gritty blues-rock riffs and sandpapery vocals. There was also the dizzying guitar histrionics and streetwise aggression of Ratt, who helped define the hair metal sound with their landmark debut album, Out of the Cellar.

And of course, no discussion of hair metal, particularly in 1986, is complete without Bon Jovi. The New Jersey rockers became poster boys for the entire genre with the blockbuster Slippery When Wet, which sold a staggering 15 million copies and spawned a trio of career-defining hits. One year earlier, they were opening for Ratt; after Slippery hit shelves, they became lifelong arena headliners.

See where these bands and others land in our ranked list of the six best hair metal albums of 1986.