Were any of the Hair Bands in the 1980s any good?

Cafe Society
101

Post snipped.

Ratt - Warren DeMartini is a hell of a guitarist.
Poison - eh
Skid Row - Sebastian Bach is an awesome vocalist and ended up on Broadway. Dave Sabo and Scotti Hill are great players.
Great White - eh
Dokken - George Lynch is a badass. A serious badass.
(not on your list)
Winger - Kip Winger is a badass who studied with Sam Guarnaccia and Edgar Grana. Reb Beach is a badass and attended Berklee and did tons of studio work with people like Chaka Khan, Roger Daltry and the Bee Gees*. Rod Morgenstein is a fucking monster who has played with the Dixie Dregs, Steve Morse, Jordan Rudess, Jazz is Dead. He won Modern Drummers ‘Best Progressive Rock Drummer’ from 1986 to 1990 and all around best drummer in 1999.

I didn’t like much hair metal (and still don’t) but there were some damned good players in quite a few of the bands.

Slee

*He did a very wide range of stuff

102

All right, all right, I’ll retract Dokken.

As for Kip Winger – the guy was a ballet dancer. A fucking ballet dancer! That fact alone ruins any metal cred he may have had.

In any case, my original point (from two years ago) still stands – the biggest problem with hair metal was that it squandered whatever talent the musicians may have actually had.

103

And mine has discovered Rush and will talk to you incessantly about lyrics.

104

I think we could find common ground there.