Tuesday Top Ten: Hair Band One Hit Wonders

As you know, I love hair band music, but my love is not limited to the Bon Jovis, Def Leppards, and Mötley Crües of the world.  The '80s were a bastion for one hit wonders, and the hair band genre had its share.  After hearing Steelheart's "I'll Never Let You Go" a week or so ago, I decided that it's time for a Tuesday Top Ten dedicated to hair band one hit wonders.

"But GMYH, what is a one hit wonder?"  I'm glad you asked, fair reader.  It's a relatively fluid concept, but generally, a one hit wonder is a band or musician that had one and only one song that made it into the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 charts.  I think that's a fair and objective standard.  In my mind, if Casey Kasem (or Shadoe Stevens) didn't play your song on American Top 40, you didn't have a hit.

This was actually much tougher than I expected.  There were a lot of bands who had multiple Top 40 hits who I only thought would have had one.  Who knew Vixen had two Top 40 hits, other than, say, the members of Vixen?  And, on the other hand, there were a lot of bands who I thought would have had a Top 40 song that had none, but perhaps I am retroactively overvaluing the popularity of the likes of Dokken and BulletBoys.

As a result of these issues, I had to fudge a couple of the entries on the list and expand my scope to the Top 50.  There is one band whose song wasn't a Top 40 song, and another where the band actually had two Top 40 songs.  For your peace of mind, I will be sure to identify both of those.  With that, here are my top ten hair band one hit wonders, with the song's highest peak on the charts in parentheses.  And, of course, following each song is the video because you couldn't have a hit song in the '80s without a video.

10.  "Fly High Michelle" by Enuff Z'Nuff (#47)

Enuff Z'Nuff was an Illinois-based glam band that often sounded more Beatles-influenced than metal-influenced.  A friend of mine that I grew up with claimed at one point that the band's drummer grew up on his block, and I have no reason to believe or not believe that.  "Fly High Michelle" was the band's biggest hit, topping out at #47 in 1990.  It's the only song on the list that didn't crack the Top 40.

9.  "Honestly" by Stryper (#23)

Who says glam metal can't include some Jesus loving?  Stryper was, as far as I know, the only Christian hair band that had any measure of success.  "Honestly," off the band's 1987 platinum-selling album To Hell With The Devil, was their highest-charting song, and it is a pretty sappy ballad.  I much prefer the title track, but "Honestly" does provide at least a glimpse into lead singer Michael Sweet's vocal range.

8.  "Love Is On The Way" by Saigon Kick (#12)

I have always assumed Saigon Kick is a hair band, based on the fact that their only hit, "Love Is On The Way" was a ballad in the style of other hair bands' ballads at the time.  Then again, the extent of my knowledge of Saigon Kick is relatively limited.  Anyway, this song was pretty big, reaching #12 on the charts in 1992, at the tail end of the Hair Band Era.

7.  "Don't Close Your Eyes" by Kix (#11)

Baltimore-based Kix struck a chord (pun intended) in 1989 with their anti-suicide power ballad "Don't Close Your Eyes."  Like many hair bands (see also Extreme and Mr. Big), they are unfortunately and unfairly mainly known for their ballad, but most of their stuff is a lot harder rocking.  While I have never seen Kix live, they are apparently a legendarily good live band, so if you get the chance, check them out.

6.  "House of Pain" by Faster Pussycat (#28)

Faster Pussycat was fronted by Taime Downe, who co-owned the '80s Sunset Strip club The Cathouse with Riki Rachtman (of MTV Headbangers Ball fame), and "House of Pain" was the band's only charting single.

5.  "The Ballad of Jayne" by L.A. Guns (#33)

The original incarnation of L.A. Guns has the infamous distinction of being the "Guns" in Guns N' Roses, when L.A. Guns (featuring Tracii Guns) merged with Hollywood Rose (featuring Axl Rose, Duff McKagan, and Izzy Stradlin).  Of course, Guns was replaced in GNR by Slash, and then he reformed L.A. Guns shortly thereafter.  They put out a couple pretty good glam/sleaze metal albums that cracked the Top 50 of Billboard's album charts, and like so many other hair bands on this list, their highest-charting song was their ballad, appropriately titled "The Ballad of Jayne."  I have always liked this song, and for one reason or another, I think it's better than most hair band ballads.

4.  "Turn Up the Radio" by Autograph (#29)

"Turn Up the Radio" is a great, fist-pumping song with a sing-along chorus, and as I learned today, guitarist Steve Lynch won 1985's "Guitar Solo of the Year" award from Guitar Player Magazine for this song.  This video can be seen now and then on VH1 Classic's hard rock and metal video show, Metal Mania, as can the band's video for their song "Blondes in Black Cars," a song that could only have been made in the '80s.

3.  "I'll Never Let You Go" by Steelheart (#14)

This was the only one hit wonder that made my list of Top Ten Hair Band Power Ballads, and with good reason.   Lead singer Miljenko "Michael" Matijevic hits notes that most female opera singers can only dream about.  Matijevic also provided the vocals for Mark Wahlberg's character in the 2001 guilty pleasure film Rock Star, which I could watch a thousand times and not get sick of.

2.  "Round and Round" by Ratt (#12)

It's tough to call Ratt a one hit wonder, since they technically had one other Top 40 song ("Lay It Down" reached #40), but the system isn't perfect, so it is what it is.  "Round and Round" was Ratt's first single off their debut album, 1984's Out of the Cellar, the cover of which featured a scantily clad Tawny Kitaen crawling on her hands and knees towards, well, a cellar.  The song is a gritty, rocking Sunset Strip song that put Ratt on the map.  Even though they didn't have Top 40 singles success, out of their first five albums (released between 1984 and 1990), four went platinum, two were Top 10 albums, and all five were Top 30 albums. And let's not discount the fact that the video for "Round and Round" featured Milton Berle.

1.  "We're Not Gonna Take It" by Twisted Sister (#21)

Give how ubiquitous "We're Not Gonna Take It" has become over the years (I think most college pep bands have had this in their regular rotation at some point), I sometimes forget that it was Twisted Sister's only Top 40 hit.  This is not only a top hair band one hit wonder, but has been ranked as the #21 overall one hit wonder of all-time by VH1.  The video is also a classic. Neidermeyer: what a dick.