Tuesday Top Ten: Biggest '90s Hair Band Hits

For our first Tuesday Top Ten of this '90s-themed Rocktober, we're going to take a look at the genre that grunge killed.  Whether you call it hair band music, glam metal, hair metal, or pop metal, it was the hard rock genre that defined the '80s with bands like Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Guns N' Roses, Poison, and Mötley Crüe selling millions of albums and selling out arenas around the world.  And for the first two and a half years of the '90s, things were largely the same, as hair bands continued to sell a ton of albums, chart well, tour well, and get plenty of love from MTV.

What I deem the Hair Band Era was from the release of AC/DC's Back in Black in 1980 until May 23, 1992, when the last album of the Hair Band Era to reach #1 on the Billboard album chart -- Def Leppard's Adrenalize -- was knocked out of the #1 spot after five weeks on top by Kriss Kross's Totally Krossed Out.  While there were other bands that I would consider to be hair bands that had some success later in the '90s (like Van Halen's Balance, which hit #1 on the Billboard album chart in 1995), by the end of 1992, for all intents and purposes, the dominance of the hair bands was over.

But before then, there were still some huge hair band hits, including several dozen Top 10 hits and 4 #1s on the Billboard Hot 100.  The purpose of this list is to highlight the ten biggest hair band hits of the '90s.  This list will be limited to songs that charted between January 1, 1990 (even if technically released prior to January 1, 1990) and December 31, 1992.  For determining the "biggest" hits, first I'm looking at the songs' highest-charting position on the Billboard Hot 100.  To break ties, if the song reached #1, the more weeks at #1 is considered a "bigger" hit.  Likewise, weeks in the Top 10 will further break ties.  So with that, here are the ten biggest hair band hits of the '90s, with the peak Billboard Hot 100 position, dates of the song's peak, and number of weeks in the Top 10 (or at #1, where applicable) in parentheses.  And, of course, I'll embed the video for each song because you know that every big song in the early '90s had a video on MTV.

10 (tie).  "Wind of Change" by Scorpions (#4, 8/31/91, 5 weeks in Top 10)

Scorpions lead singer Klaus Meine was inspired to write this song when the band was playing at the Moscow Music Peace Festival in 1989, as the Cold War and communism were beginning to crack.  The song served as an anthem for Glasnost and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, and contrary to a fun, but untrue, rumor, it was not written by the CIA.

10 (tie).  "Hole Hearted" by Extreme (#4, 10/19/91, 5 weeks in Top 10)

Along with "More Than Words" (see below), this was the second of Extreme's two Top 5 hits in 1991, and it unfortunately pegged them as an acoustic/power ballad band, when, in fact, they could, and did, rock.

9.  "Something To Believe In" by Poison (#4, 12/8/90, 6 weeks in Top 10)

Poison's second-biggest power ballad, behind the 1988 #1 hit "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," this was one of four Top 40 hits off of the band's 1990 album Flesh & Blood.

7 (tie).  "Unskinny Bop" by Poison (#3, 9/1/90, 8 weeks in Top 10)

Speaking of Poison, "Unskinny Bop" was the band's third of four Top 10 hits in a row.

7 (tie).  "High Enough" by Damn Yankees (#3, 1/12/91, 8 weeks in Top 10)

Rock supergroup Damn Yankees followed the power ballad success formula, and it resulted in their biggest hit.

6.  "November Rain" by Guns N' Roses (#3, 8/29/92, 10 weeks in Top 10)

GNR's biggest hit from Use Your Illusion I or II, "November Rain" was the band's last Top 10 hit, and it was also, in arguably, the best music video of the '90s.

5.  "More Than Words Can Say" by Alias (#2, 11/24/90, 5 weeks in Top 10)

Alias was formed by former Sheriff lead singer Freddy Curci and guitarist Steve DeMarchi, as well as several of Heart's founding members, after Sheriff's "When I'm With You" had rocketed to #1 in 1989, six years after it was initially released and four years after the band had broken up.  "More Than Words Can Say" -- not to be confused with Extreme's "More Than Words" (see below) -- showed that Curci and DeMarchi could still write a hell of a power ballad.

4.  "(Can't Live Without Your) Love and Affection" by Nelson (#1, 9/29/90, 1 week at #1, 7 weeks in Top 10)

Silken-haird twin brothers Matthew and Gunnar Nelson -- the sons of '50s rock legend Ricky Nelson -- had two Top Ten hits off of their 1990 debut album After the Rain (the title track went to #6), and this one topped the charts.

3.  "Blaze of Glory" by Jon Bon Jovi (#1, 9/8/90, 1 week at #1, 8 weeks in Top 10)

Jon Bon Jovi had a brief hiatus from Bon Jovi to record his debut solo album, Blaze of Glory, which featured songs that were either in or inspired by the movie Young Guns II, including the title track, which was a huge hit.

2.  "More Than Words" by Extreme (#1, 6/8/91, 1 week at #1, 9 weeks in Top 10)

Extreme's "More Than Words" -- not to be confused with Alias's "More Than Words Can Say" (see above) -- is a soft acoustic ballad that was apparently what the listening public wanted to hear in 1991.  It would be the last song by a hair band to hit #1.

1.  "To Be With You" by Mr. Big (#1, 2/29-3/14/91, 3 weeks at #1, 9 weeks in Top 10)

The big (pun intended, motherfuckers!) winner is Mr. Big, whose classic, sing-along "To Be With You" topped the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks in early 1991.