I honestly don't know the difference between hair metal and metal.... I thought hair metal was just any metal band that had big hair? :rolleyes:

I guess I don't know what technicalities there are to distinguish a hair metal band from any other metal band of the 80's...

I guess when I look at 80's music I generally leave "hair metal" out of the classifications all together and just lump them into either glam rock or metal.... Bon Jovi, Van Halen, and GnR are glam/hard rock more than anything...

But as far as 80's metal (hair, or otherwise) goes I'd say my fav musicians are:

Drums: Neil Pert (Rush)
Bass: Cliff Burton (Metallica) or Billy Sheehan (Mr. Big... now of Steve Vai Band)
Lead: Randy Rhoads (Ozzy), young Zakk Wylde (Ozzy), or Slash
Rhythm: Izzy Stradlin (GnR) or James Hettfield
Vocals/Frontman: Axl Rose (minus the ego)...


Hard to narrow all those down since the 80's produced such a wide variety of musicians.... but Eddie Van Halen, Richie Sombora, all of Iron Maiden, Paul Gilbert, Marty Friedman, Dave Mustaine, Jason Becker, Steve Vai, George Lynch... on and on... were all great musicians... whether or not they fell into the strange category of "hair metal" I don't know...