Was 1989 The Greatest Year In Hair Metal History? 

I graduated from high school in 89 so it holds a special place to me. Another great video!!!

Tora Tora-Surprise Attack is my favourite of 1989. I remember as a 12 or 13 year old playing that cassette to death

Awsome. Every time I watch your videos I discover bands I somehow missed. Thank you so much!

1989 is a year full of bangers! My favorite releases are: Danger Danger - s/t Skid Row - s/t Dangerous Toys - s/t The Cult - Sonic Temple

Great list guys. I gotta check out Banshee now, was the only band I haven't heard of that you picked. I'm surprised Tesla The Great Radio Controversy wasn't picked. I would put that and Leatherwolf Street Ready in my top 10 but you guys probably covered the rest. Love your content

Great lists!! Love the shoutouts to Banshee "Race Against Time" and Vain "No Respect", those would be in my top 10 too. 1989 has so many good albums, I'm looking forward to the part 2. Badlands, Blue Murder, Enuff Z'Nuff, Tora Tora- Surprise Attack, Warrant-DRFSR, Lillian Axe-Love+War, Motley Crüe - Dr. Feelgood, and Shark Island-Law of the Order would all be in my top 10 as well. Speaking of Pretty Boy Floyd, the Canadian Pretty Boy Floyd's Bullets & Lipstik (LP) is a great album from 89. Tangier-Four Winds, Extreme-S/T Blue Blud-The Big Noise, XYZ- S/T, Faster Pussycat-Wake Me When It's Over, Fifth Angel- Time Will Tell, Babylon AD-ST, Leatherwolf- Street Ready, and Bad English-ST are honorable mentions as well

Yes! For this fan, 1989 was indeed the greatest year in Hair Metal \m/ 10. White Lion - Big Game 9. Tangier - Four Winds 8. Aerosmith - Pump 7. Tesla - Great Radio Controversy 6. Kingdom Come - In Ya Face 5. D-A-D - No Fuel Left For The Pilgrims 4. Skid Row - Skid Row 3. Whitesnake - Slip Of The Tongue 2. Badlands - Badlands 1. The Cult - Sonic Temple HM Giant - Last Of The Runaways HM Riverdogs - Riverdogs Good show thanks lads and kudos to Ryan for the Sircle Of Silence shoutout hugely underrated Reece album \m/

We have very similar tastes! I did a top 60 of 89 about 3 years ago, 88-92 are my favorite years of music and 89 may just be the best although 90 and 91 are very close, awesome video!! 👍🤘🤘

That Banshee-Album is great. Great to see that a rather unknown band receives such attention from you.

89 rules!

Once again Lillian Axe comes up tops ! Absolutely love that album and band and it’s really great to see them bringing out these box sets , they are probably bigger now than they’ve ever been. BTW I still have all my Kerrang magazines up until I stopped buying it towards the end of the 90’s when it went Kerrap! Being from the UK Kerrang magazine and The Friday Rock Show with the late great Tommy Vance was all we had during the 80’s to learn about this great music. There are a few bands on here I’ve not heard of so I’ll be checking them out on my RU-vid Music - cheers to both of you

Enuff Znuff (self titled) Shotgun Messiah (self titled) Bang Tango- Psycho Cafe Faster Pussycat-----Wake Me Up When It's Over Just my $0.02 added to the list. You pretty much named all my other faves of '89.

The Hair Metal Guru vs Eddie Trunk vs Danny Waysted on an episode of Celebrity Hair Metal Jeopardy!

Great summer , bought to go into Junior High . Motley was going to drop Dr Feelgood , Warrant and Skid Row everywhere , Cinderella Coming Home . Hanging out at the YMCA pool , the radio was on fire too . Jeff Healey and Angel Eyes , Petty Free Falling , Living Colour Cult of Personality.

Cant wait to watch this, I always thought 1986 & 1987 was the greatest year so I'm excited to hear about 1989

Hi from Cornwall in uk Loving the shows and finding new albums to listen to Have you listened to jimmy Barnes freight train heart absolutely killer Has Neal Schon and Jonathan Caine from journey on it top stuff

TNT intuition from 1989 is killer Tony Harnell is one of the most underrated vocalists of that era but great list and great video as always super fun to watch

Good timing. I have my 1989 memory stick in the car so working through most of these albums. The Giant is the greatest AOR album of all time. The Vain is the best glam metal album. The Lilian Axe is awesome. Danger Danger, Tora Tora, awesome stuff.

Thank you for the mention, if you guys ever want to chat let me know :)

Don’t think I have heard you mention BLACK N BLUE they have some killer songs nasty nasty is a top one, great work as always

How the fuck do Bang Tango, Enuff Z’ Nuff and Lizzy Borden miss this list? Not to mention Aerosmith Michael Monroe, Faster Pussycat and Tesla. From this video only LA Guns and Vain and Probably Skid Row make my top 10 along with the 7 I listed. Honorable mention to Doro’s first solo album and Dangerous Toys. A truly great year that also included sone fierce alternative rock from Faith No More, The Cult, Mary’s Danish, Masters of Reality, Soundgarden, Nine Inch Nails and The Red Hot Chili Peppers.

I saw Vain support Skid Row back in the day and they blew SR off the stage.

Great calls by Ryan on Icon and Banshee. And you know how I feel about Lillian Axe… Some great albums you missed: Badlands - s/t Blue Murder - s/t Tora Tora - Surprise Attack Danger Danger - s/t Dangerous Toys - s/t Tesla - Great Radio Controversy Cats In Boots - Kicked and Klawed Tangier - Four Winds Babylon AD - s/t Mr Big - s/t Shotgun Messiah - s/t And so many more from this great year

Giant are the uncrowned kings of AOR.

love it!

it would be really awesome if you could put in little 5 second clips for these obscure bands. I dont think you would have copyright issues.

If Metal Mike says it’s the best year…..it is!😂🤘

Yessss guru rules.... Now about that grunge Guru Channel. I found out that it's a doppelganger

Forgot to add am right up there with Ryan in Slip Of The Tongue was all sorts of excellent, although as good as it was can't put Slow Poke ahead of Wings Of The Storm, Judgement Day, Deeper The Love, Now You're Gone, Sailing Ships and the Title-Track \m/

Jani Lane was an underrated song writer. Proof is in the Jabberwocky album My band for this video, 1989: Bablyon A.D. - ST

I tend to agree it was but I also think I might be biased as that was my senior year of high school which was a fairly awesome time

Icon s/t and right between the eyes are classics

Your right on imo the best hard rock album ever Love and war!

1989 was the peak for hair metal. it could be argued that 1990 may be an equal year, but in my opinion, everyone and their grandmother released a record in those two years. the hard thing about these lists, is they usually are the same bands over and over, as the labels rushed all the successful artists to put another record out every 12-18 months. i appreciate ryan putting artists in the list that we haven't heard named. if we go by best albums, i think you get more artists that don't get the time and respect they deserve...but if you go by popular artists, you get the one's that were shoved down are throats. granted, they were good...but they are obvious picks. that vain album epitomizes one of the finest examples of sleeze rock you could ever put on tape. every song is a gem, and nobody touches daivy vain's unique vocal performance. a true gem. their tour with skid row in the uk was the only major tour they did...outside of playing in japan on and off for a few years. guru kinda danced over their further releases, but i will tell you this...the follow up album "all those stranger" wasn't commercially released until some time in the mid 2000's, however island records did press promo's of the album in 1991 and had them sent out. those promo cassette's fetch hundreds when they show up on ebay. i was able to find one in a used music shop for a quarter...one of the best collectibles in my collection. subsequent releases are all eclectic, and filled with brilliant songwriting. 1996's fade is a wonderful, lush record that has some of the finest songs they crafted, however it is a departure from the sleaze sound of the first record. davy vain's solo record in from out of nowhere is chalk full of hard rockers, and lush ballads. great songwriter.

Wasn't 89 the year Nitro released O.F.R.!?! I remember watching that video clip for Freight Train on RU-vid not long back and some guy commented 'This is what you'll see if you look at cocaine through a microscope!' 😂

Great year for hair metal. Wish it never ended

Who does Ryan run with?

I have that Banshee cd!! Great album.Mats Leven also sang for Therion. The guy is amazing.Lillian Axe is good but it doesn't get me sporting a Woody.

I like it when Hair Metal Gurus have very little hair 😊👍 I guess my favourite hair metal band is Judas Priest. 😉

It is a great surprise to see several Europian bands on your list. I believe hair metal (beside rock 'n' roll, rockabilly) is the most American genre in rock/metal music. Maybe that is reason why it was never really popular here. But anyway 1989 was really a grat year. I think the Lillian Axe song, She Likes It On Top has the best gitar solo in rock songs.

1989 - The year Mama finally let me go to the show.

Hard to believe Mechanical Resonance by Tesla didn't make either list. Also, could make a strong argument for any of these debuts by Blue Murder, Badlands or Mr. Big.

🎉Waysted LOVE LOADED Fastway BAD GIRLS

The other thing that makes Slip of the Tongue sales even more astonishing is how little they sold even with Steve Vai on guitar, who was considered one of the best at the time. You would think the guitar-heads into the Vai's or Satriani's of the world would have helped push that album just because of Vai. Consider this little fact... Steve Vai's instrumental album Passion and Warfare was released four months after Slip of the Tongue and sold 850,000 copies in America. Says a lot about how much Whitesnake fell after the 87 album. Even with a guy like Vai that can sell 850,000 albums on his own, you can only get a little over a million sales? I wonder what would have happened if they didn't have Vai on that album.

Anthony this is James you two are gold as always My albums of 1989 are Kiss Hot In The Shade Ace Frehley Trouble Walkin Alice Cooper Trash Motley Crue Dr. Feelgood Great White Twice Shy Skid Row Skid Row White Lion Big Game Enuff Znuff Enuff Znuff Extreme Extreme Mr.Big Mr.Big Faster Pussycat Wake Me When Its Over Wasp Headless Childrean Tesla The Great Radio Controversy Warrant Dirty Rotten Filty Stinking Rich LA Guns Cocked And Loaded Dangerous Toys Dangerous Toys Tora Tora Surprise Attack Britny Fox Boys In Heat XYZ XYZ Sea Hags Sea Hags Badlands Badlands Pretty Boy Floyd Leather Boys With Eletric Toys Danger Danger Danger Danger Babylon AD Babylon AD Lillian Axe Love + War TNT Intuition Blue Murder Blue Murder Kingdom Come In Your Face Mcauley Schenker Group Save Yourself Except Eat The Heat Whitesnake Slip Of The Toungue Icon Right Between The Eyes Vain No Respect Lion Trouble In Angel City Love these videos keep up the great work

Great White Twice Shy one of my favorites. Album really has no fillers. Once bitten twice shy my least favorite.

Love tuff! Have a lot of Stevie signed stuff! I’m telling ya watch badlands dreams in the dark and tell me Jake E Lee don’t look like Jeff Labar. Someone tell keifer to get Eric and Fred back with Jake e Lee and do a tribute tour for Jeff!

Enuff Z nuff debut, Aerosmith Pump, The Cult Sonic Temple, Great White twice shy, Badlands, Cocked and Loaded, Dr. Feelgood

i love melidan!

In my personal opinion 1989 was The Greatest Year In Hair Metal History hands down. Here is my list 1 Skid Row Self-Titled 2 Sea Hags Self-Titled 3 Wake Me When It's Over Faster Pussycat 4 Cocked & Loaded LA Guns 5 Dangerous Toys Self-Titled 6 Badlands Self-Titled 7 Psycho Café Bang Tango 8 Enuff Z'nuff Self-Titled 9 Junkyard Self-Titled 10 Pump Aerosmith And what i like to call Top 5 honorable mentions 1 Not Fakin' It Michael Monroe 2 Trash Alice Cooper 3 The Great Radio Controversy Tesla 4 Slip of the Tongue Whitesnake 5 Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich Warrant

Great video fellas but I have to quibble how are leatherwolf and fifth angel hair metal they are power metal//speed metal

YES YES YES YES, '89 even beats '87 when u REEEALLY look back!

According to Steel Panther it's 1987, so close.

Hey guru I’m pretty sure Dirty Looks album Turn of the screw came out in 1988

@hairmetalguru sorry but actually joan jett Co wrote house of fire with Alice cooper

Sic Vikki , let’s go 🤘😁 Beau nasty is great Boys in heat is a top 10 album cover for me 😂 Pbf recently released what would have been their second album ‘91 ‘stray bullet ‘ I like it better than the debut but that’s not saying much 😅 Banshee is badass though But ‘89 is not the best year 🤘

Enuff Z'Nuff

In my opinion: 1984 or 1989.

Hair metal guru milking a bull I bet that bull started following you all around that farm lol

Hell no, 1987 was the best. There was so much schlock in '89. In '87 you had great new albums, as well as tours for the albums that were released in late '86.

Hair Metal Guru drinking game, every time Guru says ballad take a shot. 😂😂😂😂😂 Why don't you talk about Pariah, blackfish, Racer X, and sleaze kings Blitzspeer?

Warrant was 88

Do you have insta or something? Love your videos. Would love to send you RU-vid links to a group I grew up with that was killer hair metal.

great year great time