LISTEN TO ME: Chan, the critic, gives his slant on classic '80s rock albums

Aquanet hairspray ruled the fashion runways, while overproduced rock epics splattered across the airwaves of American radio.

The '80s, a pop culture disaster, marked the dawn and the demise of hair bands - make-up, lipstick and pantyhose mandatory accessories.

Since the Thanksgiving season is upon us, it is only fitting that we feature a group of turkeys in musical history.

Without further ado, let the carving begin.
 

Bon Jovi: Slippery When Wet (PGD/Polygram POP/Jazz)

They gave rock music a bad name.

The New Jersey quintet developed the most irritating brand of slick pop-rock music in their decade-long reign on the charts.

Jon Bon Jovi, a rock-ballad genius, inflicted his high-pitched songwriting talents on the working-class masses, much like Bruce Springsteen.

Weary fans that steered away from the mock-rhythm and blues sound of New Kids On The Block and New Edition - white adolescent males - swarmed like bees to the honey-coated sound.

On Slippery, Bon Jovi's third album, the band was in the midst of being the most popular act in the world. It played to the faint-at-first-sight fans only Michael Jackson was capable of drawing up to that point.

Despite the ambiguous album title, the band was neglecting the skimpily-dressed girls and went for a more working class contemporary pop-rock sound.

Bon Jovi's husky wail on the mammoth single "Livin' On A Prayer," which was his trademark sound, was shoved into the background, overshadowed by the waterfall of harmony vocals.

Richie Sambora, the lightweight version of Eddie Van Halen, flexed his chops throughout the masterwork, reaching for the most crunching major chords.

His shining moment came during a futuristic-cowboy tale told through "Wanted Dead Or Alive," where a crystal-clear steel string guitar scrapes through a tale of a hunted desperado.

Stadium arm-raisers "You Give Love A Bad Name," "I'd Die For You" and the opener "Let It Rock," moved the band away from its New Jersey club beginnings and into the adoring arms of 70,000 fans every night.

The band is still around, churning out hits such as the Max Martin ('NSync, Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears)-written "It's My Life."

The era may be more hip, but leave it to the boys to keep sticking to the same formula.

Someone should tell the band that it is on its last prayer.
 

Def Leppard: Hysteria (UNI/Polygram Pop/Jazz)

What most music fans do not know is that the producer of Hysteria is Shania Twain's husband, Robert "Mutt" Lange.

Before he sported chaps and spurs for Twain's belly-bopping pop-country music, he was constructing what has become arguably the best pop-metal album in history.

Hysteria, in all its overproduced glory, single-handedly defined a polished metal-rock sound, partly because drummer Rick Allen lost one of his arms after the band's previous album, "Pyromania," and had to use a partial electronic kit for this effort.

While critics dismissed the album as a mechanical and contrived effort, the masses ate up all the overwritten lyrics and army-sounding vocals.

The group released an unheard of seven singles from the album, benchmarked by the ultimate drunken anthem "Pour Some Sugar On Me," which still dominates the party houses.

"Sugar" single-handedly pushed the album into the orbits, followed by the three-songs-in-one opus "Rocket," a computerized vampire ballad "Love Bites," and the one song that will forever change the connotation of the words
"Armageddon It."

The sentiments were oozing through the heavily-filtered guitar and bombastic electronic drum sound. Think of Led Zeppelin without the acoustic folk elements.

The trademark thousand-man chorus sound is surprisingly still being used today when one hears Twain's songs, which are also produced by Lange.

But he should be praised for creating a masterpiece that has not been duplicated - not even Def has been successful with its own sound on recent albums with or without Lange.

Regardless of how hard it is to admit that the music is still viable, people should realize that this sugar is still sweet.
 

Motley Crue Dr. Feelgood (BMG/Beyond)

The Crue will forever be the definitive raunchy hair-metal band of the '80s, and the band's members would not have it any other way.

Before Tommy Lee's heavily-butchered marriage to Pamela Anderson, he was perhaps the best drummer of his time.

Vince Neil, with his pitch-perfect voice and unabashed horniness, provided the evil alter ego. They were the naughtier versions of Bono and The Edge from U2.

Even though the band released five albums in the '80s, Dr. Feelgood, released in 1989, marked the pinnacle of their success.

Dirty, slimy and unadulterated fun was the message derived from psychotic rockers such as "Dr. Feelgood" and "Kick Start My Heart." The music was fast and trashy, catering to men who frequented strip bars and women who loved to tease them. It was only fitting that they would release a greatest-hits album titled Decade Of Decadence, years later.

Apart from the benchmark success, "Dr. Feelgood" was the last album with Neil for almost a decade. The Crue played hard and died out before fading away like other casualties of the hair-band era.

Chan Tran is a print journalism major at cal State Long Beach.