The Actually/Legitimately/Truly New Hair Metal Thread

Dock Fight wrote:

Hot take: "Kiss of Death", from Back for the Attack, is one of Dokken's best songs and a severely under-heard great metal song from the 80s.

That’s no hot take. “Kiss of Death” is absolutely the best song off that album, and probably would have been the best song on Unchain as well. “Lightning Strikes” is really the only heavy-ish song on Unchain, but leading off Back For The Attack with “Kiss”, really let us know that album was going to be something a lot harder than we expected.

As I’ve said many times, Dokken was the absolute best of all of the hair metal bands.

Judas Booth wrote:

As I’ve said many times, Dokken was the absolute best of all of the hair metal bands.  

I don’t know if I’d go quite that far, but they were way more musically talented than most of the others. I’m not a super huge Winger or White Lion fan, but I’d put those two bands in a category with Dokken, as bands that truly had talent as musicians. All three bands are underrated for that reason alone, IMO.

Dokken is proof that the criticism of hair metal being style over substance is bullshit. They had pitch perfect three part harmonies and Lynch is a top notch shredder. With Kiss of Death they were singing about AIDS when there was still the misconception that it was only homosexuals getting the disease.