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DAVID LEE ROTH—Eat ’Em and Smile (1986) With top guns Steve Vai and Billy Sheehan backing him, David Lee Roth proved that he, and not Eddie, was the keeper of Van Halen’s fun-lovin’ spiritual flame. Combining shred and slapstick with an ease and grace that the overly earnest and lumbering Sammy Hagar-fronted Van Halen could never hope to achieve, Eat ’Em and Smile has all the elements of a great VH album. And while some will point to Passion and Warfare as the fleet-fingered Vai’s moment of glory, I think that he was a whole lot more fun to listen to when Diamond Dave’s off-the-cuff attitude prevented him from disappearing too far up his virtuosic ass.

BON JOVI—Slippery When Wet (1986) Had Bruce Springsteen been a big-haired pretty boy, it’s safe to say that this is the album that he would have made instead of Born In the U.S.A. Well, the Boss still hasn’t made his glam album, but his New Jersey neighbor Jon Bon Jovi did his best to fill the void. The fact that this record, with its guy-next-door narratives, mammoth choruses and whammy happy guitars (courtesy of current Heather Locklear main squeeze Richie Sambora), totally, completely and irrevocably blurred the line between candy-ass pop and hard rock, and sold a billion records in the process, still has many of us confused as to what kind of band Bon Jovi actually was. Nevertheless, “Livin’ on a Prayer,” “You Give Love a Bad Name” and the über power ballad “Wanted Dead or Alive” are bona fide rock classics.

CINDERELLA—Night Songs (1986) Given his gruff falsetto howl, it’s no surprise that Cinderella frontman Tom Keifer eventually managed to blow out his voice. But on Night Songs, the band’s debut, the singer’s pipes were just as strong as his songwriting and guitar chops. And even though the album cover depicts the band sporting some of the most hideous day-glo Spandex duds imaginable, Keifer’s bluesy instincts managed to imbue songs like “Somebody Save Me,” “Shake Me” and “Nobody’s Fool” with a righteous authenticity that so many bands of the Aquanet Army so sorely lacked.

POISON—Look What the Cat Dragged In (1986) First of all, all those who dare claim that their first reaction to the jacket cover of Poison’s Cheap Trick-inspired debut wasn’t, “Whoa! These chicks are hot!,” is a lying sack of shit. Second, C.C. DeVille was the funniest, coolest and most reckless player to ever sell out an arena. Third of all, if “Talk Dirty to Me” had been recorded by the Sex Pistols for Never Mind the Bollocks, snotty rock critics everywhere would be hailing it as the greatest punk rock song of all time.

TESLA—Mechanical Resonance (1986) While their comfortable jeans-and-T-shirts getups made Tesla the regular Joe’s of the hair-metal era, Mechanical Resonance, the group’s electrifying debut, was anything but average. Guitarists Tommy Skeoch and Frank Hannon were a formidable duo who graduated with honors from the Thin Lizzy school of dueling guitars and vocalist Jeff Keith sounded like he had stolen the gravel right from Rod Stewart’s driveway. Tesla produced a series of high quality albums, but this, the band’s debut, displays a combination of spontaneity and attention to detail that sets it above the rest of the band’s output.

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