Two weeks I wrote about how Ratt’s “Dance” is an excellent stripping song, and jested about trying it out myself. Jokes aside, I’ve always been fascinated by strip clubs and strippers and the whole shebang. It’s just so weird to me. The way it all functions and how lucrative it really is. When I was in college, we affectionately called the street right next to us “Stripper Alley” because of the cluster of clubs situated two steps from the dorms. You’d be hard-pressed to find worse houses of “burlesque” in the country.

Unfortunately, any fantasies or visions of naked grandeur were put to rest when I attended one innocent evening and an enthusiastic and obviously pregnant girl started raving about how much she loved my name. ‘Cause my real name was her stage name. Thanks, mom and dad.

It’s hard to deny that there’s some connection between metal, especially hair metal, and stripping. They go hand in hand like… syphilis and crazy. But I really don’t like the “stripping songs” that everyone always seems to go with. “Pour Some Sugar On Me”… like, really? There are so many underrated bands from that era and even more underrated songs. Some just had bad timing and some were plain ignored. But it got me thinking.

So here are the top underrated bands (note: “underrated” does not necessarily mean “unpopular”) of the 80s and early 90s, along with their corresponding strip songs. Now, these aren’t my choices, mind you — I just think they’d get the job done. I really hope no family members are reading this but if they are: HEY YOU GAVE ME A STRIPPER NAME, THIS WAS INEVITABLE.

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Read Leyla’s list of The Top Ten Worst Hair Metal Band Names here.

All right, this was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be and for a while I considered just doing a part two of bad names. But, like hair metal itself, there are always some gems floating amidst the crap, and with a little borrowing from other overlapping genres, ten candidates were found for the best of hair band names. So you’re safe for now, Trixter, Tora, Tora, Kix, and Stryper…

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Back in 1996, I was an angst-ridden young buck, and the only kind of music I truly cared about was industrial rock. Indeed, it was at the tail of a gilded age for the subgenre, the door to commercial success having been opened a few years earlier by major-label breakthrough artists like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry as well as notable independent label acts like long-slogging innovators KMFDM. If you have ever owned music from bands like God Lives Underwater or Gravity Kills, you know exactly what I’m talking about, brother.

That same year also saw the major release of a self-titled debut from SKOLD, a dark electronic project from a former member of glammy metal act Shotgun Messiah, a group that had toyed with industrial rock on their final album Violent New Breed. Though there wasn’t a bad song in the bunch, the highlights included machinist’s slog “Dust To Dust” and soaring dystopian anthem “Neverland.” Though mastermind Mr. Tim Skold would move on to lengthy stints with Marilyn Manson (refer to: The Golden Age Of Grotesque, arguably the band’s finest record) and the aforementioned KMFDM, this now woefully out-of-print album–and occasionally accompanying promo VHS cassette–has always held a special plate in my withered heart. This is is why I am so pleased to report that after thirteen (13!) long years, Mr. Skold has revived this long dormant solo act.

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