play-in games (jan 29-Feb 5)
The Selection Committee has made its decision for the first 56 songs in 2018's March Shredness tournament.
Given the depth of the field, 16 songs will play-in for the remaining 8 spots.
These games will run January 29th-February 5th, 2018, with the winners entering the tournament.
Krokus, Eat the Rich, 50, Danger Danger, Naughty Naughty 31
LA Guns, The Ballad of Jayne 43, Enuff Z Nuff, Fly High Michelle 26
Tigertailz, Love Bomb Baby 57, Lizzy Borden, Me Against the World 28
Bulletboys, Smooth Up in Ya, 84, Tesla, Love Song 69
Helix, Wild in the Streets 74, Sleeze Beez, Stranger than Paradise 32
Dangerous Toys, Teas’n Pleas’n 30, Vain, Who’s Watching You 26
SUNDAY FEB 4: TNT, 10,000 Lovers VS Firehouse, All She Wrote
MONDAY FEB 5: Blue Murder, Valley of the Kings VS Pretty Boy Floyd, Rock & Roll
& here are 15 songs that didn't quite make the cut but are worth your time.
Inclusion methodology: songs must be in the style and genre of hair metal, meaning that they were released from roughly 1983-1992, which is about when grunge and the 90s ended the era, at least for most mainstream listeners. Songs feature shreddy, ostentatious guitar solos, big hair, and flashy outfits. As "hair metal" as a genre is one dependent on video, all songs in the tournament must have had videos (and must have them available online). The Committee is typically excluding Serious Metal outfits like Metallica or Iron Maiden unless they really took part in the tropes of the genre. Ditto straight-up hard rock acts like AC/DC or Judas Priest. We're less interested in artists' careers than in individual songs that play all the right notes, so you might see a hair metal song by a band with a longer and more distinguished non-hair-metal career in there. Suggestions? Hit us up on twitter or email.