The term "hair metal" was coined as a pejorative catch-all for the sex- and party-obsessed hard rock bands that emerged predominantly from the Sunset Strip and conquered the world in the '80s.

Since the subgenre exploded in the early '80s, hair metal has been widely ... to some of the era's biggest and brightest bands helped legitimize hair metal in the eyes of the critical ...

Critics coined the term “hair metal” as a shorthand dismissal of the countless copycat hard rock bands that cluttered the Sunset Strip and ruled the airwaves throughout much of the ’80s.