I want to thank you all for indulging me as the temporary music editor the last couple of weeks. It’s certainly been entertaining. Or painful, if you’re George. I’ve done my best over the last two weeks to not actually write about music, because I don’t really have the vocabulary for it. Today’s video post is no exception. Happily, we can all welcome back TK next Monday, who will be taking back the tattered remains of Pajiba Music, with my apologies. And for TK: This post is going to hurt.

But before we get to today’s music post, a little personal history for context: See, I wasn’t always the obnoxiously progressive, feminist type. I grew up with a closeted gay father, who hid his secret behind Playboy pinups (which adorned his walls), muscle T-shirts (though he had no muscles), and hair metal T-shirts (he kept his Madonna and Irene Cara albums hidden in locked drawers). So, before my father came out of the closet, and before I dated a series of strong feminist women who loved to berate my sexist ways, I watched a lot of “Married … with Children.” And I listened to an inordinate amount of hair metal (in fact, I didn’t come to appreciate many of the videos featured in yesterday’s post until the 90s). I saw them all in concert, too. Winger, Extreme, Poison, KISS, Def Leppard, Steelheart, Trixter, Bon Jovi. You name it: I saw it. I’m not proud of it, but there you go. I was a hair metal junkie. And not even the decent hair metal (RATT, Quiet Riot, Twisted Sister). I liked the bubblegum variety. Hell, most of what was on Headbanger’s Ball was too hardcore for me. So when I got MTV, what I really loved to watch was hair metal videos. All of them. All the time.

And as an expert at the time, I can confidently say, these were the ten best from the era:

10. Talk Dirty to Me, Poison

9. Don’t Know What You’ve Got Til It’s Gone, Cinderella

8. Wait, White Lion

7. Monkey Business, Skid Row

6. Cherry Pie, Warrant

5. Home Sweet Home, Motley Crue

4. Bad Medicine, Bon Jovi

3. Pour Some Sugar on Me, Def Leppard

2. Welcome to the Jungle, Guns n’ Roses

1. Here I Go Again, Whitesnake

Dustin is the founder and co-owner of Pajiba. You may email him here, follow him on Twitter, or listen to his weekly TV podcast, Podjiba.