Episode 46 - 1987 (ft. Whitesnake, Mötley Crüe & Rush)

Big production. Big hair. Big names. Big albums. In Episode 46 the boys turn the Enter Sadmen spotlight on the year that marked the commercial peak of hard rock and heavy metal. Following the path forged for them the previous year by the likes of Slippery When Wet, 5150 and Eat 'Em And Smile, the big guns rolled themselves into the fray in 1987.

The podcast has already reviewed, rated and ranked some of the year's other big hitters - most notably Hysteria, Crazy Nights and Appetite For Destruction (coincidentally, in consecutive episodes - #25 and #26) - but two of the three selected by the lads for this show perhaps define where rock and metal had landed as the decade neared its close.

But where Whitesnake's 1987 and Mötley Crüe's Girls Girls Girls epitomised the decadence of the era, the album that closes this show - Rush's Hold Your Fire - shows that some bands didn't need media fireworks and furore to keep pace with the times.