Tesla

Although Tesla emerged during the glory days of hair metal, they never completely fit the spirit of the times. Their music was well-produced pop-metal, to be sure, but they never indulged in the glammed-up excess that made cartoons out of many of their peers. Instead, Tesla's music was bluesy, no-frills, '70s-style hard rock; it concentrated more on solid musicianship than enormous, arena-ready choruses (or hairdos), and it had a noticeable grit -- not so much the urban sleaze of Guns N' Roses, but a grounded attitude and a genuine affection for old-school hard rock. Despite their refreshing lack of posturing, Tesla was just as hard-hit as the rest of the pop-metal world when grunge wiped out classic-style hard rock, but they did produce one of the more respectable bodies of work of the era.