Elektra
This completely overlooked New York sleaze-rock outfit took the '80s Sunset Strip look and sound to ridiculously hyperbolic extremes and threw in a little Guns N' Roses-style streetwise danger along the way. Like Faster Pussycat, Smashed Gladys was better — and more influenced by bluesier glam forebears such as Aersomith and T-Rex — than most of the acts it emulated and was overshadowed by. But the best part about this, the group's only album, is simply reveling in the imagistic extremes to which the band consistently and gleefully goes. Listening to tracks like "Lick It into Shape," "Dive in the Dark," "Legs Up" and "Hard to Swallow" conjures visions of mythic bar fights and dumpster sex. It was pretty tough to take seriously back when it was contemporary; nowadays, the lyrics are downright hilarious, paired with the kind of straightforward riff-rock that never really gets old.