Although Warrant arrived late to the hair-metal party—their debut album, Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich, hit shops in early 1989—the Los Angeles band quickly distinguished themselves as a hitmaking force. Credit for that goes to the versatile songwriting of frontman Jani Lane, an Ohio native with a knack for glammy hard-rock hooks (the power-pop-kissed “Down Boys”) and towering power ballads (the acoustic-brushed “Heaven”, the piano-sparkled “I Saw Red”). Warrant cemented their legacy with the 1990 sleaze-rock classic “Cherry Pie”—but kept evolving, and they even embraced timely sounds such as grungy metal on 1992’s Dog Eat Dog.