Ed Thompson and Spence D. of IGN Music has selected Metallica 'Master of Puppets' as the "most influential" heavy metal album of all time.
Top 25 Most Influential Heavy Metal Albums of All Time, according to IGN Music:
01. METALLICA - Master of Puppets (Elektra Records, 1986) : Six string shredding? Check. Machine gun drumming? Check. Thundering sh!t-in-your-pants-bass? Check. It was all there in spades. Heavy metal fans no doubt have argued till blue in the balls about which METALLICA album is the greatest. It's a tough argument, to be true, but after kicking all naysayers in the gonads, we came to the conclusion that the band's third magnum opus was easily their best. Why? Because it built upon and perfected everything they had experimented with prior. It's the album where all the pieces come together in glorious cohesion and it's the album that finally woke the general public up to the power and the glory that METALLICA was born to spread.
02. BLACK SABBATH - Paranoid (Warner Bros., 1971) : The album's title track and "Iron Man" have become signature anthems not only for Sabbath, but for air guitarist and karaoke masters alike the world over. But the heavy metal hits didn't stop there. The album also boasts "War Pigs" (good enough to be covered by Faith No More, no less) and the wonderfully titled "Fairies Wear Boots." Hell, the album cover art alone is pure classic as it conjures up a Dungeons & Dragons-meets-Star Wars visual pastiche long before the game or film were even part of the pop culture zeitgeist. How's that for prescience?
03. IRON MAIDEN - Number of the Beast (Capitol Records, 1982) : The album that unquestionably made Iron Maiden one of the godheads of modern metal. Even though Number of the Beast was Maiden's third studio effort, it marked the debut of vocalist Bruce Dickinson, the man who would become as synonymous with the band as their album cover mascot Eddie. While both the album artwork and the title track raised the ire of right wing Christian groups, the band wasn't just some hack Satanic standby. On the contrary, Dickinson and crew would showcase their penchant for epic historical sagas that touched upon various socio-political issues.
04. MEGADETH - Rust in Peace (Capitol Records, 1990) : From start to finish Rust in Peace is the whole package, beginning with a heavy, bone-shattering barrage of riffs and never EVER letting up.
05. METALLICA - Ride the Lightning (Elektra Records, 1984) : Ride the Lightning is, beginning to end, one of Metallica's best recorded endeavors. If there is such thing as a near perfect metal album, this is pretty close to it
06. OZZY OSBOURNE - Blizzard of Ozz (Jet Records, 1980) : Ozzy at his best. "Crazy Train" is the best-known song from the Prince of Darkness. Of course, being able to collaborate and write with Randy Rhoads probably helped just a bit. Besides, you don't play more metal than when you write a song about legendary occultist Aleister Crowley.
07. SLAYER - Reign in Blood (American Records, 1986) : This album was, at the time, the fastest metal album ever. It was so groundbreaking and so unique that it took metal to a realm that most others still have not reached.
08. DIO - Holy Diver (Reprise Records, 1983) : Ronnie James Dio has been fortunate enough to be associated with some of heavy metal's best. Sabbath, Rainbow, and his own band Dio. To best represent his tenure in the genre, one must look no farther than Holy Diver. His first album with his new band was also his best. It is one of metal's best albums and it spawned two of the greatest metal songs of the 80s - "Holy Diver" and "Rainbow in the Dark". Featuring the underrated Vivian Campbell on guitar, this album showed that Dio could do it on his own.
09. METALLICA - ...And Justice for All (Elektra Records, 1988) : Thanks to the edgy and disturbing video for "One," --a massive metal ditty based on Dalton Trumbo's antiwar novel Johnny Got His Gun--the band cracked the MTV rotation and drove a serious spike into the heart of the dying New Wave scene that had formerly ruled the music television outlet
10. MOTÖRHEAD - Ace of Spades (Castle Music, 1980) : Ace of Spades is the band's defining album and the lead single is the best song they have ever written. The entire album is chock full of classics like "The Chase if Better Than the Catch" "(We are) the Road Crew" and "Jailbait". This album is the classic Motorhead lineup at its best: Lemmy, Fast Eddie Clarke and Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor.
11. PANTERA - Vulgar Display of Power (East/West, 1992) : Took heavy metal and made it heavier. It took
darkness and made it darker. It took anger and made it angrier. Never before had a band
tuned down its guitars and crunched a heavier riff than on this album. "Mouth for War"
and "A New Level" and "No Good (Attack the Radical)" stand out on an album where
every track is a classic track. Dimebag Darrell was an innovator and a true godsend for
heavy metal. One of the most underrated players in the genre.
12. ANTHRAX - Among the Living (Megaforce, 1987) : How many bands can create classic metal songs taking ideas from a comic book ("I am the Law") a Steven King novel ("Skeleton in the Closet") and a sad chapter of American history ("Indians)? On the SAME album?
13. BLACK SABBATH - Black Sabbath (Warner Bros., 1970) : Sabbath, along with the all-but-forgotten Move, established the earliest known elements of metal, taking the basic tenets of the Blues and mutating them as only a bunch of white hooligans from the "metal midlands" could. Their self-titled debut is a masterpiece of unbridled mayhem and free jamming (how else to explain 14+minute tracks like "A Bit of Finger/Sleeping Village/Warning"?).
14. FATES WARNING - No Exit (Metal Blade, 1988) : No Exit is the bridge album that allowed progressive metal to enter into the mainstream of the metal genre. Although there are newer releases with better songwriting, No Exit takes the honors here for its impact on the prog scene. Plus, let's be honest, "Anarchy Divine" is a brilliant song.
15. JUDAS PRIEST - Screaming for Vengeance (Columbia Records, 1982) : Screaming For Vengeance was just another entry in what had already become a legendary string of albums (starting with 1976's Sad Wings of Destiny and continuing on through 1984's Defenders of the Faith). While they had already become arena rock stars, SFV put them over the top with such memorable numbers as "You've Got Another Thing Coming."
16. MÖTLEY CRÜE - Shout at the Devil (Elektra Records, 1983 : The quartet of Vince Neil, Tommy Lee, Mick Mars, and Nikki Sixx were like the evil stepsisters of the glam scene, kicking down doors and busting out wicked licks like nobody's business. Featuring such Crue epics as the title track, "Looks That Kill" and their bastardized cover of the Beatle's hard rock classic "Helter Skelter" Shout At The Devil rose above the rouge and fingernail polish façade of the day.
17. MASTODON - Blood Mountain (Reprise Records, 2006) : Not only is the album on the list, but it deserves to be high on the list. Mastodon has redefined metal for the 21st century and Blood Mountain is the album by which all metal albums will be measured for some time now.
18. OPETH - Blackwater Park (Koch, 2001) : They are the Metallica of the genre and Blackwater Park is the Ride the Lightning of the Opeth library. The song "The Drapery Falls" is a nearly 12-minute epic and is the highlight of a unique and genre-changing album.
19. PANTERA - Cowboys from Hell (Atlantic Records, 1990) : Along with Vulgar Display of Power (see #11 on this list) Pantera's fifth album is not only considered one of the band's best, but is also one of the defining albums of early '90s metal. The band's chemistry really begins to gel with collective symmetry here, as a pre-Dimebag Darrell (he was known as Diamond Darrell back then) rips the strings of his axe like a rabid weasel, frontman Phil Anselmo following in kind with chaotic vocal utterances, and the rhythm section of Vinnie Paul and Rex Brown keeping the rhythms in check and the whole mess glued together with low end prowess.
20. DEEP PURPLE - Machine Head (Warner Bros., 1972) : One of the true testaments of a band is if one of their album titles or song titles is eventually scooped up by some youngsters and used as a band name. In the case of Deep Purple, Machine Head was given such honors by Robert Flynn.
21. IRON MAIDEN - Piece of Mind (Capitol Records, 1983) : One of the true innovators of heavy metal, Iron Maiden is a true giant of the genre. Piece of Mind is a landmark release that showed the best of the band's classic line-up and gave the world some of the best technical metal ever recorded.
22. OZZY OSBOURNE - Diary of a Madman (Jet Records, 1981) : Ozzy's sophomore album is easily on par with Blizzard of Ozz. Tracks like "Over The Mountain," "Flying High Again," and the title track show why Randy Rhoads was one of the genre's greats.
23. SEPULTURA - Roots (Roadrunner Records, 1996) : Brazil, Sepultura churned out five impressive albums before landing upon this, their signature sound. The blend of crazy rhythms and crunching guitars that saturated Roots without a doubt brought invigorated creativity to the '90s metal scene.
24. QUEENSRŸCHE - Operation: Mindcrime (EMI, 1988) : This concept album from the Seattle-based band is the standard by which concept albums should be measured in the heavy metal genre. "Speak" has some of the most blistering guitar sounds in progressive metal today.
25. SCORPIONS - Lovedrive (Mercury Records, 1979) : the album has its share of milky ballads ("Always Somewhere") but the band more than makes up for that on such grinding blitzkriegs as "Loving You Sunday Morning," "Coast To Coast," "Can't Get Enough," Okay, the reggae metal of "Is Anybody There" is atrocious, but the band makes up for that with the banned bubblegum-on-the-breasts cover. Besides frontman Klaus Meine has one of the most distinctive caterwauls in all of metaldom, screeching and preening with ear splitting cacophony.
Source Music IGN |
