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If you know me or have followed my work, you’ve probably cottoned on to the fact that I am a huge heavy metal fan.
I’ve produced metal podcasts such as Battle of the Bands, and Mick Wall’s Getcha Rocks Off, played in bands growing up, and spent way too much money on merch, concert tickets, and albums over the years.
I even wrote an article many moons ago on how listening to the oft-derided genre as a teenager prepared me for life as an adult.
I recently had a conversation with a fellow headbanger about our favorite albums of all time, and it got me thinking.
Having listened to the genre since I was a 13-year-old in 1996, I’ve no doubt listened to hundreds of bands and thousands of albums.
As such, distilling years of listening into a list of 50 albums proved incredibly challenging, but also tons of fun.
So, if you happen to be a metal fan…read on. I’d love to know your thoughts in the comments.
If you’re curious about checking out different genres, and want to go on a heavy metal adventure — then these albums are IMO a damn good place to start.
And if you have no interest in either and are wondering why the guy who usually writes about startups, wellness and productivity is writing about heavy metal, then I welcome you to check out my 400+ articles on those topics.
First, some caveats.
While I’ve tried to be somewhat objective — evaluating albums based on factors such as songwriting, musicianship, lyricism, production, and how badly they make you want to rock a wall of death in your living room, this is my top 40, and it is probably as subjective as it is objective — these lists are rarely anything but.
No doubt many of the albums on the list made it because they formed part of my own formative years as a metalhead, and mean something to me personally. About half of these albums I discovered between 1996 and 2001 — within my first five years of first raising my metal fist in the air.
Then there’s the risk of falling victim to recency bias when picking latter day albums.
You also mightn’t agree that all of these bands are ‘metal’ bands, but think what you like — it’s all metal to me.
Where I felt called to it, I added some brief commentary to the album.
So without further ado, and in no specific order (doing so would be nigh impossible), I present you with my top 50 metal albums of all-time.
Honorable Mention: Hammerfall — Glory to the Brave (1997)
I can’t believe it has been 26 years since this gem of an album came out. I still remember going home from the record store on release day with this album in my possession, having pre-ordered it weeks earlier.
I locked myself in my room and listened to it on repeat for hours, devouring the liner notes in the process.
Legacy of Kings, for me, is power metal’s high water mark.
It is perfect in every way.
Songwriting. Musicianship. Tone. Production. Energy. Heaviness. Speed. Solos. Harmonies. Vocals. Lyrical content.
It’s just so good, and it slaps you in the face all the way through.
I don’t think the Swedish power metal band ever revisited the glorious heights of their first two albums, despite trying to with 10 subsequent studio albums. Sometimes moments in time simply can’t be re-created, no matter how hard you try.
Dime and the boys at the peak of their black-tooth-grin fuelled brilliance with their not quite a debut album, debut album.
When I first heard this I had been subsisting on a diet of KISS, Motley Crue, Skid Row, and some 90s punk such as The Offspring.
Dimebag’s guitar playing, Vinnie and Rex’s groove, and Phil Anselmo soaring and wide-ranging vocals just blew me away. It was like nothing I had heard. The energy of Domination and the title track made everything I’d been listening to seem comparatively tame.
I’m forever grateful that I got to see the real Pantera (not the current half-incarnation) perform live at Melbourne’s Festival Hall back in 2001 on what sadly turned out to be their last ever tour.
Metal perfection.
Like Cowboys, but heavier and more brewtals.
RIP Chuck.
Admittedly, when I first heard Megadeth’s magnum opus, it didn’t grab me. Maybe I couldn’t get past the production quality of the version I had, but whatever it was, I’m glad I stuck it out and kept spinning the record.
It took me a handful of listens to truly appreciate how f*cking good this album is from start to end.
For my money — this version of Megadeth was by far the best.
Since then it’s just felt like Dave + hired goons. Admittedly, unlike Metallica, Megadeth have continued to put out solid work with Dystopia and Endgame being two of their stronger releases of the past 15 years.
Honorable mention: Metallica — Ride the Lightning
What can I say about Puppets that hasn’t been said already?
I mean, the title track featured prominently in the season finale of Stranger Things III. A top 5 metal album of all time.
Enough said indeed.
Honorable mention: In Flames — Whoracle, The Jester Race
Talk about a band that lost its way.
Sweden’s In Flames more or less invented melodic death metal. And if you dispute that, then they sure as hell perfected it. At least they did with their first few releases, culminating in 1999's Colony.
Their subsequent release Clayman was still strong albeit a little commercial, but after that, the band took a left turn into American-inspired commercial mediocrity.
They’ve since channeled some of their origin story in releases like 2023’s Foregone, but with key members such as Jesper Stromblad having long since moved on, and the band members having all grown up and become middle-aged men, it’s unlikely they’ll ever recapture the magic of their 90s efforts.
Check out Stromblad’s new band The Halo Effect if you haven’t already — they’re more In Flames than In Flames.
Honorable mention: Brave New World (2000)
Aces High, 2 Minutes to Midnight, Powerslave, Rime of the Ancient Mariner….this album is solid, from start to end. And so was the stageshow — something i was lucky enough to see re-created in Maiden’s 2008 Somewhere Back in Time World Tour.
I must admit, it was tough to pick between this and 2000’s Brave New World, which is not only an awesome album with tracks like The Wicker Man and Blood Brothers leading the way, but was released when I was 16 and fully present to take in all of the Maiden hysteria that surrounded the then newly reunited band.
As far as concept albums go, this is the pinnacle.
Like Rust in Peace, this album took me numerous listens to get into.
I remember contemplating returning it to the record store for something else.
I’m glad I didn’t.
It is Slayer at their unrepenting best.
Honorable mention: WASP — The Crimson Idol
I know, I know.
I’m supposed to pick The Crimson Idol, right?
I’m supposed to eat my words and hail it the best concept album ever — and it’s bloody good.
But I’ve always preferred The Headless Children. Maybe because I heard it long before I heard the Idol.
Whatever the case, it is a killer album from a band that has largely disappeared from the face of the Earth since.
Honorable mention: Iced Earth — Dystopia, The Dark Saga, Night of the Stormrider
Forget January 6.
Iced Earth rules.
Honorable mention: Gamma Ray — Land of the Free, Somewhere Out in Space
Honorable mention: Carcass — Surgical Steel
This might catch a lot of you offside.
Danger Danger?
Look, as far as unadulterated aqua-net hairspray and Jack Daniels-fuelled fun hair metal is concerned, this album beats anything Poison, Ratt, or Motley Crue ever did.
Big statement, I know.
But have you ever heard lyrics like these?
She looked so sweet in her hi-heeled shoes
She really knocked me out
I knew exactly what she wanted to do
There wasn’t any doubt
She looked at me
With a spark in her eye and she said
C’mon baby we could have a good time
So I
Slipped her the big one
I really knocked her out
Slipped her the big one
I really knocked her out
You’re welcome.
These guys were Steel Panther before Steel Panther.
Like Puppets, there’s nothing I can say that hasn’t been said.
10 out of 10 from start to finish.
Perhaps not just a top 5 metal album of all time, but a top 5 rock album, if not a top 5 album, period — up there with The White Album and Thriller.
This album is just too good, and oozes 1987 Sunset Strip sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll.
Honorable mention: Ozzy Osbourne — No More Tears
Honorable mention: Bon Jovi — Slippery When Wet
Yes, Bon Jovi.
Deal with it.
Honorable mention: Testament — Practice What You Preach, Dark Roots of Earth
Testament, like Kreator and Accept below, are one of those bands that to me seems to have gotten better with age.
I’d rather listen to all of these bands’ post-2000 material at the expense of their earlier work.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the stuff these bands did in the 80s and 90s, but their newer material just hits different.
Honorable mention: Accept — Blood of the Nations
Honorable mention: Kreator — Hordes of Chaos, Phantom Antichrist, Enemy of God
Hey dude, wanna party?
Honorable mention: KISS — Revenge (1992)
I grew up with a ton of KISS fans as friends.
Most of us to this very day would take unmasked 80s KISS over 70s KISS, especially now that we’ve seen them play virtually the same old tired setlist consisting of Deuce, Detroit Rock City, and Shout it Out Loud countless times since they put the makeup back on in 1996.
With songs like Hide Your Heart, Rise to It, Forever, and 12 others to feast on, this has always been my favorite KISS album.
80s KISS FTW.
Forget the avatars, bring back Bruce Kulick!
Honorable mention: Nevermore — Dreaming Neon Black
Honorable mention: Machine Head — Locust
Who knew the French could make metal, and not just croissants?
This is the most recent release on my list, and it’s with good reason. The UK’s Sleep Token are the most innovative band I’ve heard in years.
After a while, you just stop getting surprised by new releases and everything starts to sound recycled, so when a band like Sleep Token come along you take notice.
Sure, as a metalhead, you’ll either love them or hate them — given they fuse elements of hip hop, R&B, and pop into their music — but they do it so God damned well.
“Walking these dirty streets, with hate in my mind, feeling the scorn of the world, I won’t follow rules...”
This iconic death metal album from the legendary Brasilians opens with this line, and only gets better from there.
Honorable mention: Trivium — In Waves
Honorable mention: Amon Amarth — Twilight of the Thunder God, Deceiver of the Gods, Surtur Rising
What’s not to like about the Swedish viking melodic death metallers?
Not only do they put out solid album after solid album of axe-wielding metal goodness, but they are really nice guys with epic beards.
Their artwork is always on point, so much so that I had to include a larger version of the artwork for Berserker.
Row!
Honorable mention: Ensiferum — Victory Songs
I wish the folk music festivals I got dragged to as a kid sounded like this.
Honorable mention: Anthrax — Among the Living
What’s not to like about quite possibly the most fun thrash metal band ever?
On a personal note, having grown up in the working-class western suburbs of Melbourne, surrounded by migrant families, and having befriended and played in bands with many a first-generation Australian metalhead like me, I couldn’t help but find a certain kinship with the boys from Anthrax.
Sure, they were from the other side of the world, but in many ways exactly the same.
Four Italian-Americans and Scott Ian (Jewish) from the working-class New York boroughs, the Bronx and Queens.
As far as their music goes, Spreading the Disease and Among the Living were two albums I couldn’t get enough of in my teens and 20s.
Ghost makes the list cause they brought something fresh and inspired to the table after the genre had become a little stale and repetitive.
Bonus points for an amazing live show.
Rats is quite possibly one of my top ten favorite metal songs this side of 2000.
One of the best-selling albums of all-time.
Just don’t tell the band they’re metal.
It’s just rock n’ roll baby.
Like most metalheads and guitar-players, when I first heard Eruption as a 14 year old I was floored. I still am.
RIP Eddie.
Australia represent! \m/
Go!
There you have it — my 50 favorite metal albums of all-time.
I realize a number of iconic hard rock and metal bands didn’t make my cut (Motorhead, Led Zeppelin, Sabbath, Manowar, Cannibal Corpse, Obituary, Fear Factory, Faster Pussycat, Poison, Ratt, Helloween, Avenged Sevenfold, Extreme, Faith No More, Morbid Angel, Napalm Death, Bolt Thrower, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Edguy, Cinderella, Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir… the list goes on).
I love these and other bands for their collective music and contributions to rock and metal, but I couldn’t put my finger on one album that I personally loved so much from start to finish to include in my top 50 of all-time.
Truth is, if I was to write this list again it would look a little different each time.
Now have at it in the comments! \m/
Steve Glaveski is on a mission to unlock your potential to do your best work and live your best life. He is the founder of innovation accelerator, Collective Campus, author of several books, including Employee to Entrepreneur and Time Rich, and productivity contributor for Harvard Business Review. He’s a chronic autodidact and is into everything from 80s metal and high-intensity workouts to attempting to surf and hold a warrior three pose.