The 20 Greatest Metal Albums in History: The Complete List

Lists are all personal. You should all shut the fuck up or try and make your way up the ladder to become a published music journalist and write your own. I don't agree with alot of these either, but seriously, quit bitching. 

This list is false..

No Black Metal at all ?  What about Doom Metal ? Or Drone ? Get an Update!

Really?  You put in every damn Black Sabbath Album and totally forget the Metallica Black Album (22 million sold), which means it is a pretty good album and much listened to!  It sounds like your "Journalists" need to go back to school!

Haha. No way! Master of puppets is number 1 every day of the week. Paranoid, Reign in blood etc just do not have solos like on the master of puppets track. The guitaring, drumming and singing is the ground on which metal stands. I dont care who pioneered what. Class is class 1969 or 2013. Wheres number of the beast??

Death--human, symbolic, itp, and of course the mans last brilliant work which is better than just about all these rekerds combined. And then there was morbid angel, bats and aom or even covenant, of course maybe there I'm pulling at straws.

Tough thing is, so many genres. But no death makes this list not just boring but an automatic fail. Thanks for playing.

indeed you're another regular listener. Listen more mate ;)

pffft.  any list of greatest metal bands that includes metallica and NOT led zeppelin is a complete farce.

There needs to be a staff change at LA weekly.

I want to meet this person who wrote this.

Metallica/ Kill em' All

Exactly how many people voted on this? O.o This person sure loves Sabbath.

I'm impressed that you guys put At The Gates. Kudos. I know It's annoying how everyone is a critic and shit, but still, you guys fucked up by not putting a single Death album in there. Chuck Schuldiner is tossing in his grave.

Where's Ride the Lightning? Seriously! 

Also just read the 20 Worst Bands of All Time list. And to whomever compiled that list, you're a bunch of fucking idiots! The complete pretentious fuckwits that decided upon that list haven't a clue(with the exception of the Eagles and Hootie and the Blowfish

And no Zep? AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!

Come on. No Number of the Beast, Ride the Lightning, or Holy Diver? wtf?

"operation mindcrime" by queensryche should be on there as well.

there's like 6 black sabbath albums on there, and "pyromania" by def leppard isn't on there at all? no "shout at the devil" by motley crue?

Way too many Sabbath albums. But #1 is pretty accurate.

Stopped reading at "Baroness."  Gimme a break.

Props for 'Bomber' over 'Ace of Spades' though.

If by 'Greatest' you mean 'Most overrated', then #1 is definitely #1. Otherwise, no.

WORST FUCKING LIST EVER, THIS LIST WAS CREATED BY SOME DUMB YOUNG A-HOLE

Here' are some aditional suggestions from a Dutch metal-head:

Carcass - Heartwork.
Death - Symbolic.
Cannibal Corpse - The Bleeding.
Opeth - My arms, your hearse.

Greeting from the Netherlands

No EXODUS - Bonded By Blood means you this list is null and void!!!

At the same point and time that Metal Historians had Black Sabbath inventing the genre, Deep Purple released their highly underrated album In Rock (June 1970).  Listen to Ritchie Blackmore riffing on Speed King and tell me he didn't invent speed metal.  Listen to Ian Gillian wailing on Child In Time and tell me that this is not the first metal ballad.  Deep Purple should get as much respect as metal pioneers as Sabbath does.  And In Rock should be in the top three.

Ænima should be #1. 

You should only list ONE ALBUM by each band or solo act.

except #1 which I can't  argue with. This list fucking sucks cock double time. Not one real fucking death metal band on the whole list. Opeth is ok but melodic DM is not really death metal. Sorry author but 1990 called it wants its taste in metal back.

How could they forget about Death. Chuck Schuldiner was a genius.

Wow big surprise not a single glam metal album included. Media bias from the elitist 'true' heavy metal community. Wheres Motley's Shout At The Devil, Quiet Riot's Metal Health, WASP's Self titled debut, Ratt's Out of the Cellar or X japan's Bue Blood.

Oh I forgot, those bands wore makeup, had big hair, and wore crazy clothes. Automatically that makes them 'posers' I guess.

QR broke records and boundaries with Metal Health. Oh no, 14 year old elitists everywhere will cry "poser" if any Glam band makes the list...

Gahhh.... compilers of these lists can never tell the difference between 'great' and 'famous'. Only one of these albums is in my top 400. Here's a much better Top 20 (I stuck to only one album per band):-

All I have to say... the biggest metal band in history is Metallica. Critics may not say they are the best, but the fans have spoken over the years. To only have the biggest metal band ever represented only once is disgraceful

\m/ (-_-) \m/  F$%&*%IN SLAYER!!!!!!

Rust In Peace is #14? did u use random numbering or something?? and where's Sepultura?

So yeah, my point is, "Blue Blood" belongs here even if it DOES have ballads like "Endless Rain" and "Unfinished" and the sheer glam crap piece that was "Easy Fight Rambling" - *because* songs like the title track "Blue Blood," "Kurenai," "Week End, "Celebration" (okay that one's a little glammy but still... it was 1989), and "Rose of Pain" were DEFINITELY metal enough to earn it a place on this list, alongside that it was the first Japanese Visual Kei metal album to be released on a major label, which set the stage for even the bands that would think they were too soft/too glam/too visual/too many ballads/whatever. Even if Loudness were the first pioneers of Japanese metal, X was the band that got it on the map as its own thing, with "Blue Blood"'s major debut - so it should be here... rant over