Metal Milestones
What is the Metal that made you?
Not necessarily the greatest Heavy albums of all time, or even your personal favorites, but the songs that played a foundational role in your musical upbringing. The tunes that came along at pivotal moments in your life and changed your whole aural perspective. Where the sounds connected, and you found your tastes forever redefined, giving you a new understanding of what music could do. It didn’t even need to be a full album; sometimes it only took one song. One lyric. One scream. One guitar solo. One drum fill.
So think about the gamechangers, the Killers, the Jawbreakers, the Battle Stations, the Salaminizers, the Blackouts, the Night Songs, the Midnight Movers that made you into a Heavy Metal Maniac. Forget about the releases that topped the scene; forget all the writers and shit-talkers and their “best of” lists. Get personal. What are the albums and/or songs that made you the Metalhead you are today? Which Heavy albums/songs defined your musical taste?
My list is below. To be clear: I’m not compiling every impactful song I’ve ever encountered. We’d be here for months. I’m talking about the foundational stuff that fused itself to my core at crucial times in my life, the Metal that made me the man I am today.
–
Def Leppard – Pyromania.
Where it all began for me.
Before this, I’d owned the Neil Diamond’s “Moods” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” soundtrack cassettes – – but “Pyromania” was the first tape that ever owned me. I obsessed over it, memorizing every lyric, every Joe Elliott scream, every guitar bend, every drum hit. I was about 10 years old. Many cite “High and Dry” as Def Leppard’s best. That’s fine, but I can’t be unbiased about this one. No serenade, no fire brigade, just the “Pyromania.”
A short list of the other major albums that impacted me at around this time:
-Def Leppard – “High n’ Dry”
-Quiet Riot – “Metal Health”
-Motley Crue – “Shout at the Devil”
-Ozzy Osbourne – “Blizzard of Ozz”
-Ratt – “Out of the Cellar,” “Invasion of Your Privacy”
AC/DC – Back in Black,** Iron Maiden – Powerslave.***
These two albums are very different stylistically, but I discovered them both in the summer of ‘85, when I was 11. It felt like leveling up.
The floodgates opened for the first time this year. Here’s another abridged list of personally impactful stuff from that time:
-The rest of Iron Maiden’s catalogue, up to that point: the debut, “Killers,” “The Number of the Beast,” “Piece of Mind”
-More AC/DC: “Highway to Hell,” “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You),” “Flick of the Switch,” “Fly on the Wall”
-Judas Priest – “Defenders of the Faith,” “Screaming for Vengeance” (I’d eventually find “British Steel” and their earlier stuff)
-Queensryche – “The Warning,” “Rage For Order,” “Operation: Mindcrime”
-TNT – “Knights of the New Thunder”
-Whitesnake – “Slide it In,” “Whitesnake”
-Scorpions – “Love at First Sting,” “Blackout”
-Dio – “The Last in Line,” “Holy Diver”
-Fastway – “Trick or Treat”
Black Sabbath – Zero the Hero.
Heard shortly after finding Maiden and AC/DC, so still maybe 11 or 12 years old. . . The mid-80s were huge for me, musically. I already knew and loved the “We Sold Our Soul For Rock n’ Roll” cassette plus a few of the classics of the Dio Sabbath era when I first heard “Zero the Hero” on the U68 Power Hour (I’d discovered their deeper brilliance later). I love the “Born Again” album with Ian Gillan. But holy fuck, I’d never known that music could be this crushingly Heavy, but still melodic. “Zero the Hero” matches the density of a black hole. Life would never be the same again.
Metallica – Master of Puppets.
Monumental.
I heard “Kill ‘Em All” at about age 12, but couldn’t find my own cassette copy until after “Master of Puppets” took off, later that year.**** This led to a lifelong obsession with Thrash. I started playing guitar at 16, and Metallica riffs would become staples of my guitar career all through my teens, twenties, thirties, and beyond. The following shortlist is full of essentials, but the early Overkill and Anthrax albums were almost as key for me as the Metallica albums. And have you heard “Angel of Death” by Slayer??
-Metallica – “Kill ‘Em All,” “Ride the Lightning,” the “Creeping Death” EP, featuring “Am I Evil?”
-Megadeth – “Peace Sells,” “So Farm So Good, So What,” and eventually “Rust in Peace.”
-Overkill – “Taking Over,” “Feel the Fire,” “The Years of Decay,” “Horrorscope”
-Anthrax – “Spreading the Disease,” “Among the Living,” “Fistful of Metal” and eventually, “Persistence of Time.”
-Testament – “The Legacy,” “The New Order,” “Practice What You Preach.”
-Heathen – “Breaking the Silence.”
-Kreator – “Flag of Hate.”
-Slayer – “Reign in Blood,” “South of Heaven,” “Seasons in the Abyss.”
Helloween***** – Keeper of the Seven Keys – Part 1 and Keeper of the Seven Keys – Part 2.
Helloween ripped my mind open to the majesty, speed, and grandeur of Power Metal. There was no going back. At the time, I was 13-14 years old, also crazy for:
-Helloween – “Walls of Jericho”
-Manowar – “Fighting the World,” “Kings of Metal”
-Yngwie J. Malmsteen’s Rising Force – “Marching Out”
Led Zeppelin – Kashmir.
Similar to my “Zero the Hero” awakening. . . I’d already loved Zeppelin “IV” in time to appreciate Live Aid (and young enough to enjoy it un-cynically). “Kashmir” exposed me to a world where music could be this powerful, this deeply-stirring, this moving, this beautiful, this heavy. The appreciation of this one started at about 14 and grew as I got older.
I can’t credit “Kashmir” with my love for Deep Purple’s “Perfect Strangers,” but the reaction is similar.
Joe Satriani – Surfing With the Alien******
Joe has influenced my creativity and my musician tastes in so many ways, and it all started with this instrumental guitar masterpiece. It’s not even his best, but it led me to a greater appreciation of his playing, and of virtuoso guitarists in general. I discovered him as a mid-teen, just before I started playing guitar, and I’ve kept up with him across the decades, without fail. My guitar repertoire contains none of the speed or fire that Joe displays, but through him, I developed a greater understanding of my own playing.
-Joe Satriani – “Flying in a Blue Dream,” “Not of This Earth,” “The Extremist”
-Steve Vai – “Passion and Warfare” (“For the Love of God” is a life-changing experience.)
Type O Negative – Bloody Kisses.
I was about 20-21 when I first discovered this album. And. . . the girls who loved Peter Steele/Type O. . . The intense Doom, darkness, beauty, and wry humor of the music just felt like home. The impact was immediate.
-From there, I got into their “Slow, Deep, and Hard” record, and to a lesser extent, “October Rust.” It was the early 90s; I wasn’t finding much Doom or Metal that sounded like this. Maybe Life of Agony’s “River Runs Red.” You might draw a line to Sisters of Mercy, but we’re keeping this list in the Metal world.
Fear Factory – Demanufacture.*******
Nothing would be the same for me after hearing this, ca. 1995-1996, shortly after I’d discovered Type O Negative. The Mechagodzilla-sized power of it all, and those vocals. This means as much to me now as it did then.
There are many albums I’ve come to love in the ensuing decades that I might not have been as prepared for, if not for “Demanufacture,” but – – like “Bloody Kisses” – – I wasn’t hearing much else like this at the time. I was also listening to some Industrial – – Ministry, nine inch nails, Godflesh, Screw – – but aside from Ministry’s “Psalm 69” album (1992), none of them were Heavy Metal.
Black Sabbath – Into the Void.
In my early-mid twenties, I became really serious about guitar, and there were a few riffs and players that just electrified me. I was still into Metallica’s power chords, but I started to really sink my fingertips into the soulful, sinister brilliance of the riffs of Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, and. . . Tony Iommi. With my new guitarist’s perspective, I was able to reexamine and appreciate their catalogues. Especially Sabbath. Especially “Into the Void.” That nasty, nasty main riff just floors me.
-In an indirect way, this led to me appreciating the brilliance of Rush on a deeper level, beyond “Moving Pictures.” (Oh, we could talk at length about Rush. . .)
Opeth – Blackwater Park.
Fast-forward through a bunch of life happenings and bullshit. . . I began podcasting in 2005, in my early 30s. I released some original quiet acoustic songs as part of my content and received a listener email saying, “Hey, I like your music. It reminds me of Opeth!” That led to me discovering one of the most incredible, inventively creative songwriters of all time in Mikael Akerfeldt.******** (yes, I know I was 15 years late to the Opeth party). The range of emotions, concepts, melodies, and elaborately-constructed riffs in their songs are far beyond any earthly plane. What an unbelievable talent. There are so many Opeth songs that have enraptured me, but none more than “Blackwater Park.”
Through – – and simultaneous to – – my discovery of Opeth, I came to love appreciate:
-The extensive 2000s/2010s output of Devin Townsend/Strapping Young Lad.
-Nevermore – “This Godless Endeavor”
-Jeff Loomis – “Plains of Oblivion,” “Zero Order Phase”
-Arch Enemy’s final few Gossow albums. (I love Alissa’s albums too.)
-As a side note: Metallica released “Death Magnetic” during this time period, an album which I greatly admire, and which has a few moments that deeply resonated with me.
-Another side note: I soon fell into Gojira appreciation, which exploded after seeing them open for Opeth in 2017.
Draconian – Sovran
The last major impact on my taste brings us back to Doom Metal. The grace and ethereal melancholy of this album just resonated in my soul. It was there for me through a difficult death in my life. Few albums have affected me as deeply.
From here, I can draw associations with:
-The rest of Draconian’s catalogue.
-Oceans of Slumber – “The Banished Heart,” “Starlight and Ash”
-Cellar Darling – “The Spell”
-Rotting Christ – “The Heretics”
Those are the big names, but let’s include some honorable mentions:
Sepultura – Chaos AD.
Mid/early 1990s. I was on the cusp of turning 20. I know that many prefer Sepultura’s earlier, thrasher albums, but man, “Territory” just made the earth shift for me. I heard “Chaos A.D.” and thought that all the rules of Thrash and Metal had been rewritten. In retrospect, that turns out to have been pretty true.
Zeal and Ardor – Zeal and Ardor.
I tell everyone who’ll listen to me – – and even those that won’t – – that they need to get into Zeal and Ardor. I found Z&A when their debut came out in 2017, so I was already in my upper 40s (sheesh). Project leader Manuel Gagneux fuses the extreme with the deeply soulful and melodic in a unique and inventive way. There’s a gimmick to the sound, sure, but Gagneux’s execution and songwriting just result pure brilliance. It transcends everything. I’ve loved all of their albums so far, and I expect to still be revisiting their music for decades to come.
Ghost – Meliora.
I’m a Ghost fan, through and through (OK, 99%. . . ), but Meliora is the shining and the light without whom I cannot see. Tobias Forge’s intuitively catchy, Heavy riffs and melodies lodged themselves in my young 40-something brain, and to this day, Meliora continues to deliver the thrills and chills every time I relisten.
OK, that’s enough. There are hundreds – – no, thousands – – of incredible, deeply important albums and songs that I didn’t list in the sections above. That’s OK. The agenda wasn’t to list out ALL of the great music. These are the albums that shifted something in me as a listener.
But enough about me. I’m handing you the guitar pick. Share the albums that defined your Metal tastes.
____________________
Jack Mangan is best known in the Metal world as lead author/project runner for the “Am I Evil?” graphic novel, as a journalist with MetalAsylum.net and the official Metal Hall of Fame. and also as co-host of the popular (sporadic these days) Metal Hall of Fame and MetalAsylum.net livestreams with Rich Catino. He’s made a few guest appearances as a panelist on The Metal Voice. In an adjacent life, he was a podcast pioneer, with numerous appearances on Technorama, Dragon Page, Escape Pod/Pseudopod, and many others, including his own productions: Jack Mangan’s Deadpan, and the Podcast novel, “Spherical Tomi.” Friend him on Facebook if you can find him, but be warned: he’s not great about checking Facebook Messenger.
*Leave that albatross alone!
****That was the pre-streaming life, kids.
***** Joe Satriani – Surfing With the Alien
****** Helloween
******* Fear Factory – Demanufacture
********Not comparing myself to Mikael Akerfeldt. Come on. But I’m eternally flattered by that listener’s email.
Disclaimer: These articles are meant to document and comment on important aspects of Heavy Metal’s broad and diverse history. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the official Metal Hall of Fame. No mention of any artist should be misconstrued as an indication of intent to induct or deny admittance to the Metal Hall of Fame. We’re not dropping hints here, folks. There will be official press releases when new inductees are ready to be announced.
