Top 25 Heavy Metal bands of all time

[smitch124]

25) Meshuggah: Swedish metal bands prefer to make things difficult for themselves. First off, they're in Sweden, not exactly a prime lift-off point for World Domination, unless you're IKEA. Top that with the fact that these guys refuse to play in standard time signatures, standard key signatures or do anything that could be considered standard. They sometimes don't even make the standard "evil" faces. They try. But it always looks like they're about to laugh. The music really is like shoving your head into an industrial fan. Impressive.
24) Mercyful Fate: A Danish metal band fronted by a guy in slightly wrong Gene Simmons make-up, a screech that sends chills up your spine and a goofy fun-lovin' name like King Diamond. Yet, for all that, the guitar playing, the relentless rhythms and the obsession with Satanic gobblygook make them sureshots in my book. Slightly more entertaining than Venom, who were number 26 and therefore left off this list.
23) Alice In Chains: Some people might choose Soundgarden and I might too, on a different day. But Alice In Chains were heavier and weirder, bluesier and more decadent. They pre-dated grunge and uncomfortably jammed themselves onto the Seattle tugboat as it sailed into the Pearl Jam nation. To anyone who says "Hey, they're not metal," I remind you that heavy metal began with a very strong blues influence and Alice In Chains were far bluesier than many bands who have since come to define metal.
22) Uriah Heep: The roots of Spinal Tap? Albums such as Very ‘Eavy...Very ‘umble, Look at Yourself, The Magician's Birthday and High And Mighty sure seem to have conceptually influenced a strain of "mock metal," yet Uriah Heep with the amazing singing of David Byron, one of the originators of the heavy metal vibrato-laden moan, and the brooding organ of Ken Hensley jammed together as many styles as they could sneak past customs. Sometimes it was peanut butter and jelly, sometimes Rum & Coke and sometimes bananas and bar-b-que sauce. At least they tried.
21) Pantera: Phil Anselmo is one scary dude. And I wouldn't want to meet any of these guys in a dark alley. But on a stage, gainfully employed, Pantera were in their element. While their hard and heavy ways made them heroes to their devoted following, one misguided member of that devoted following took things to the point of indescribable horror when he shot and killed guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell (among others) while Darrell was playing in his post-Pantera group Damageplan. Being in a band has its job hazards; this should NOT be one of them.
20) Thin Lizzy: You'll see that I'm partial to bands who can write songs. Play as many notes as you like. Scream your lungs out. Tell me the world isn't fair. Hail Satan, if you must. Tell me more about how you're going to "rock me." Or tell me all about the people in a faraway galaxy who will one day communicate through the electric guitar. But I'll still take someone who can write: "Jailbreak," "Cold Sweat," "Whiskey In The Jar" and "The Boys Are Back In Town."
19) Kyuss: Who to blame for Stoner Rock? Why not these California desert dudes? These days people know about Queens of the Stone Age, who excel at shifting their line-up on a monthly basis, but once upon a time in the early 90s, Josh Homme and his then buddies stayed together on a fairly consistent basis (well, bass players come and go... and the drummer got switched up in the end, but for these guys that is consistency) and cranked out albums and looked to be going somewhere. Then, of course, before they could really be considered successful, they broke up. Which is what stoners do.
18) Guns N' Roses: With sides of punk and glam, Guns N' Roses coasted into the heavy metal mainstream with catchy tunes and a harder edge than their nerf-metal counterparts. There seem to be two kinds of heavy metal groups: ones that can't stay together and ones that never quit. Funny how everyone but Axl seems to be able to play nice with each other. They say money changes everything, but apparently not everything.
17) Kiss: They may never get the respect they crave. But they've got the sales they always wanted. If any band can be said to be a retail industry, it's Kiss. While so many bemoan the fate of the music business since music is so often distributed free these days, Kiss were already making merchandise a key monetary hub in their organization while others were busy building up their reputations with critics. Now grab your Kiss lunchbox and set it down on your Ace Frehley dinette set with those Peter Criss utensils to nicely cut up that Gene Simmons Bologna and Paul Stanley Liverwurst. I don't even own this paragraph. Gene Simmons does.
16) Dio: Ronnie James Dio is what we call a lifer. A Heavy Metal Zelig, always somewhere in the mix, whether it's with Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Elf or his own self-titled Dio. One of the originators of that vibrato-heavy metallic moan, Dio not only qualifies for a lifetime achievement award for his contributions to furthering the cause of Metal throughout the world but for Medicare in this country. And they credit him with that funny hand gesture!
15) Robin Trower: Ah, who? You know the guy from Procol Harum? Ok, that doesn't help. Well, ask a heavy metal guitarist sometime who's among their favorite players and nearly every time you'll hear people bring up the name Robin Trower, whose solo albums from the early ‘70s are pretty damn staggering in their sludgy-blues heaviness. This is back when the music didn't mind bringing you down. Which just goes to show what a good Quaalude can do. Start with Bridge Of Sighs.

[smitch124]

14) Rush: Rush took a severe beating at the hands of critics for being a tad humorless about their high concepts. But they never whimpered and headed home. Nope. They had too many kids waiting for them in the stadiums who liked their high seriousness and looked forward to living in a future they would never actually live to see. 2112 is still a long ways away...They did it with guitars and they did it with synthesizers and they did it with a drummer who owned way too many drums. But to be fair, he uses all those drums. They're not just for show, like with some people.
13) Spinal Tap: Everyone says they weren't real. Yet I will put them on every Heavy Metal list possible, since their material--you know, the songs--are every bit as good as the "real" thing. And even if they never really did record an album called Intravenus DeMilo, they should've. And if the budget had been there, they just might've. And who's to say Shark Sandwich isn't just the victim of a clever two word put-down review? Maybe someone should go back and re-evaluate this band's imaginary oeuvre.
12) Deep Purple: While Sabbath and Zeppelin have gone on to be immortalized, Deep Purple have fallen dangerously behind. Ritchie Blackmore deserves better than to be lumped in with the "Where Were They Then?" pile. "Smoke On The Water" may be obvious, but "Space Truckin'" and the rest of Machine Head should be textbook cases for all aspiring young hard rockers. And they were purple when only hippies were ruining the color and not dinosaurs and Prince.
11) Slayer: Slayer redefined "heavy" back in the 1980s by speeding things up to the point of hardcore punk but with intricate riffs and shout-outs to Satan that made them obvious followers of the Metal church. With such a volatile sound and temperament, who would've thought they'd still be hanging together this many years later?

[smitch124]

10) Iron Maiden: Just caught a live concert of theirs from 1985 on--where else?--a sports network. Great, since the music networks can't be bothered. And boy did these guys look kind of funny with all that billowing smoke and weird prancing around--and those spandex tights. In some respects, almost as good as Spinal Tap, and in some ways better since they were serious. "Rime Of The Ancient Mariner" is ponderous, but the hoof-beating gallop of "The Trooper" and just about anything from The Number Of The Beast makes up for their inherent corniness.
9) Motorhead: By never swerving from their ideals, Motorhead managed to win the hearts and souls of metal loyalists everywhere while simultaneously gathering punks and critics (same thing?) for their cause. Playing louder than others proved to be a key strategic move. Writing "Ace Of Spades" proved to be the other.
8) Aerosmith: There are those who will swear they aren't heavy metal. Yeah, I know. They were once considered a Rolling Stones ripoff because Steven Tyler had big lips like Jagger and Joe Perry was the sullen shadow playing the role of Keith Richards. But this bluesy, R&B-based hard rock band wrote stuff like "Toys In The Attic," "Back In The Saddle" and "Draw The Line" before crashing, burning and reforming in the ‘80s to further a more commercialized rock sound that sure sounded like a lot of heavy metal at the time.
7) Judas Priest: Their songs were always pretty catchy for a metal band, but I always preferred singer Rob Halford's between song banter. Very brief and always spoken in the same punctuated strain that he uses for the climax of their best tunes. In other words, he never lets up the intensity or drops the mask. He is the dominator on that stage and with two guys--K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton--on guitars who virtually defined the overused trope "twin-guitar attack"--how much more definitive do you need?
6) Metallica: Whether their new album this Fall brings them back up a few pegs remains to be seen, but before they started a virtual war with their fans over $$ (weird, coming from a band who'd already raked in more than most bands would see in a lifetime) and put out St. Anger, the album that made people think that maybe Load was worse than they originally rationalized, Metallica were once the lords of a new generation. Master Of Puppets remains one of the sacred treaties and the self-titled Black Album is that one metal album that non-metal people own and pull out to prove they "like" heavy metal.
5) Jimi Hendrix Experience: Hendrix was far more than some heavy metal guitarist. Putting his music in any box is useless because it always sneaks out. But from the opening notes of "Purple Haze," it's obvious that Jimi was interested in being louder than the other boys. While it's an obvious shame that he didn't live through the ensuing decades, it's a blessing that he came of age at a time when musicians relied on band chemistry and not Pro-Tools to make their magic. Because as good as Hendrix was, he also knew how to pick the right supporting cast.
4) Van Halen: Some metallists say these guys aren't metal because they like girls and to party and they cover the Kinks, Roy Orbison and Motown. But have you heard Eddie's tone? He re-taught the guitar for an entire decade and while they lose points for employing Sammy Hagar (whose band Montrose, you'll note, is absent from this list), they did once bring us that ultimate, premium, all natural ham of hams, the great David Lee Roth.
3) AC/DC: Chords on top of chords, hooks on top of hooks and two singers--Bon Scott and Brian Johnson--who combined for a serious number of knockout punches. AC/DC knew how to flirt with radio without losing the crunch. And how Angus manages to bang his head and hop around the stage to this day remains one of metal's unsolved mysteries.
2) Led Zeppelin: Zep never stayed in one place too long and while Jimmy Page had an arsenal of riffs for aspiring young guitarists to emulate, the band coasted off into acoustic Hobbit tributes and art-rock when they got bored. But their complete demolition of the blues was damn impressive, whether it was Bonzo's beating the drums into submission or Bob Plant screeching for another inch of his love.
1) Black Sabbath: The lords of darkness who were always trying to find the sunshine but couldn't find the energy to lift the blinds. By keeping it simple and focusing on the most elemental elements, Black Sabbath mastered the art of the powerchord and the downward spiral. Killing themselves to live, never saying die and fighting the war pigs! What a legacy!

[smitch124]

I love these things even if they are full of S**t sometimes.

Am happy Sabbath is #1

[smitch124]

My wheelhouse was the 80s, so I would put the Scorpions and Def Leppard on the list

[Keith]

Originally Posted by smitch124

My wheelhouse was the 80s, so I would put the Scorpions and Def Leppard on the list

How does Motley Crue not make this list ????

Or Rainbow, Krokus, Poison, etc....

[smitch124]

wow, Krokus...haven't heard that name in awhile...have you ever heard of a band called Kick Axe??

[Bozzie]

Nice Robin Trower..

I'd swap out Alice in chains for Mudhoney

[westcoastO]

The 25 Worst Hair Metal Bands
Posted Thu May 1 4:44am PDT by Rob O'Connor in List Of The Day

Deciding the 25 Best Hair Metal Bands is an exercise that provides a few laughs, some decent tunes, an appalling video here and there, and gets you kind comments from readers who feel a swelling in their hearts when they see their favorite overlooked band being acknowledged for their efforts.

Picking the 25 Worst Bands is an exercise that provides a few laughs, very few decent tunes, many appalling videos and angry comments from readers who feel a sudden need to beat my opinionated head into the ground. And for those who think I should stick to what I know: no one at Y! Music wanted my blog on the finest varieties of Irish Soda Bread or my expertise on bagpipe music (that's Scottish, by the way).

Wasn't it Spinal Tap who said it was a fine line between clever and stupid? Well, sometimes you can't even find the line. You just have to go with your gut and call it. Why one band sounds incredible and in command doing practically the exact same thing as another band who sound putrid and horrid is one of life's deep mysteries. It's just like how some people--like me--were born ugly and stupid and must spend the rest of eternity trying to make others feel bad about themselves and their accomplishments.

So with that little bit o' psychotherapy off my back, let's discuss the 25 Worst Hair Metal Bands of All-Time!

25) Mr. Big: One of the hard truths about a band is that no matter how many "stars" or "players" it has, it still has to deliver beyond an individual's reputation. Billy Sheehan and Paul Gilbert are two admirable musicians, experts on their instruments. But in order to be a commercial success, despite all their shredding, they had to strike--and you'll see this sad trend play out often in this genre--with an acoustic tune, "To Be With You," and that's plain wrong.

24) Y&T: These guys were around forever, putting out their debut album in the 1970s and somehow finding their groove during the '80s metal years. Granted, they named an album Ten, a full two years before Pearl Jam, so I guess we could call them influential. But staring at their oeuvre, the word "forgettable" seems to more easily apply.

23) Bang Tango: They tried. But L.A. had a lot of bands to choose from and while I could've advised the band not to sign to MCA, who even Lynyrd Skynyrd managed to write a song against, these earnest, eager, hungry boys gave it a shot with albums such as Psycho Café and Dancin' On Coals. They just couldn't get their hairspray to stick out of the crowd.

22) Shotgun Messiah: From Sweden, so maybe some things get lost in translation. Their singer sure could scream. I remember that. But they could never settle on a line-up or an identity, sounding like an imitation of RATT one album and then Guns n' Roses the next. Tim Skold turned the band towards industrial music before joining up with KMFDM and MDFMK and--tired of all the initials--then began playing bass for Marilyn Manson.

21) Lizzy Borden: In retrospect, these guys weren't so much bad as indistinguishable from the many other talents of their era. They didn't overplay any more than usual and they never had a singer who made you want to jump out of a moving vehicle. And that's what's really wrong here. Lizzy Borden evoke no reaction whatsoever. You might as well be listening to air.

20) Trixter: The glam metal band from New Jersey who weren't related to Bon Jovi. It might have helped. Word is they're coming back in 2008. I guess the Puppet Show at Six Flags is in need of an opening act this year. What Trixter lacked in originality--they had tunes named "Surrender" (not a Cheap Trick cover) and "One In A Million" (not the Guns n' Roses tune)--they made up for with, well, their lack of originality.

19) Danger Danger: While it's admirable that these hard rockers from Queens had a concept, I'm not sure that repeating everything twice is a good concept. But sure enough, songs like "Naughty Naughty" and "Bang Bang" do what they set out to do and fulfill the "legacy" of the band's name. They're another band threatening a comeback. To which we say "No No," "Stop Stop."

18) Autograph: One of the earlier L.A. hair metal bands, Autograph had their hit "Turn Up The Radio" featured in an episode of Miami Vice and the band made a cameo in a Dudley Moore-Kirk Cameron film called Like Father Like Son, which did about as well as it should have. Sometimes there is justice in the universe. Just not that often.

17) Dokken: Formed in the 1970s, these heavy metal lifers, after a few years of false starts, finally got to consistently make records in the 1980s just in time to be too late. Or is that too old? Youth culture can be cruel if you're not Ozzy Osbourne--then you're just grandpa. As for Don Dokken, no matter how many hits he has--and he's had quite a few--he still ends up being everyone else's opening act. And that tells us something.

16) Bulletboys: This Naples, Florida ensemble (crap, they originated in, what, a retirement village?) got compared to Van Halen because they used the same producer and their singer liked to whoop and holler like prime-time David Lee. So, great--why not just form a Van Halen tribute band and rake in some real money?

15) Lita Ford: The Runaways provided some great trashy rock 'n' roll, but Ford's '80s output just smacks of over-processed cheese. And why is it that when these hard rockers finally team up with other hard rockers, in Lita's case Ozzy Osbourne, it's for a freakin' ballad? (That would be "Close My Eyes Forever.") If you're going to duet on a ballad, call Barry Manilow!

14) Stryper: Christian Metal is just wrong, and quite possibly an oxymoron. I suppose you could say it's more rebellious since it rebels against the traditional concept of rebellion. But then that would make activities such as mowing the lawn, doing the dishes and getting a haircut all part of a Satanic plot. I go with that King Of The Hill show that, when confronted with a Christian rock band, laid it out straight with something like this: you're not making Christianity better, you're making rock n' roll worse.

13) Great White: Even before the great fire in that small Rhode Island club that stained whatever legacy they'd aimed for, Great White were responsible for bland, routine glam metal that screwed up a perfectly good Ian Hunter song in "Once Bitten, Twice Shy." The band has also suffered enough line-up changes that even their founder Jack Russell has taken to calling different line-ups "Fake White."

12) Slaughter: Never trust bands that form after so many other bands have already succeeded with the same formula. You can't blame Mark Slaughter for starting his own band. Everyone knows that being the singer in a band means you're as important as the guitar player--even if that guitar player is Vinnie Vincent and you're part of his "Invasion"--and you should capitalize on it by maintaining ultimate lead singer dominance at all costs.

11) Giuffria: ‘70s goofy glam boys Angel were a sight to behold and if someone had to guess who from that band would succeed on their own, chances are the smart money would've been on Punky Meadows and not keyboardist Greg Giuffria. Yet, it was Greg who put together this unrocking set of dudes and a tune called "Call To The Heart" that was their only real hit. They stopped soon after. Merci!

10) White Lion: So this is what it sounds like "When the Children Cry." Their first label rejected their debut album. And now singer Mike Tramp is planning on a new record and tour with a completely new version of the band. I suppose somebody will notice this. Who does he think he is, Axl Rose?

9) Damn Yankees: Gee, Tommy Shaw of Styx and Ted Nugent of Ted Nugent form a band and it's not very good? How could that possibly happen? Who screwed this up? I mean, according to Ted Nugent, he's great. And who wouldn't believe Ted Nugent? After all, he had a hit in 1977, so he's right up there with Debby Boone and Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band. Actually "High Enough" was a huge hit. Enough to make your head hurt. Where'd I put the Head-On?

8) Warrant: How many forms of wretched can one band deliver? Well, if "Heaven" isn't enough for you, there's always a little "Cherry Pie" to go along with it on the side. Power ballads! Crappy stadium anthems! And guest spots from the guys in Danger Danger and Poison! It's like a recipe straight from Rachael Ray.

7) Bad English: A "supergroup" with guys from Journey and John Waite! And a hit song--"When I See You Smile"--written by the ultimate "professional" songwriter Diane "Un-break My Heart" Warren. Well, then, who needs rock n' roll when you have true media professionals providing the entertainment? Even Waite admitted to not enjoying his time in this corporate rock monolith! Not really music, but an incredible simulation!

6) Europe: What does it tell you about a band when their most successful album, in Europe's case The Final Countdown, inspires its guitar player to leave? Millions buy the album. Radio and TV play the song and video and the people who create it question what the hell they're doing. The guitarist in question did eventually return--but only years later, when I guess he ran out of other things to do.

5) Whitesnake: Whitesnake were around for so long that we're ignoring their decade as a blues band to focus on their decade as a vehicle for the dissemination of once-upon-a-wife Tawny Kitaen videos. Singer David Coverdale got so tired of being compared to Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant that he signed up with Zep's Jimmy Page and formed the imaginatively titled Coverdale-Page. When that didn't go so well, Page re-found Robert Plant and Coverdale re-found Whitesnake. Reality TV re-found Tawny. This is starting to sound Biblical.

4) W.A.S.P.: "We Are Sexual Perverts"? "We Are So Perfect"? "We Ain't Sure, Pal"? "We Are (expletive deleted) Performers"? Coming from the same scene as Motley Crue, RATT and Quiet Riot, W.A.S.P. excelled at being the "least good" of the batch. For their efforts, they were razzed by the Parents Music Resource Center, a group of Washington Wives who would've made an even worse band had they picked up instruments. Tipper Gore, contrary to speculation, was no Tawny Kitaen.

3) Extreme: "More Than Words" may be the dullest song in the English language. And it's had plenty of competition. How uninspired a singer is Extreme vocalist Gary Cherone? Well, he joined Van Halen and made people miss Sammy Hagar.

2) Skid Row: The only advantage of listening to Sebastian Bach sing is that it means he isn't talking. If Ozzy wasn't Ozzy, he'd be on this list, too, since anyone who has ever been considered a "celebrity" of any kind who agrees to be on a reality TV show is telling the world their career is in the toilet. I mean, look at the company you're joining? Peter Brady? Dave Navarro? Emmanuel Lewis?

1) Poison: Why? Do you have to ask? For "Unskinny Bop." For "Every Rose Has Its Thorn." For "Nothin' But a Good Time." For a cover of "Your Mama Don't Dance," already one of the worst songs of all time, even before Poison touched it. Have you ever heard Rikki Rockett or C.C. DeVille speak? Have you listened to these albums? They've sold over 25 million albums? And Bret Michaels still needs to do a reality TV show? Great, he's no longer the singer of a band but an understudy for Flavor Flav.

[westcoastO]

Couldn't care less what anyone says, I f***in love skid row lol

[smitch124]

My guilty pleasures on this list: Dokken, Y &T, and Autograph

[westcoastO]

i don't mind a few warrant songs either personally lol

[revnecro1273]

meshuggah makes the list? really? of all the death metal bands from scandinavia they are the best one? i think not

[revnecro1273]

wow...metallica didnt make it? wtf...hell some of those on that list i wouldnt consider to be heavy metal...led zepplin? jimi hendrix? maybe for their time i guess, but over the course of time that is not heavy metal

[westcoastO]

I don't actually think I've even heard a song of theirs... and I can recognize a song by pretty much everyone on both lists, what do they sing