A Beginner's Guide to Heavy Metal

We have all been at that point where we heard something on the radio, or heard something mentioned to us by a friend, or saw something on a magazine cover that just caught our eye or ears. It was new, exciting, and we wanted to know more. One of those things is heavy metal music. So you hop online and look it up, and you realize this is truly a vast landscape to scour. Heavy metal has been around for well over forty years and in that time there have been more bands and sub-genres than you could possibly hope to count. With all of this stretched before you, how do you know where to begin? Well, as a devoted fan of this music in all of it's facets for many, many years, I feel that I am qualified to help you get your start. Detailed in this is a list of ten albums that will help give you your introduction to heavy metal and help you decide if you want to delve further.

While not necessarily heavy metal by many people's definition and known by most even casual rock listeners, to understand where heavy metal comes from and some of it's essential elements, this album is a must. "Smoke on the Water" is one of the most universally known riffs of all time and helped set a standard for the many simple low register riffs to come in the future.

Another album known and revered the world over, this masterful combination of speed, volume, fantasy based lyrics, Robert Plant's soulful croon to banshee wail vocals and Jimmy Page's irresistibly catchy riffs has been an enormous influence on not only heavy metal, but all forms of rock n' roll since the day it was unleashed upon the public.

Recorded shortly after the tragic death of former lead singer Bon Scott, "Back in Black" serves as both a send off from the band to their dearly departed brother and as a blistering offering of straight forward hard rock. The ungodly shriek of then new singer Brian Johnson and guitarist Angus Young's powerful riffs and solos have made this album standard listening for most bands wanting to dawn the heavy metal title (fun little side note, this is also my favorite album of all time).

One of the most "extreme" albums on this list, almost every heavy metal band that has sprung up in the last twenty years has walked in the path that Pantera carved with this metal masterpiece. The band was making a transition from the hair metal circuit they had once occupied into the heavier groove and thrash influenced metal that would make them legendary, but this album still stands, in my opinion, as the biggest testament to everything that made this band the masters of their craft.

Maybe cheating a little bit, but both of these albums are the best representations of the biggest forces in heavy metal during the 80s. Metallica with "Master of Puppets", the album that continues to top heavy metal "best of" lists to this day officially put thrash on the world map and made Metallica a house hold name, while Guns n' Roses' "Appetite for Destruction" lifted the hair/glam metal sub-genre out of the mascara and hair spray filled, lipstick stained gutter where it had been festering for far too long and gave it a new, much more sinister, but no less poignant face, as well as gave us Slash, one of the most recognizable guitarists alive.

From opening roar of the title track to the headbanging groove of "Please Don't Touch", this album is without question required listening to anyone hoping to hear some good old school heavy metal. Lemmy's gravel scraped vocals and "Fast" Eddie Clarke's searing leads are enough to make anyone want jump on a motorcycle and tear through town.

One of the first heavy metal albums to reach No.1 on the billboard charts, Iron Maiden crafted a perfect combination of duel guitar licks and piercing operatic vocals a-la new front man Bruce Dickinson. Among most metal heads, this album is an absolute classic that brought Iron Maiden to their rightful place as front runners of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement. Fun Fact: This was the album that convinced Vincent Price to lend his vocals to Michael Jackson's "Thriller".

Although personally not my favorite Judas Priest album (that distinction goes to "Painkiller"), "British Steel" is without question their most important. A milestone for both the band and for heavy metal as a whole, sporting a twin lead guitar set up, the Metal God himself Rob Halford sporting a 4 (or 6 depending on some sources) octave vocal range, bringing in many of the visual hall marks of heavy metal including motorcycles and leather, and featuring the rebel's anthem "Breaking the Law", this one is a must.

Argued by many to be the first true heavy metal band, Budgie is a sadly underrated, underplayed band that have had an influence on an innumerable amount of heavy metal sub-genres. Long song lengths, haunting lyrics and dark riffs, this welsh power trio displayed a level of skill in song writing, musicianship and heaviness that was almost too far ahead of it's time.

Chronologically speaking, in terms of album releases, Black Sabbath is the first heavy metal band, and for anyone looking to experience heavy metal, there is no better place to start than the metal masterpiece, "Paranoid". All of the characteristics that would come to define heavy metal as a genre are present. Down tuned riffs, dark lyrics, everything about this album set a template right at the beginning for what heavy metal is and a standard that few, if any, have ever been able to match. This album is an absolute must own for anyone even curious about heavy metal.

I hope you all found this useful, there will be more lists and reviews to come.