20. Poison – Look What the Cat Dragged In
“You gotta cry tough,” Pennsylvania pretty-boy Bret Michaels informs us right up front. By which he means that girl metal is twice as stupid and ten times cooler than boy metal and that talking dirty in your old man’s Ford is what rock ‘n’ roll is all about.
19. Motörhead – No Remorse
No one merged punk velocity and metal atrocity quite like these British biker thugs. Of their 932 albums, this two-disc best-of offers the most trounce to the ounce: ashtray-licking blues riffs, Lemmy Kilmister‘s “Macho Man” Randy Savage bellow, those dive-bombing double kick drums. They looked like warthogs, but, God bless ’em, they rocked like warthogs, too.
18. Aerosmith – Rocks
Eventually, they got their own roller coaster (at Disney-MGM Studios theme park). Here, these Beantown malcontents are their own roller coaster. While his loose-limbed band bolls Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, and the New York Dolls in dirty Charles River water, Steven Tyler sings and wriggles like the Stones’ logo come to lustful life.
17. AC/DC – Highway to Hell
The final curtain for singer Bon Scott before he choked on his own vomit. Raw but not sloppy, sex-starved but not sexist, this is the last AC/DC effort that feels like the work of extremely talented shop students.
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16. Def Leppard – Pyromania
Not a serenade, just a fire brigade. On their 1983 breakthrough, Def Lep dusted British pub metal with ’80s studio glitter (courtesy of hard-rock production don Muff Lange); “Rock of Ages” and “Photograph” drop-kicked ’70s dirtbag swagger into the space age. Joe Elliott screams to Valhalla, the guitars roar like two-ton blow-dryers, and drummer Rick Allen kicks ass even with a superfluous appendage.
15. Korn – Follow the Leader
Mook-metal’s darkest hour and change. Translating gangsta rap’s thudding nihilism for kids stuck in res-room purgatory, Head and Munky’s wiry, tuned-down riffing and singer Jonathan Davis‘ latchkey lyrics reinforce key metal tenets: Girls can’t be trusted, adults just want to abuse you, life sucks, and nobody cares. A 21st-century Beavis and Butt-head would know every note.
14. Black Sabbath – Vol. 4
Never heavier and rarely crazier, Ozzy inhales a cornucopia of Columbian blow, travels through time, and delivers the first (and perhaps last) truly industrial metal album. Most valuable player: Tony Iommi’s harsh exit-wound guitar.
13. Slayer – Reign in Blood
“Bones and blood lie on the ground / Rotten limbs lie dead / Decapitated bodies found / On my wall, your head!” On this inadvertently avant-garde bloodfeast, singer/bassist Tom Araya narrates Holocaust-footage lyrics like an overeager sportscaster; guitarist Kerry King and Jeffy Hangman trade weed-whacker/bee-swarm solos until Satan gives ’em a raise. Death metal was all downhill from here.
12. Rage Against the Machine – The Battle of Los Angeles
Page and Plant meet Chuck D and Flavor Flav. Harvard-educated guitarist Tom Morello twists riffs till his scales of justice squeal like wheels of steel; Zach de la Rocha chases ghosts through El Norte’s killing fields, winds up a raving loco on a street corner in the city of dreams, gets to the end of his rope, and finds a noose.
11. Mötley Crüe – Shout at the Devil
Per the liner notes, Shout was recorded on “Foster’s lager, Budweiser, Bombay gin, lots of Jack Daniel’s, Kahula and brandy, Quackers and Krell, and wild women!” “Krell” is Crüe-speak for cocaine, which might explain why the band dressed like sexually confused Decepticons while shouting in the general direction of Lucifer. Not particularly heavy, but hard; Dave Grohl in ’91 was basically Tommy Lee in ’83.
