| #61 |
"Hell Bent For Leather" Judas Priest Hell Bent For Leather (1978) |
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| 1978 was a banner year for the Priest, releasing not one but two truly classic metal albums. Here we have the title track from the second of the two, one of the band's better-known song from the era and deservedly so. | ||
| #62 |
"Why Don't You Kill Me?" Legend Death In The Nursery (1982) |
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| This song just beats out "Choices" (#97) as my favorite song from one of my all-time favorite albums. The Legend trademarks are here in spades -- a quite original sound, unique vocals, thought-provoking lyrics, and a killer riff. | ||
| #63 |
"Kill The King" Masters Of Reality Masters Of Reality (1988) |
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| The Masters Of Reality are hardly a typical BNR band. And even this song, probably their most metallic, really isn't normally my cup of tea, as this is really more of a swaggering hard rock song. Something, though, stuck with me, and it remains a favorite. The album got a lot of great reviews but never took off commercially, and though the band survived for years later (and may still be going), this album was their only real moment to shine. | ||
| #64 |
"Jerry Was A Race Car Driver" Primus Sailing The Seas Of Cheese (1991) |
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| I still remember being baffled when I first heard the opening bass riff to this song -- even though I'd heard Primus before and knew what Les was capable of, my first reaction was "what is THAT?". The song absolutely grew on me almost immediately and remains one of my favorite Primus songs. | ||
| #65 |
"Brain Scan" Voivod Dimension Hatross (1988) |
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| I wrote about Voivod earlier when picking a song from their third album, and here they are one album later, still honing and improving their original style. Piggy's signature guitar work is at the forefront as usual, but there's also some nice rumbling bass work courtesy of Blacky, some interesting time signatures for Away to work with, and Snake's understated, cool vocals. It's truly a testament to this band's greatness in that no two of their albums were quite the same, yet all sound uniquely like no other band. | ||
| #66 |
"Wild Catz" Tygers Of Pan Tang Wild Cat (1980) |
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| Another slice of simplistic NWOBHM goodness. The Tygers progressed quite rapidly after this album, first to a more mature metal style and then towards classic hard rock by the mid-80's. Here, though, they were just another young British band joining the NWOBHM rush, and this song in particular is classic for the day, featuring a heavy but quite basic riff. In terms of originality or technicality this won't score much, but I've always found it a cool and memorable tune. | ||
| #67 |
"Angel Of Death" Slayer Reign In Blood (1986) |
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| "Angel Of Death" is not only one of Slayer's most popular songs (maybe the most popular), it's become one of those transcendent songs that represents the entire music genre ("You want to know what metal sounds like? This is what metal sounds like.") Even the mighty South Park knew this, as the song was featured in a classic episode. And it's a deserving honor, the song's an undisputed classic, and embodies everythat is great about the band. | ||
| #68 |
"Silico" Treponem Pal Treponem Pal (1989) |
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| I've always thought that the bass guitar is sorely underutilized in metal, and songs in which the bass line is the lead will always win points with me. "Silico", the opening track off the debut album from the odd French industrial-ish band Treponem Pal, is just such a song, the main bass riff is just plain cool. | ||
| #69 |
"Weavers Of The Web" Manilla Road Open The Gates (1985) |
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| What fascinates me about this band is that, even though their style is traditional 80's metal and nothing else, they have one of the most distinct sounds of any metal. This song came of their fourth album (and, in my opinion, their first really good album) and is a fine representation of their style. | ||
| #70 |
"Bastille Day" Rush Caress Of Steel (1975) |
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| As one of the first bands I listened to during my very early metal days, Rush had to be on this list somewhere. "2112" was considered, though while I've always appreciated it, it's not a song I come back to very often. But "Bastille Day" is just that kind of song, culled from one of their least-well-received albums but still a great representative of 70's metal. | ||