The past few years have seen vinyl come back in a big way. Seemingly every new album gets pressed on a series of limited-edition colored records, and fans eagerly add them to their collection. While lining a shelf with newly-pressed albums is great, no metal fan’s record collection is complete without some classic albums from the 1980s.
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The 1980s brought us countless classic metal albums from a wide variety of bands. The decade saw everything from the rise of hair metal to the birth of gore-obsessed death metal and everything in between. Below are some must-haves for metalheads.
1. Powerslave by Iron Maiden (1984)
No list of must-have metal albums from the 1980s would be complete without an entry from Iron Maiden. Powerslave was their fifth overall and their third with legendary vocalist Bruce Dickinson. The record’s singles, “Aces High” and “2 Minutes to Midnight,” are classics. Then, there’s the band’s version of “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” that clocks in at nearly 14 minutes and incorporates lines from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem of the same name.
2. Master of Puppets by Metallica (1986)
Metallica’s releases from the 1980s are some of the most popular albums among fans of thrash metal. Their 1986 album, Master of Puppets, is a perfect example of why these classic albums remain in heavy rotation decades later. The lyrics, musicianship, and song structure are far beyond what many other bands were doing at the time.
Puppets is one of the best thrash metal albums of the 1980s and Metallica’s final outing with the late, great Cliff Burton. “Welcome Home (Sanitarium),” “The Thing That Should Not Be,” and “Orion” are among the tracks that make this album the classic that it is.
3. Appetite for Destruction by Guns N’ Roses (1987)
Guns N’ Roses made their debut in 1987 with Appetite for Destruction. The album introduced the wider rock world to the larger-than-life guitar talent of Slash and Axl Rose’s instantly recognizable voice. Tracks like “Sweet Child o’ Mine” and “Welcome to the Jungle” made it a massive hit and launched the band’s career.
Rock and metal fans who are into music from the 1980s probably already own this album. While the singles were hits, those who dig deeper will find tracks like “Nightrain,” “My Michelle,” and “Mr. Brownstone,” that make it a must-have record.
4. Symphonies of Sickness by Carcass (1989)
Carcass are pioneers of grindcore. Some even credit them with creating the goregrind subgenre with their debut album, Reek of Putrefaction. They returned in 1989 with their sophomore album, Symphonies of Sickness, with a refined sound. They worked musical elements of death metal into their second outing, but kept the brutal tempos and lyrics seemingly inspired by forensic pathology. The album was also their first with lead guitarist Michael Amott.
Songs like “Swarming Vulgar Mass of Infected Virulency” and “Exhume to Consume” make this one of the goriest albums of the 1980s and a must-have for metal fans.
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