What is the most influential metal album in history?

Influence in metal means inspiring not just fans but entire genres — albums that shifted the course of heavy music forever. Vote for the metal album that has had the greatest and most lasting impact on the world of music.

1

Black Sabbath

The 1970 self-titled debut that invented heavy metal and influenced virtually every heavy band that followed.

2

Paranoid

Black Sabbath's 1970 follow-up that cemented the metal blueprint with iconic tracks emulated by generations of bands.

3

Master of Puppets

Metallica's 1986 record that defined thrash metal's artistic peak and inspired countless extreme metal subgenres.

4

Reign in Blood

Slayer's 1986 album that directly influenced death metal, black metal, grindcore, and hardcore punk in equal measure.

5

Black Metal

Venom's 1982 album that not only coined the genre's name but provided the satanic and raw aesthetic that black metal built upon.

6

The Number of the Beast

Iron Maiden's 1982 album that took heavy metal global and showed that the genre could achieve mainstream success without compromise.

7

British Steel

Judas Priest's 1980 album that crystallized heavy metal's image, attitude, and sonic template for all subsequent bands.

8

Machine Head

Deep Purple's 1972 album containing 'Smoke on the Water', one of the most recognizable riffs and a gateway drug to metal.

9

Under the Sign of the Black Mark

Bathory's 1987 album that created the sonic and thematic vocabulary of black metal, influencing waves of Norwegian bands.

10

Slaughter of the Soul

At the Gates' 1995 album that spawned thousands of imitators and practically created the Scandinavian melodic death metal wave.

11

Human

Death's 1991 album that elevated technical and progressive elements in death metal and inspired the genre's most ambitious acts.

12

Lateralus

Tool's 2001 album that pushed progressive metal into philosophical and mathematical territory, influencing a generation of modern metal bands.

13

Ace of Spades

Motörhead's 1980 album that bridged heavy metal and punk, directly inspiring thrash metal and the entire extreme metal underground.

14

To Mega Therion

Celtic Frost's 1985 avant-garde metal album that influenced doom, black, death, and gothic metal across decades.

15

Leviathan

Mastodon's 2004 album that revived progressive and sludge metal and launched a new era of artistically ambitious heavy music.