Metal Music for Beginners \m/

Well, hello there! It seems you have stumbled upon my post, so you've done one of two things to get here....

Either 1. You were scrolling through and thought this was a post about something to do with physical metals and by the time you arrived and realized what this post was really about, it was too late (haha!),

or 2. You are a genuine metal head and wanted to check it out, or are a "noob" and are genuinely interested in finding out a good place to start in becoming a metal head, as per suggestion of your super-cool and badass metal head friends! :D

Either way, you've come to the right place!!!!

However, this still begs the question.... "Where do I start?" Well, everyone who identifies as a metal head, no matter the age bracket or background, had to start somewhere. In this post, I only seek to inform and/or inspire those who have always wanted to give metal music a shot. All metal heads have their own back story as to how they got into metal in the first place, and I'm here to A. share my story (or at least some of it) and B. delve into some bands worth noting in the genre and hopefully reach out to someone with a good list of bands to start with, in hopes of gradually growing into the GOOD stuff (metal that is)! \m/

First thing's first.... if you don't mind, I'll give a brief back story on how my allegiance to metal came to be.

See, my mother, God love her, was quite the metal head herself back in the day. My first memory of hearing metal goes all the way back to when I was still in cribs and strollers and the like. In fact, I believe this may be my only memory that goes that far back.... I can't even for the life of me recall how old I was.... maybe 2 or 3? Anyway, I remember first hearing Ozzy Osbourne's "Diary of a Madman" album in its entirety. To this day, half due to nostalgia of that exact memory, it is my favorite Ozzy album. Thus began my journey on the path to a love for metal. (I even recall my mother once saying that my first technical concert was when she was only a few months pregnant with me, she and my father went to see Slayer.... no wonder it's in my blood!)

Anyway, moving on....

So, from that point on, I delved into the rock and metal genres throughout my upbringing with such pure ferocity that I simply couldn't get enough. Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Triumph, Stryper, Testament, Danzig, Helloween, Manowar (these crazy fuckers were my Ma's favorite band during that time and she even got to meet them!), Exodus, King Diamond and so on. Most of my influences were of the thrash variety, but I was a lover of all types of metal sub-genres, depending on what struck my interest at the time.

The first rock album I ever owned was Kiss' "Double Platinum", when I was 7 years old.

The first metal album I ever owned was Iron Maiden's "Piece of Mind", when I was around 10 or 11.

I have now acquired, to this very day, a current CD collection (comprised mostly of metal) of 800 or more, spanning from the old days all the way up until now, which serves to me as a perfect chronological anthology of the genre I love so much. And hopefully this will serve as a stepping stone for those who have taken interest. And now, since you have all been so patient putting up with my little background story, the time has come to form a list of your very own, which may or may not contain any of the following albums, in chronological order, which have all marked as a massive influence on myself both as a metal musician and a metal fan alike.

Hope you enjoy scoping this list as much as I have enjoyed compiling it. :)

First, let's start with 10 from the old days (1970-1990):

1 . Black Sabbath - "Black Sabbath" (1970)

2 . Black Sabbath - "Heaven and Hell" (1980)

3 . Ozzy Osbourne - "Diary of a Madman" (1981)

4 . Iron Maiden - "Killers" (1981)

5 . Iron Maiden - "Piece of Mind" (1983)

6 . Metallica - "Kill 'Em All" (1983)

7 . Metallica - "Ride the Lightning" (1984)

8 . Slayer - "Reign in Blood" (1986)

9 . King Diamond - "Abigail" (1987)

10 . Slayer - "South of Heaven" (1988)

Well, quite the list thus far, wouldn't you agree? 10 choices just didn't seem like enough, but at the risk of ridicule, it only seemed appropriate to try not to overload you with too many things to look up (if you so choose to), but still manage to give you a good variety of metal ranging over 20 years of "old school".

And now, onto the modern age (1990-present):

1 . Pantera - "Cowboys From Hell" (1990)

2 . Cannibal Corpse - "Butchered at Birth" (1991)

3 . Korn - "Korn" (1994)

4 . At the Gates - "Slaughter of the Soul" (1995)

5 . Slipknot - "Iowa" (2001)

6 . Opeth - "Deliverance" (2002)

7 . Nile - "Annihilation of the Wicked" (2005)

8 . Lamb of God - "Sacrament" (2006)

9 . As I Lay Dying - "The Powerless Rise" (2010)

10 . Demon Hunter - "Extremist" (2014)

Well, as I've said before, I really wanted to make these lists longer, but had I done so, this post would have NEVER gotten finished haha! :p Regardless, I hope you enjoyed these suggestions, and I look forward to connecting with other metal heads on here in the coming days, assuming anyone finds this posting!

Till next time, fellow Steemians....

Stay metal. \m/

@damiancraymond