Classic Metal Class Session 11 — What Makes “Best Albums” The Best?
it’s not just a popularity contest!
For session 11 of Classic Metal Class, we decided to do something new. In a number of previous sessions, we referenced and discussed what we consider to be the best albums by classic bands. Everyone has opinions about that sort of matter. But really reflecting on the question, analyzing what makes an album best, explaining why — that requires a lot more thought. And so it was about time to devote a session to the matter.
When it comes to considerations like this, it is often very useful to examine a range of relevant examples. Scott and I thought we’d look at the albums of five major classic metal bands active in the heyday of that movement: Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motorhead, Dio, and Accept. We also extended the Dio selections into Dio-era Black Sabbath and Rainbow albums as well.
I put out calls in my social media and in my YouTube channel, asking people what album they thought was the best for each of these bands, and inviting them to give reasons for their judgements. We also — when these were available — looked at polls about best albums for these bands done by Kerrang and Loudersound.
Before we got into polling and analyses for each of these five bands, we engaged in a more general discussion analyzing what makes for greatness in albums. What criteria can we provide for what makes an album great, better than others, or even the best? Settling this can’t be a matter of record sales or popularity contests among casual listeners. There are plenty of awful or just not particularly good albums that sell well, after all. We also considered and rejected several other arbitrarily subjective criteria. The better criteria we went on to discuss are:
- the “killer to thriller” ratio for songs
- how influential the album is on later bands
- what the bands and musicians themselves think about the albums
- and, how good the band and the musician is in the era of the album being recorded.
You can hear or watch the entire discussion here:
We started with Iron Maiden, and looked first at my unscientific polling, which yielded this order: Number of the Beast, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, Piece of Mind, Powerslave, and coming in fifth, Somewhere in Time. The Kerrang poll had the same albums, but in a different order. For me, I was admittedly torn between Killers, Number of the Beast, and Piece of Mind. It is interesting to see that the first five albums after Bruce Dickenson became the vocalist drew the lion’s share of votes.
Next, we looked at Judas Priest, who already had a string of absolutely solid albums out there before Iron Maiden brought out their debut, and the results for this were very interesting. The album that got the most votes was the relatively late Painkiller. Sin After Sin and British Steel were tied for second. Stained Class and Sad Wings of Destiny came in fourth and fifth. The vote in Kerrang included Painkiller, Sin After Sin and British Steel, but had Defenders of the Faith coming in first, and included its predecessor Screaming for Vengeance.
The Motorhead results were also quite interesting. I found myself much more in agreement with the results of the Loudersound survey, which really highlighted the early albums. Ace of Spades was first, followed by Overkill, then Bomber, Motorhead, and Another Perfect Day. With the exception of the last one, they’re all Fast Eddie era works. Ace of Spades topped the polls I did as well, followed by Overkill and Bomber— so far so good! — but the respondents then selected 1916 and Bastards. Great albums all of them, but I do gotta say that I love Another Perfect Day!
With Dio, as mentioned above, we realized we’d need to include the three albums he did with Rainbow and the two with Black Sabbath in the mix. I wasn’t surprised that in my own polls Holy Diver dominated at number 1. I was, however, kinda shocked to see that in the Loudersound polls, Holy Diver fell behind the Black Sabbath album Heaven and Hell! It’s a really great album, but better than Holy Diver? The other albums that made it in for my polling were Rainbow Rising, Mob Rules, Magica, and Angry Machines. For the Loudersound, it was the three Rainbow albums. No Last In Line for either!
And then, we have Accept. I think by then, my respondents were a bit worn out, because we didn’t get a lot of them. I would have thought that Balls To The Wall would have gotten the most votes, but it was another really excellent album from the same era, Restless and Wild. None of the other albums got a significant measure.
I’m Greg Sadler, the Heavy Metal Philosopher. You can join me and my co-host Scott Tarulli each month for a new session of Classic Metal Class).
I’m also the president of ReasonIO, a speaker, writer, and a producer of highly popular YouTube videos on classic and contemporary philosophy. I teach at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, and offer classes to the wider public in my Study With Sadler online academy. I also produce the Sadler’s Lectures podcast and co-host the Wisdom for Life radio show
