I think you're covering all bases with your top 7 of 1980 (I got them all 7 in my top chart) but my order would be a bit different:
1. Ace Of Spades: their second best album just behind Overkill and pure bliss
2. Back In Black: I like their Bon Scott period better but this was a fine comeback
3. Blizzard Of Ozz: I'm not always keen on his solo work but this is a good one
4. Iron Maiden: I like their later work better than their punk origins but hey this is still Iron Maiden: I don't want to hear a bad word about them 😉
5. British Steel: you know my opinion on Priest but this is one of their better ones
6. Heaven and Hell: I'm not always keen on their eighties work and it already shows a bit although still in my top chart
7. Women And Children First: I'm a fan of their first two albums and then it about stopped for me but this one is also ok.
I'm nearly finished with my Belgian albums thing in my own diary and my next round will be focused on harder albums (not every year has metal but I'll try to do my best). For each year I want to do an album I already own and one on my wishlist. A lot of the (extreme and other) metal albums you discussed here are on that list but tips are welcome.
In any case for the first half of the eighties I think I will need 20 metal rounds per year.
I think you're covering all bases with your top 7 of 1980 (I got them all 7 in my top chart) but my order would be a bit different:
1. Ace Of Spades: their second best album just behind Overkill and pure bliss
2. Back In Black: I like their Bon Scott period better but this was a fine comeback
3. Blizzard Of Ozz: I'm not always keen on his solo work but this is a good one
4. Iron Maiden: I like their later work better than their punk origins but hey this is still Iron Maiden: I don't want to hear a bad word about them 😉
5. British Steel: you know my opinion on Priest but this is one of their better ones
6. Heaven and Hell: I'm not always keen on their eighties work and it already shows a bit although still in my top chart
7. Women And Children First: I'm a fan of their first two albums and then it about stopped for me but this one is also ok.
Yeah, at different times in my life, my order would have been different. Just all stellar albums! Appreciate your takes!
Personally, I think the first FOUR Van Halen albums are untouchable, and Woman And Children is were they really crafted their sound. My ranking of their first four would actually look like...
1. self-titled (1978) - The game changer. Totally changed the trajectory of heavy metal/hard rock at the time! Black Sabbath was out. Van Halen was in.
2. Fair Warning (1981) - Extremely punk sounding album for their style of metal.
3. Woman & Children First (1980) - Where they perfect their style of sleazy party rock.
4. II (1970) - Aptly named as it is essentially the sequel to their debut.
Diver Down (1982) has way too much filler, but its essentially the sequel to Woman & Children First. And then they successfully pivoted to pop metal with 1984.
Quote:
I'm nearly finished with my Belgian albums thing in my own diary and my next round will be focused on harder albums (not every year has metal but I'll try to do my best). For each year I want to do an album I already own and one on my wishlist. A lot of the (extreme and other) metal albums you discussed here are on that list but tips are welcome.
In any case for the first half of the eighties I think I will need 20 metal rounds per year.
Can't wait! You know I will be supplying the tips! lol. Feel free to raid & pillage my year charts! \m/. 😁
First two Maiden albums are WAY too underrated. Especially Killers, that one could be in top 3 Maiden albums any time of the day. 1980 was a great year for early 80s metal.
Celtic Frost may be my favourite of all the 80s metal bands (ok Maiden are, but excluding them). Their first two are essential listen, just as important as Bathory's first several albums. To Mega Therion is probably the best first wave black metal album to me, just one crushing riff after another, slightly weird and avant-garde too. Not to mention the fantastic songwriting. _________________ Overall chart Fake overall chart
First two Maiden albums are WAY too underrated. Especially Killers, that one could be in top 3 Maiden albums any time of the day. 1980 was a great year for early 80s metal.
Totally! My ranking of Iron Maiden's early 80s albums would look something like this...
1. Killers (1981)
2. Piece Of Mind (1983)
3. Iron Maiden (1980)
4. Powerslave (1984)
5. Number Of The Beast (1982)
Two Di'Anno albums in the top three! lol. All FIVE are essential though! \m/
LedZep wrote:
Celtic Frost may be my favourite of all the 80s metal bands (ok Maiden are, but excluding them). Their first two are essential listen, just as important as Bathory's first several albums. To Mega Therion is probably the best first wave black metal album to me, just one crushing riff after another, slightly weird and avant-garde too. Not to mention the fantastic songwriting.
No-hit wonders Vardis led by the beastial Steve Zodiac never had a hit. Never had a record you’ve heard of. Never even get “likes” on YouTube. They are virtual unknowns. BUT, somehow they kept coming up. As I researched the NWOBHM, I kept getting pushed in their direction. I was itching to move on, too. I mean how much time can you spend writing about one fucking year – 1980 -, right?
Well, brothers & sisters, am I glad I listened to the cries and cued this baby up. For it is unquestionably one of the best LIVE albums I’ve ever heard. Raw power to the max. MC5 testimonial spliced with Ted Nugent 70s hard rock guitar prowess. Kick Out The Jams meets Double Live Gonzo!. If you’re a fan of 70s live rock n’ roll albums, this baby is a must!
So why Mother Of God does no one know of this immaculate platter of electrified goodness? Because they didn’t fit in. They were born a tad too late. Despite the genre tag. Despite where they lived and who they played with. They are NOT NWOBHM! They are not even metal, really. This is rock n’ roll. Slutty, sweaty, scintillating rock n’ roll one degree removed from England’s Pub Rock scene of the mid 70s that brought us Dr. Feelgood (who I will be writing about soon enough) and Eddie & The Hot Rods. It’s a wee bit harder than them, but damn if they aren’t their children. Just look at those ugly mugs!
You always hear it. They should have been as big as . Mostly, it’s bullshit. Take Diamond Head. Sure they had one essential album -Lightning to the Nations - whose riffs were rightly gobbled up by early 80s San Francisco thrashers like dung beetles gobbling up whatever it is dung beetles gobble up. (Please tell me it’s not dung. I just ate!) But that was it. One killer album does not make a legend. It’s albums and tours. More albums. More tours. Rinse & repeat. Just ask AC/DC, It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'N’ Roll). And they even had to do it with their JV singer! So they should know!
But, UFO truly got robbed. They should have been household names. Their names in lights. All that jazz you dreamed about while reading Hit Parader in your Underoos, singing into your hair brush and jamming on your tennis racket. Yet somehow the average bloke listening to classic rock radio has never even heard of them. Which is crazzy with two z's because they just may be the definitive 70s hard rock band. And that ain’t no hyberbole. It’s the God’s honest truth. UFO cranked out a mind boggling string of EIGHT straight albums that belong in the Olympus of 70s Hard Rock. Each a solid four star (or 8.0 for those of you with Pitchforks up your arses.) From Phenomenon in 1974 to The Wild, The Willing & The Innocent in 1981, UFO by all that is good & holy should have dominated the hard rock air waves. Even when their guitar prodigy Michael Schenker ditched them for The Scorpions (and then a solo career) in 1979, UFO continued to turn out two solid throwback hard rock albums in the early 80s with No Place To Run and The Wild, The Willing & The Innocent.
But for my money, there are three platters that are full-on five star molten monsters of proto-metal. Their most metallic, hard-edged stuff before they brought the strings in and tried to dance with your kid sister at junior prom. When a teenaged Michael Schenker wanted to bring the entire world to kneel before his hard ripped abs and black & white V-neck guitar. By all accounts, he was one of the guitar gods of the 70s, and he proved it time & time again on the three that matter – Phenomenon, Force It, and No Heavy Petting. A time when UFO crafted the sound of 70s hard rock. Something halfway between Mountain’s Climbing (whose Leslie West was the last guitarist that Michael Schenker ever copied) and The Sweet’s Sweet Fanny Adams. And not very far removed, I am contractually obligated to add, from what Micheal’s older brother Rudolf’s band The Scorpions were cooking up just a couple countries over during the same time period. The formula that influenced a legion of hair metal bands in the the 80s. (God spare their souls! They knew not what they did!)
Tldr: There are THREE albums by UFO that I feel are ESSENTIAL for the metal canon. And they all came during the mid-70s when UFO were easily one of the top and most influential hard rock/metal bands on the planet…
THE THREE U NEED
1. Phenomenon (1974)
2. No Heavy Petting (1976)
3. Force It (1975)
After that, they continued to lay down four very good Hard Rock albums. But they had changed the dial ever so slightly to the right and went a mite too AOR for my tastes.
Check out a teenaged Michael Schenker on this song & solo …
Doctor Doctor should be mentioned alongside Highway Star and other Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Rainbow classics as one of the best hard rock songs of all time. _________________ Overall chart Fake overall chart
Doctor Doctor should be mentioned alongside Highway Star and other Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Rainbow classics as one of the best hard rock songs of all time.
Gowi wrote:
UFO is one of the most important rock bands of the 70s.
Amen, brothers!
Anyone check out those Sweet videos? They're pretty awesome! 😎
Anyone check out those Sweet videos? They're pretty awesome! 8)
So much to say here.
First on UFO: I know the band mainly from greatest hits and that one great live album (and Doctor Doctor indeed has one of the best guitar intros and riffs ever and the longer the version you find the better it is), but I hadn't checked out their regular albums yet so in my own thread they (and Saxon) will be an important guest. I have now finished listening to their first album (of 1970, can you imagine and my view on it will come on my own thread). Incredible is the number of albums they have released since then (even until fairly recently) but I suppose the mentioned albums will be their best.
And then The Sweet. I think they and Status Quo are the bands I discovered hard music with in my youth (when I was 12/13 years old, I was a bit of a late bloomer because before that I listened to the Flemish schlagers of my parents) but I mainly knew their singles at the time (Fox On The Run, Action and so on) but not their albums and they still are a guilty pleasure of mine so I'm really glad with these indeed boiling live versions of Sweet FA tracks: I love them.
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