Best metal albums 19851/2/2023 ![]() ![]() The talent that had once pushed the boundaries of heavy metal had outgrown their cages and flown into newer, heavier, more transgressive genres like thrash or death metal. NWOBHM and its peripheral genres only saw a modest 16% increase from 1984 to 1985, well below the baseline 35% jump in releases (again, that’s full-lengths, EPs, splits, and demos) that metal as a whole enjoyed in the same time period. The meteoric growth of metal had metastasized entirely onto thrash. NWOBHM and speed metal, once the saviors of metal, and then the innovators on its leading edge, were falling out of popularity. So there was not only a massive jump in volume, but the quality of the records was astronomically high, too.Įlsewhere in the genre, the status quo was changing as well. And consider that there were only a scant 44 thrash metal albums (so not including demos, EPs, etc) released in 1985. ![]() Slayer, Anthrax, Destruction, Kreator, Exodus, Watchtower, Overkill, Artillery, and Megadeth all released top-shelf albums still receiving praise today. And as any thrash devotee can tell you, these weren’t albums of the dust-collecting sort the year is a veritable who’s-who of thrash metal. By 1985, 361 thrash records hit the shelves - a 144% increase in volume over a single year. In 1984, there were 148 thrash metal releases (full lengths, EPs, splits, demos). Perhaps it’s a bad omen for one of the crown jewels of a genre to appear in its infancy, but in any case, the thrash revelation of 1984 must have proved an obvious foreshadow to the madness that was unleashed in 1985. What began as a troublingly chaotic version of speed metal had morphed into something mature and utterly groundbreaking in a single year. It also cemented thrash as a commercial viability Ride the Lightning quickly rose to number 100 on the Billboard 200. By 1984, Ride the Lighting had realized the immense potential of the burgeoning genre. The first legitimate thrash releases came in 1983, with the most polished belonging to (who else) Slayer, accompanied by fun, energetic releases like Metallica ’s garage band debut Kill ‘em All. As we have observed in the breakneck world of metal in the 1980’s, two years is all it takes for a genre to germinate, mature, and explode through the topsoil into public consciousness. If the story of 1980 to 1984 was how NWOBHM (and more specifically, Iron Maiden ) awoke metal from its dormancy to tear the boundaries of popular music, then 1985 – 1987 is about the coronation of thrash metal atop the metal throne, and the subsequent underground rumblings of a closely linked cousin, a blood brother faster, more brutal, and more astonishing - death metal.ġ985 was the year of thrash. ![]()
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