10 Essential Gateway Tracks To Get You Into Metal

Metalheads worldwide can argue for hours about what sub-genre of metal deserves to be the top of the heap, but if there is one thing that we can agree on, it is this: metal rules! Born of electric blues, psychedelia and early '70's glam rock, metal originated in England during the late '60's and early '70's. Some purists insist that Led Zeppelin were progenitors of metal and it is commonly accepted that Tony Iommi and the boys in Black Sabbath deserve the title as the world's first true metal band; their first four albums are considered the canon of early metal history for good reason. One of the enduring qualities of heavy metal is the loyalty of its following across a broad demographic. At a recent Lamb of God show it was observed that the audience was represented by both guys and gals whose ages spanned from teens to 6o-somethings, though the older folk wisely avoided the circle pit. Another enduring quality of metalheads everywhere is this: they think that everyone should be into metal and can't quite understand how it is that a large segment of the music-loving public totally ignores it in favour of other genres. If it is true that metal can be enjoyed by anyone at any age then the question becomes how do we introduce the genre to people who are into pop, techno, country or whatever? Given the chance, what bands could introduce the genre and potentially create converts? If we were to preach the metal gospel, what bands, albums and tracks would evangelise a Lady Gaga lover? What follows are ten tracks with the potential for a musically-spiritual conversion. Our methodology is simple in that we begin at the lighter end of the metal spectrum and progress through ten tunes until the message has been preached, to the heaviest extent possible. Our choices cover a broad spectrum of metal from the '7o's to the present day but alas due to the nature of our goal, contain no Norwegian Death Metal.