Ranking Every Metallica Album From Worst To Best

You know what's worst.

Metallica Albums
Vertigo Comics

With Metallica's tenth album, Hardwired... to Self-Destruct now unleashed upon fans, what better time to comb back through all of their studio albums to date and decide some totally definitive rankings?

The legendary metal band invites fervent debate from its hardcore fans when it comes to deciding the best and worst of their output, so while you may not necessarily agree with all of these picks, they represent the ten albums within a modern context and, more crucially, compared to the band's brand new release.

From their fast-paced beginnings through to their more divisive years and recent resurgence, the band have gone through quite the creative and spiritual journey over the decades.

It hasn't all worked, but it's at least been interesting, and at its best, leaves the band absolutely untouchable.

Here is every Metallica album, ranked from worst to best...

10. St. Anger (2003)

Metallica Albums
Vertigo Comics

Best Tracks: Frantic, St. Anger

Worst Track: My World

Almost universally regarded as Metallica's worst album, St. Anger was a low-fi experiment that sometimes works, sometimes not, but touts an extremely stripped-down, bare bones production quality that rubbed up most fans the wrong way.

Lars Ulrich's snare drum in particular was widely panned and remains a point of mockery among fans, such that some genius even edited the St. Anger snare into Master of Puppets to hilarious effect.

There are a few crackers on the album that can transcend the mostly failed experiment, but there's a reason why fans have so much disdain for songs like My World and Invisible Kid. Also, no solos is a real shame.

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.