10 Best Metal Albums For Non-Metal Heads

2. The Black Album - Metallica

Any self-respecting metal fan wouldn't call anything Metallica did in the '80s as "accessible." Even though these thrash titans had some slower songs in their catalog like Fade to Black, the epic running lengths of their songs along with the relentless aggression was a bit of a hard sell for the fairweather fans of the genre. After the maligned sessions of And Justice for All, things took a bit of a turn for the Black Album.

Instead of the forceful sounds of their earlier material, this was one of the first metal releases that had a more pop-centric slant to its writing. Recorded with legendary producer Bob Rock, most of this record is what metal would sound like if it cleaned up its act a little. As opposed to something like One or Master of Puppets from their previous albums, songs like The Unforgiven and Nothing Else Matters have serious hooks that could fool non metal heads into thinking that this is just a beautiful ballad.

That's not to say that the old school thrash days are over though, from the amazing swing groove on Don't Tread On Me to one of the heaviest cuts Metallica would ever make on Sad But True (which found its way onto rock radio regardless). At long last, metal finally had an album to its name that didn't need to skimp out on amazing riffs to reach a mass market.