10 Best Rock Music Album Closers Of The 1980s
1. Raining Blood - Slayer (Reign In Blood)
Rounding out our trio of thrash tail-enders from 1986 is probably the best almost-title track in metal history.
Slayer opened their third album Reign in Blood with a song about evil Nazi scientist Josef Mengele, so they needed something pretty strong to bring things to a satisfying ending. Luckily, they just so happened to round out the record with their most famous piece.
Raining Blood also doesn't pull its punches, envisioning a violent uprising against God in Heaven. That kinda defeats the point of Heaven, but that's Slayer for you.
The song goes hard. Like, really hard. Like, so hard that it would still go hard even if it were released this week, let alone back in the Reagan era.
The riff from Raining Blood is one of the strongest that thrash metal has ever produced and it's almost an outrage that fans had to wait until the finale of the record to hear it.
The song has been played over 1,800 times live by the band, which is a testament to its staying power. Does it close out their live shows too? You'll have to go see them to find out.