10 Biggest-Selling Rock Music Albums Of All Time

Metal has never been known as the safest of genres for the mainstream. If you had given casual music fans the opportunity to listen to the likes of Color Me Badd or Pantera back in the day, the sounds of Phil Anselmo's growl would have scared half of them away. The harder side of rock is tenacious though, and Metallica became the spokesmen for the genre on the Black Album.

While not being nearly as heavy as their previous records, Bob Rock's touch on production duties made the biggest thrash band into metal superstars, grossing almost 16 million copies. And for good reason too, with songs like Enter Sandman and The Unforgiven gaining nonstop rotation on MTV for just how mellow they were in the age of Megadeth and Slayer. They didn't forget their roots altogether though, with Sad But True being one of the heaviest riffs that they've ever put on record.

From what they say now, it didn't even look like the band expected this record to do the numbers it did, going out on tour after recording only to find themselves on the road for the next 5 years before going into the studio to cut the next record. Grunge may have been taking over the rock mainstream at the time, but when you have an album this strong, no amount of trendy music is going to beat it.