10 Legendary Rock Bands That Made Metal Albums

When talking about the genre of metal, David Bowie doesn't really feel like he belongs in there at all. Though his style of glam rock may have been a big influence on the hair metal bands that would come later like Motley Crue and Def Leppard, the appeal behind Ziggy Stardust in the early days may have seemed campy for the hardened metalheads. Before he brought out his characters though, Bowie unpacked his electric guitar and tried his hand at heavy rock on the Man Who Sold the World.

Right off the bat though, this isn't the likes of death metal or anything. You can still tell that these are David Bowie songs, but the instrumentation behind him has its teeth out a lot more this time, with the guitars especially crunching on the album opener The Width of a Circle. While originally just being known for the title track that would go on to be covered by Nirvana, Bowie could have passed for a metal superstar back in the day, playing off the riffs in just the right way and somehow still sounding like himself.

There are even some songs on here where you would swear that Tony Iommi had a writing credit, having the same kind of dark energy that made Sabbath so big to begin with. You have to look at who were dealing with though. David was a musical chameleon, and this was just one of the many musical costumes that managed to suit him so well.