10 Most Influential Hard Rock Albums

As the mid '80s started, metal as a genre had started to grow up. Thanks to the different iterations of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and the glam rock coming from LA, this wasn't the same neanderthalic genre that Black Sabbath had hinted at in the early '70s. The times they were a changing...and Metallica knew the way forward.

Compared to the other thrash metal bands arriving in the metal underground, Metallica were the real stars right out of the gate, balancing some of the most savage riffs with a healthy amount of melody to go around. Though there's still a bit of a debate as to which was the greatest thrash band, not many acts have a record as slamming as Master of Puppets under their belt. Sculpted from different riff ideas, each of these songs feels like a different epic unto itself, from the title track's finger-splitting riffs to the classical music interpolations found on Orion.

This is also a point where metal took on some more serious topics, tackling stuff like mental health, aggression, and war in a way that was much more matter-of-fact that the usual hymns regarding Satan. While the start of heavy metal may have been a bit earlier, any self-respecting metal band has a reserved place in their collection for this record.