10 Most Influential Hard Rock Albums

Any type of guitar that had any layer of distortion always went under the mantle of hard rock in the early days. Whether it was the wild blues musings of a band like Cream or the psychedelic freakouts that you would find on records by the Doors, there was no real way to categorize any of these other than just heavy rock and roll. As it stands, metal didn't really have a name...until Black Sabbath came along.

Compared to the bluesier fare that was coming out of England at the time, this was what blues would have sounded like if it were soundtracking the apocalypse, with Tony Iommi pulling out some of the most doomy riffs ever conceived on songs like NIB and the title track. These riffs have also not lost their luster over time, with most of them having a permanent spot in any metalhead's spinlist.

And you better believe that the new kids were taking notice, with acts like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest feeling like direct antecedents of what Sabbath wrought. Even a single Sabbath tune is enough to found a complete genre, with the title track sounding like the beginnings of doom metal, black metal, and stoner rock all at the same time. Black Sabbath's debut is something that just should not exist in the normal world, but its arrival marked a complete change of the guard for heavy music.