10 Perfect Albums That Defined The '80s

After Black Sabbath laid the groundwork for metal in the '70s, the genre had definitely started to go in some weird directions. While you had some bands making more complex songs like Deep Purple, there were also bands like Motley Crue and Poison that were about to give the world the pop-ified version of what metal stood for. If you were a true headbanger though, the underground was about to dominate the landscape with Master of Puppets.

For most of the seasoned metalheads, you could probably throw a dart at any of Metallica's first few records as some of the definitive sounds of thrash. What separates Master of Puppets from the pack though is the songs themselves, which was the moment where everything clicked. Across every single track, it feels like you're being taken on a journey, from the drug induced Hell of the title track to being swallowed whole by Cthulu on The Thing That Should Not Be.

It isn't all just about banging your head against the wall either, with songs like Welcome Home being one of the closest ballads the band have ever had while also giving Cliff Burton time to flex his chops on Orion before he was taken from us shortly after this record was completed. Whereas bands like Slayer and Megadeth showed the more chaotic and technical sides of metal, this is the one thrash record with a bulletproof tracklist.