10 Perfect Albums That Started Heavy Metal

Metal had certainly shown its face by the '70s...it's just that no one wanted to claim it. Led Zeppelin never really felt comfortable with being labeled metal because of their heavily acoustic work, and despite their heavy sound during shows, Deep Purple always felt like they had one foot trailing back into the blues half the time. You can definitely see where they're coming from, but Priest threw all the blues away and claimed the title for themselves on Sad Wings of Destiny.

Whereas their first album Rocka Rolla was very much a mixed bag of different psychedelic sounding songs, Judas Priest's second record is where everything started to fall into place, with KK Downing and Glenn Tipton making riffs that lit a fire in you from the minute that you heard them. While the sounds of this record may have been dark for the time, this wasn't the kind of intimidating music that made you want to turn the record off. When you listen to the sounds of the guitars squeal and Rob Halford's screams on tracks like Victim of Changes, you start to realize how exciting music like this can be.

In the wake of Priest finding their congregation, the rest of England seemed to follow suit, with the bands that followed taking the heaviness and running with it, from Motorhead to Iron Maiden. It may have still been rock and roll at the end of the day, but Priest were more than willing to carry the flag for metal wherever they went.