10 Perfect Metal Albums Everyone Tried To Copy

No genre is safe from some copycats every now and again. Even if some gatekeepers think that metalheads are the more purehearted from of artistic expression, there are still plenty of bands that like to use their favorite bands as a model for what they do. It might be considered cheating, but that’s just a testament to the kind of model that these albums were in the first place.

What made these stick out from the pack was how much they were gamechangers when they came out, having a much different sound or approach to what people were envisioning as metal music. Since you also have different sounds at play, you’re also going to rope in different audiences to your sound as well, and every one of these artists seemed to have potential well beyond the metal market, from pop fans getting into the prettier songs to rock fans who could respect the riffs that were coming out of all these songs.

In the wake of these records, there would be countless musicians citing this as a reference point for what made them want to pick up a guitar in the first place. They might not have seemed like classics at the time, but there’s a good chance that half of the people who picked up these records became musicians from it.

As much as rock was in its golden age in the '70s, it was also about to enter a pretty big slump towards the tail end of the decade. While bands like Led Zeppelin may have still been on top of the world before John Bonham's death, seeing prog rock being thrown into the mix got way too tired for its own good, with bands playing songs that became too long for their own good. There was a different stripe of metal on the horizon though, and Van Halen created the blueprint for what the Sunset Strip scene would look like.

Going through the band's self titled debut, you can hear the building blocks for what glam metal was going to become, from the flashy leads coming from Eddie's guitar work to David Lee Roth's unmatched sense of swagger, along with a healthy respect for Southern boogie put into the mix as well. While they were just intending to capture their live set, there's a certain magic that comes with this record, going from the party jams like Feel Your Love Tonight to some of the more harder leaning stuff like I'm the One or Atomic Punk.

This may have been a bit dangerous in the late '70s, but this sound really belonged in the decade that followed, as bands like Motley Crue and Quiet Riot rose to prominence with the same kind of crunchy singalong songs that Van Halen had become known for. There were bound to be a few more classics to come out of the woodwork, but for the genre at large, you're only going to make this kind of record once.