10 Rock Albums That Invented Entire Genres

At the start of the ‘80s, metal had begun to split into two separate factions. While the New Wave of British HEavy Metal had its place in culture, the tide was turning towards the sounds of LA, as bands like Motley Crue and Poison dominated the charts with songs about the excesses of life. That wasn’t true metal in some fans’ eyes though, and Metallica’s debut was where the old school metal bands had left off.

Made on a shoestring budget, Kill Em All was the sound of metal getting more teeth, creating songs that were indebted equally to the sounds of punk as they were to metal. Although James Hetfield had mentioned that he couldn’t stand listening to this record because of the sound of his voice, his knack for songwriting set the stage for future generations of thrash metal, with everyone from Anthrax to Overkill following their lead.

There were also a few hints at where Metallica would go later on this album, like Cliff Burton’s bass solo Anaesthesia setting the stage for some of the longer instrumental passages they would do later on Orion and The Frayed Ends of Sanity. The glam rock scene may have flaunted their metal credentials, but this was what the genre was supposed to sound like.