My Life in Metal; One Metal Album from Every Year I Have Been Alive.

1974 Judas Priest - Rocka Rolla

Tag: heavy metal

This album defines the first Not-Sabbath band, Metal begins taking shape as it goes farther away from simple Hard Rock. This is also the year Kiss and Van Halen form.

When I was a kid I was turned away by Judas Priest when I knew they didn't want kids listening to their albums, I rediscovered them much later in life.


1975 Black Sabbath - Sabotage

Tag: heavy metal

Black Sabbath's seminal first five albums have already been released, however it includes one of my favorites, Symptom of the Universe as well as my least favorite, Am I Going Insane (Radio).

1976 Scorpions - Virgin Killer

Tag: heavy metal

Metal begins the long hard road of being stereotyped as controversial, by now Shock Rock by the likes of Alice Cooper and Kiss is in full strenght.

I never listened to Scorpions seriously, when I was discovering Metal their glory days had already passed.

1977 Motörhead - Motörhead

Tag: heavy metal, speed metal

The reticent fathers of Speed Metal make their debut this year. A scene that is only seven years old begins showing signs of being diverse.

1978 Van Halen - Van Halen


Tag: heavy metal, glam


The seed of the very decadent and brief incursion of Metal into the mainstream, I would know about them alongside everyone else, with their album 1984

1979 AC/DC - Highway to Hell

Tag: heavy metal

By now, AC/DC is a well established band and shirts with their logo are common in the street, my introduction to AC/DC was thanks to a lone song in a compilation; I knew I liked it, but I dared not look for more.

Well, what do you expect? I'm five in 1979!

1980 Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard Of Ozz

Tag: heavy metal

I love the riff of Crazy Train,yet I secretly wish the song was better...

1981 Venom - Welcome to Hell

Tag: heavy metal

The beginning of Extreme Metal and yet I am oblivious to this. No death growls yet, but the satanism associated to Black Metal is there.


1982 Witchfinder General - Death Penalty

Tag: doom metal

By now, Both Witchfinder General and Saint Vitus have taken the original somber sound of Black Sabbath and created Doom Metal, a distinct branch of tye Metal tree.

1983 Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind


Tag: nwobhm


When I was a kid I was absolutely terrified of Eddie! I could not stand watching at the covers! This is my favorite Maiden album, although my Favorite song is Fear of the Dark.

1984 Ángeles del Infierno - Pacto con el diablo


Tag: heavy metal


When I was in Secondary school they made me watch this documentary where a priest spoke about how Metal was evil and had subliminal messages and was corrupting the youth (yeah right). He continually used the song Maldito Sea Tu Nombre as evidence of thus, because it presents the Devil in a positive light. so I listened to that song, I loved it and got myself the tape, Guess my soul was beyond salvation at that point!

1985 Possessed - Seven Churches


Tag: death metal


Extreme metal at its finest and I am still playing with my action figures from Return of The Jedi...

1986 Candlemass - Epicus Doomicus Metallicus


Tag: doom metal


This album contains one of my favorite songs ever; Solitude. This is one of the reasons I started previewing albums from the Internet, CDs are very expensive in my country, so I have to make sure the one CD I do buy is not going to be a waste. I only knew about this album as from recently.


1987 Bathory - Under the Sign of the Black Mark


Tag: black metal

The world has to suffer the decadence of mainstream metal from the likes of Ratt, Skid Row and Cinderella and this jewel is brewing, the future seed of all metal is silent but extrtemely loud...


1988 - King Diamond - "Them"

Tag: heavy metal

I love King Diamond because he dares to sing evil in that chipmunky voice! In that moment of my life I believed all metal had the same operatic, Dioesque quality but oh no!

1989 - W. A. S. P. The Headless Children

Tag: heavy metal

I entered preparatory and I had to save for a week to buy an album. I saw this one at the record store and bought it the same reason many other kids do, because it looked "evil" and was I surprised!!! Many of you may think less about W. A. S. P. but I still enjoy this album very much.

1990 - Solitude Aeturnus - Into the Depths of Sorrow

Tag: doom metal

Although many people like Beyond the Crimson Horizon better, I rediscovered this jewel thanks to a fading memory, I had this lyric I could not take from my mind, so one day I googled it and found it was from White Ship, which remains one of my favorite songs.

1991 - Thergothon - Fhtagn-nagh Yog-Gothoth


Tag: doom metal

Yay! Lovecraft inspired music that is not corny,. but actually captures qhat I felt when I was a kid and read "The color out of space" for the first time!


1992 - Root - The Temple In The Underworld


Tag: heavy metal

If I ever have a daughter I am definitively naming her Casilda because of Casilda's Song.


1993 - Brujería - Matando Güeros

Tag: death metal, grindcore

My first real approach to extreme metal. To this day I prefer Death Metal in a language that is not my own (spanish), because actually being able to understand it creeped me out big time.
And the cover is a real classic!


1994 - My Dying Bride - Turn Loose the Swans

Tag: doom metal

I heard this album for the first time in a discman that a girl I was dating gave me while I waited for her outside her class. She had been looking for that album and she finally got around to order it and I was hooked instantly! Back then I liked all sorts of music that I consider stupid now. (I actually took band names from MTV! ugh!!!)


1995 - Paradise Lost - Draconian Times

Tag: doom metal

One of my regrets in life is not going to concerts when I had the chance. I actually missed them when they came to Mexico!!


1996 - Saint Vitus - Born Too Late

Tag: doom metal

One of the only albums or pieces of art that have made me realize the sad reality that I have the personality of an addict, but not the access to the drugs.
That might be the reason I like stoner doom so much.

1997 - Burzum - Daudi Baldrs

Tag: black metal, dark ambient

I love the mental pictures this album gives me, so cold, so desolate, so majestic.. Free Varg Vikernes!!!


1998 - Blind Guardian - Nightfall in Middle-Earth

Tag: epic metal

The only album of Epic Metal I like, I haven't been so proactive in listening to more Blind Guardian or Iced Earth or other Epic bands, just because this album fills me so completely.


1999 - Morgion - Solinari

Tag: doom metal

What? You got the name wrong!!! It should be Nuitari!!! Get your Dragonlance deities right!!! You almost make me ashamed of having played Dungeons and Dragons so many years!


2000 - Ufomammut - Godlike Snake

Tag: sludge doom

For years and years this band eluded me, it was the holy grail for me, I just listened to a preview in an obscure website and I was hooked! Until recentñy I got the albums and they don't dissapoint!

2001 - Anorexia Nervosa - New Obscurantis Order

Tag: symphonic black metal

Do you remember Audiogalaxy? It was a lot like last.fm, with genre clouds, recommendations, forums, live chat... Back in the day of dial-up it was the place where us Napster refugees went to discover new music, I still listened to a lot of garbage The New Shins? blechhhh!!! I got Stabat Mater Dolorosa because I was hooked on a play by the same name and I got this jewel. I got to admit that it was hard for me to get Black Metal, but once I did I never regretted it.


2002 Funeral - In Fields of Pestilent Grief

Tag: funeral doom

I loved Funeral Doom from day one! The ambient, the atmosphere, the twenty minutes or more-long songs. That's why I don't scrobble more songs, my average song is ten minutes long! (and also I listen to one-hour podcasts, last.fm should take into account the time you spend scrobbling!)


2003 - Necrophagia - The Divine Art of Torture

Tag: death metal

An album inspired by ultrahorror films! Both Flower of Flesh and Blood and A meia-noite levarei sua alma are films that inspire me.


2004 - Aarni - Bathos

Tag: funeral doom

The only reason I got this album is because someone tagged it as Industrial Doom. For years I thought that Industrial was my favorite genre of music (I love Velvet Acid Christ, Skinny Puppy and KMFDM, but not that much). This album also oncorporates elements of Thelema and Magick, subjects that fascinated me in the past.


2005 - Reverend Bizarre - Crush the Insects

Tag: doom metal

Thanks, because By This Axe I Rule! taught me that great metal can also afford to be self-aware and parody itself without being silly and rock harder than ever!


2006 - Saturnus - Veronika Decides to Die

Tag: doom metal

Same title as the novel by Paulo Coelho, but the most badass title for an album ever!

2007 - Novembers Doom - The Novella Reservoir

Tag: death-doom metal

Twilight Innocence brings tears to my eyes, it's so beautiful, and yet it's between br00tal headbanging tracks. If I ever learned something from the original Black Sabbath is that Metal always had a place for ballads, Solitude and Changes being perfect examples of this. (of course, the 80's brought us the power ballad, but I dare you to say that 18 and Life does not rock)


2008 - Ataraxie - Anhédonie

Tag: funeral doom

Avide de sens may last 20 minutes, but I can listen to it again and again. The song that made me buy an Ipod, so I could scrobble while in the street.

2009 -