For some, the 1980s were about neon and new wave, yacht rock and wine coolers, wide lapels and pristine pop. For others, the decade is ed as a time to don a battle jacket, throw up the horns, and bang your head along to some of the best metal songs in history. The 1980s was a transformative decade for metal and hard rock, ushering in changes and a level of mainstream popularity that hasn't been felt since.
While many think of "hair metal" when it comes to hard rock in the 1980s, that's an unfair assessment. The decade was much more diverse. Many bands from the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM for short) released some of their best work, and subgenres like thrash, death and black metal quickly rose up from the underground. There was also a lot of experimentation, as metal interacted with hip-hop and techno, proving that '80s metal wasn't just spandex and the Sunset Strip.
10 Ozzy Osbourne - "Crazy Train"
Album: Blizzard of Ozz (1980)
Ozzy Osbourne got fired from Black Sabbath in 1979. In 1980, he released Blizzard of Ozz. The lead single not only kicked off a robust solo career (which will conclude on July 5, 2025, when Ozzy plays his final show and performs with Black Sabbath for one last time), but it showed that the "Prince of Darkness" still had plenty of gas left in the tank. Ozzy would be a metal mainstay throughout the decade with albums Diary of a Man and Bark at the Moon, and it all kicked off with that iconic shout: "All aboard!"
9 Venom - "In League With Satan"
Album: Welcome to Hell (1981)
Formed in Newcastle in 1978, Venom played heavy metal that was faster, harsher, and darker than their NWOBHM counterparts. Their debut album, 1981's Welcome to Hell, would significantly influence the creation of the thrash, death, and black metal genres (Venom's second album is literally called Black Metal). Venom also likely contributed to the '80s Satanic Panic with songs like "In League With Satan," which made it clear which side they were on.
8 Iron Maiden - "The Number Of The Beast"
Album: The Number of the Beast (1982)
By 1982, Iron Maiden had gone through three lead singers, and it seemed like the band would never break through. When Bruce Dickinson replaced the outgoing Paul DiAno, something clicked. The resulting album, The Number of the Beast, elevated the group from mere metalheads to metal gods. Dickinson's soaring vocals became synonymous with Maiden, and the group's high-voltage heavy metal became the soundtrack to the early '80s.
7 Def Leppard - "Photograph"
Album: Pyromania (1983)
It was in 1983 that we saw the rise of metal in the mainstream, thanks a lot to the release of Def Leppard's Pyromania. The band shifted away from their heavy metal sound to more radio-friendly tracks, and Def Leppard was all over the radio in the 1980s. "Photograph" was huge in the US, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts and No. 12 on the Hot 100. It also laid the foundation for glam and hair metal's success in the subsequent years.
6 Ratt - "Round And Round"
Album: Out of the Cellar (1984)
1980's hair metal mixed glam, glitter, and pop with hard rock. The sound spawned bands like Mötley Crüe, Poison and Dokken, making Los Angeles the center of the metal world. In the decades since, many have dismissed hair metal as music by pretty boys in makeup and spandex, but as Metalocalypse pointed out in 2006, there was plenty of sleaze on the Sunset Strip.
One of the bands that conveyed this marriage of scum and sexiness was Ratt, whose big hit is good enough that it's often a guilty pleasure for the sternest of gatekeeping metalheads.
5 Faith No More - "We Care A Lot"
Album: We Care A Lot (1985)
'80s metal was not just glam. Alternative- and funk-metal took off in the decade, with groups experimenting with different sounds of the 1970s to produce something unusual and infectious. The Red Hot Chili Peppers are often credited with being the genre's forefathers, but bands like Faith No More and Primus also merged slap bass and funk grooves.
Faith No More's "We Care A Lot," featuring vocalist Chuck Mosley, is a defining track of the decade's underground metal scene (and it sets up the sound the band would take further when vocalist Mike Patton replaced Mosley in 1988).
4 Slayer - "Raining Blood"
Album: Reign in Blood (1986)
Thrash metal rose from the primordial ooze in the 1980s, with bands wanting to play faster than ever. 1986'7 birthed The Big Four, a quartet of groups that released genre-defining albums: Metallica and Master of Puppets, Megadeth with Peace Sells...But Who's Buying, Anthrax's Among the Living, and Slayer with Reign In Blood--the latter producing a song that embodies everything that thrash has to offer. Tom Araya's terrifying vocals belt out a hellacious scene as the song builds up to a bloodthirsty crescendo.
The title track quickly became one of Slayer's signature songs, inspiring generations to headbang harder, faster, and stronger. It has also made its way into the mainstream; it was featured in a 2019 episode of the ABC sitcom, Single Parents.
3 Guns N’ Roses - "Welcome To The Jungle"
Album: Appetite For Destruction (1987)
Guns 'N Roses is so deeply linked to '80s metal that it's often forgotten that the band didn't show up until the decade's back half (not until two groups, L.A Guns and Hollywood Rose, ed forces). Their debut single, "Welcome to the Jungle," failed to gain traction upon its initial release, and record label mogul David Geffen had to ask MTV to play the song's video—which the channel eventually agreed to do at 4 am EST.
"The MTV switchboard blew up," Tom Zutaut, who signed the band to Geffen, told the BBC in 2016, per UDiscoverMusic. "Too many phone calls came in, it sparked the thing and it melted." It was a viral hit, and Guns N' Roses—with their bend of blues, grit, sex, and attitude—would carry the torch for metal for the rest of the decade.
2 Metallica - "One"
Album: ...And Justice For All (1988)
In 1988, two years after losing founding bassist and songwriter Cliff Burton in a fatal bus accident, Metallica released ...And Justice For All, an album woven with the band's grief. The single "One" details the plot of the 1971 anti-war film Johnny Got His Gun, a dark and gloomy tale compared to glam's party attitude.
But audiences were ready for it. Critics praised the group's complexity, and fans wanted more: it became Metallica's first song to chart in the U.S., and it would earn Metallica their first Grammy.
1 Mötley Crüe - "Dr. Feelgood"
Album: Dr. Feelgood (1989)
1989 was a massive year for metal and hard rock. Established bands like Sepultura (Beneath the Remains) and Overkill (The Years of Decay) released some of their best work, while other groups announced their arrival with now-classic debut albums: Nine Inch Nails (Pretty Hate Machine), Obituary (Slowly We Rot), Morbid Angel (Altars of Madness), and Nirvana (Bleach).
Hair metal bands were falling out of fashion, but if they were going to go out, they were going to go out partying. Mötley Crüe experienced one last bit of major success with the release of 1989's Dr. Feelgood, whose title track would be the band's only gold single.