The site AMG just finished a countdown of all Slayer albums, ranging from worst to best. They ranked Reign in Blood as #1 and Christ Illusion as #2. Well opinions are like assholes. Anyway, it got me thinking; what would my top album be, and which albums from the Big-4 would I put on top? Would I rate them more different today then back in the days, would Master of Puppets and Reign in Blood still be the ones I enjoy the most these days? Well ... no. Let's see.

Starting with Slayer, then I'd put South of Heaven on top of my list. For me this was an easy one. I used to think Seasons and RiB was that best, but these days SoH is number one for me.

Moving on to Metallica. I just have to embrace the fact that Master of Puppets no longer is my favorite album of all time. Or strange as it may sound, it actually still could be. However if you're asking me right now, the I would chose Justice as my current favorite Metallica album.

Anthrax then. This was pretty hard actually. I wouldn't put Fistful at the No 1 spot, but after that there are a couple of contenders for the first spot. I eventually settled for Persistence of Time as the overall best Anthrax album in my 2018 opinion.

The came fucking Megadeth ... The only thing I was sure of was that Rust in Peace would not be my top choice. For some reason I never regarded that album as high as most other people did when it came out. And that haven't changed. But then ... for many years I liked Killing* most. I just liked that one so much. But then Peace Sells, Countdown and even Youthanasia (and Rust of course) has so many good songs. It's quite frankly damn hard to choose a best complete album with this band.
After thinking it through, I have decided to go with Peace Sells ... I'm still not 100 % convinced though

So, if you give their albums a spin today, what would you choose as your four top albums, have your opinions changed over the years?

SOH/KEA/FOM/RIP.

Rest in Peace will never change. Reign in Blood same.

Metallica I need to listen to more. Anthrax same, but tentatively State of Euphoria.

Thread would work best if you could somehow make a poll.

I think Ride the Lightning is Metallica's best and most timeless album. It has the best songwriting and isn't quite as overplayed as their other classics.

There's no way in hell that Reign in Blood and Rust in Peace aren't respectively Slayer and Megadeth's most timeless albums.

I kinda feel like of the Big Four, Anthrax were the most "of their time" with all of their self-admitted trend following. Among the Living may be their most "timeless" on the basis of its influence but I prefer Spreading the Disease and Persistence of Time as overall albums.

Shit, I totally meant Among the Living. Guess that shows the impact those albums had...

Slayer - Reign in Blood. By far Slayer's best album. Most consistent and every song on it rips IMO. I still listen to it quite fret.

Megadeth - Rust in Peace. Once again, consistent, ripping songs and the first album I grab when I'm in the mood for Megadeth.

Metallica - and Justice for All. I think this is where they peaked. I'm probably in the minority with this one.

Anthrax - Persistence of Time. Don't get me wrong, Among the Living and Spreading the Disease were excellent, but I just enjoy Persistence more.

Slayer - South of Heaven
Anthrax - Spreading the Disease
Metallica - And Justice for All
Megadeth - So far, So Good, So What

This will turn into everyone just naming their favourite albums by each band, and there is a reason why the "most popular" choices (MOP / RIB / RIP) will keep popping up. I don't think you're going to find many people mentioning Risk or the Loads (even if they do like those albums).

Even thought it's not my favourite, and I think Reign In Blood is the obvious answer, I'd like to give some love to Seasons In The Abyss. I just relistened to it start-to-finish for the first time in a while last month, and that record (and how it sounds) still holds up VERY much for me. I think the pacing is perfect.

Slayer has Show No Mercy and Hell Awaits. Both of these albums are top quality black metal. Otherwise, they aren't even worthy of your time.

As for the other bands, I don't care about any of them, and here is why:
- Megadeth is basically a half-arsed Metallica rip-off with more "technical" elements, and since I don't like Metallica, I don't like this much better. I'd much rather listen to something else.
- Metallica itself doesn't know how to write competent riffs. Besides, why would you listen to them when you have the first (and best) Exciter album, anyways?
- Anthrax... it boggles the mind as to why they're "Big Four" material. They are so laughably bad it's unreal. Basically, with Exodus, they're the precursor of the abhorrent beer thrash of today.

I didn't even know Anthrax was part of this big 4 and I never really listened to them The only Anthrax thing I ever bought was Attack of the Killer B's, that was probably a mistake!

My favorites for the other 3 are purely nostalgic, Show no Mercy, Ride the Lightning and RIP.

Think people missing the point of the initial question. Which albums have stood the test of time, not which is your favourite.

Lets be honest as much as we love their 80s material, most of it was 'of the time' and sounds dated to modern ears.

Reign In Blood is one of the most influencial albums on the entire extreme music scene that followed and still sounds great today. The prouction is great and the riffs could easily be on a death metal album, very ahead of its time.

When it comes to Megadeth I'd say as brilliant as their 80s stuff was, it was definitely '80s thrash (albeit more technical and progressive). I think Countdown and Younthanasia have stood the test of time more as they are more in the vein of heavy metal and sound more modern.

Even though its not my favourite Metallica album by far, the black album has stood the test of time of any metal album in my opinion. There's no overhanging influences from the 80s and it was the start of a new simpler stripped down songwriting. The production is amazing and sounds like it could have been released last week. That album is still getting people into metal today, its just so famous to non metal fans.

Rust in Peace has stood the test of time for Megadeth. While their earlier stuff is great, the sentiments and attitudes aren't as timeless. Peace Sells feels set in the 80s, a decade of excess under the pressure of the cold war. Same could be said for the 90s stuff, the bitterness and sour attitude feel a bit overplayed. RIP has themes that seem a lot more timeless, or at least still recurring today.

The other factor that holds up RIP over time is the musicianship. I think this was the first sober Megadeth album, and the lineup was also the most skilled. It still had the energy of the 80s, but the playing was on another level. I think the guitar work on this one has become more appreciated over the years, from Guitar Hero to everyone knowing more about guitar playing because of the internet. It also just hits that sweet spot for metal, where the earlier albums with covers didn't, and where the later ones that has vocal-driven parts (i.e. Pulling Teeth) had a different appeal. Sure, you get more of Mustaine's vocal personality on the other stuff, but this one is so much heavier on the Mustaine/Friedman guitar dynamic - Mustaine wrote the songs, but you can hear how the two of them really finished them and brought them to a higher level with the leads and solos.

Yeah, after reading through the thread I forgot what the title of the thread was... I agree with you on those 3. I've really only listened to Megadeth a handful of times since like 3rd grade when Countdown came out. I really liked the album at the time!

I think "Reign in Blood" is an absolute classic- probably the most quintessential Slayer album of all time, although I dunno- probably "South of Heaven" has done a better job of standing the test of time as it's a bit more varied.
I would say the same for "Rust in Piece" vs "Peace Sells..." as the latter is my favorate Megadeth album the "Rust in Peace" is so definitive. Metallica, it's a difficult question. The easy answer is "Ride the Lightning" or "Master of Puppets" but the more lightweight stuff from the 90's was (like it or not) more popular with the common rock fan, although the earlier stuff was more influential on the course of metal. I think "And Justice For All" has too many flaws to really qualify.
Anthrax is a tricky one as a lot of their stuff does sound a bit dated. I would have to say "Among the Living" as that one really defined their whole approach- less serious and less heavy than some of the other bands, but still upbeat, thrashy and enjoyable.

Even though I was much more of a Megadeth fan than a Metallica fan when I was a teenager, I have a much harder time choosing a favorite for Metallica than Megadeth. I think Megadeth's best record is by far Rust in Peace. It's massive, it's iconic and it was very technical for thrash metal standards when it came out, and is quite possibly the main influence behind the new prog thrash metal wave we are seeing now. Of course, Countdown to Extinction is also an extremely solid album, quite possibly my second favorite by Dave and the bunch. I wouldn't pick Peace Sells though. It's a good album with solid and iconic tracks, but there are weaker moments throughout the record. Rust in Peace stands the test of time because of amazing riffs and solid song-writing. It still feels very fresh, and like I said, there is a prog thrash trend going on right now, and I can see how bands like Vektor would list Rust in Peace as an important influece.

When it comes to Metallica, I think it's harder to decide. Their first four albums are almost perfect in my opinion, and since they all have a unique sound and song-writing approach, they all stand out for different reasons. Kill Em' All aged a little IMO because of a simpler, more old-school thrash approach. Ride the Lightning perfected what Metallica started with KEA, showing more in-depth song-writing and well-rounded tracks. RtL sounds good and isn't stuck in an era. I love Justice, but Justice might have aged a little. Not in a bad way though, but the tracks drag on a little too long a few times throughout the album. Master of Puppets wins for most people because of the timeless classics such as Battery and, of course, the self-titled track which is quite possibly the most popular Metallica track outside of their black album radio friendly tracks. But I believe the album as a whole to be a little less solid that Justice and RtL. So my choice would have to be Ride the Lightning.

"Stand the test of time" sounds like an excuse to mindlessly take Spin and other hipster magazines seriously

That seems nonsensical and possibly funny, you should elaborate

I think Reign in Blood and South of Heaven still sound incredibly fresh and powerful; there's a maturity to the writing there and Reign... still is shockingly brutal by any standard. The lyrics, too, have a detached, cold quality that was rare in thrash at the time (Anthrax's preachy Cosby thrash could never manage this; just look at how they would deal with similar themes - obviously, there's nothing really wrong with that and given Ian's background it's clear why he would write in this way). Obviously, 'Angel of Death' still condemns the holocaust but it does so in a way that seems so matter-of-fact in its description that it's just unique. The production jobs, too, don't sound "80s" in a way that Hell Awaits and Show No Mercy do. That's not to say that the first two Slayer albums aren't fucking masterpieces - they're miles better than South of Heaven, too - it's just that those two late 80s albums sound so mature and cold. It doesn't harm things that Dave Lombardo is such a fucking monster drummer, either.

Outside of that, I'd say Ride the Lightning. If I were ever to review it properly it'd note how unrelentingly morbid it is. Only 'Escape' is less than bleak and it's widely considered the weakest track on the album. Other than that, it's just a monolithic slide show of horrors; from the corporeal to the arcane. The record still sounds bludgeoning and the music stands up incredibly well against anything you might care to compare it to. Master... weirdly sounds more typical of 80's thrash and slightly more "aged" to me. That said, 'The Thing that Should Not Be' is startlingly heavy song and it's incredibly creepy to.

Peace Sells is, of course, to anyone with functioning ears, Megadeth's peak. Again, that punky, jazzy, technical blend is fresh and exciting all these years later. What ages it, perhaps, are some of the production choices (an over-reliance on very 80's sounding modulation on guitars and some goofy vocal effects). That said, the musicianship and the anger just make it such a vital record. The jazz influences brought in by Poland and Samuelson are both ripping and thoughtful, whereas Mustaine is just at his vicious as a guitarist.

Again, I'll stress that being "of the 80s" is not in any way a bad thing. These albums, however, would still sound really fresh today.

If we're using "stood the test of time" as the metric here, then there really isn't even a whole lot of discussion to be had, because the answers are all obvious. Each band's third album (barring the one really obvious outlier) pretty much sweeps.

Anthrax is probably the easiest to explain, because while they were always a product of their times, Among the Living is simply the one that has the most enduring classics on it. Obviously I wasn't really around/aware during their heyday but looking back and seeing all the promotional stuff they did and all the MTV hype they pandered to, it always seemed like they were more of a "brand" or an "image" than a band that set the world on fire with one singular album. They had singles, they had I'm the Man, they had the crossover with Public Enemy a bit later, they were always the ones who seemed the most comfortable selling themselves in any way possible to maximize their exposure. Yes I'm aware that Metallica had THE selling out that rattled metal to its core, but they weren't having guest episodes on Married with Children before Enter Sandman came out. As much as I like Anthrax, they always seemed the most phony, it doesn't matter that their lyrics themselves were usually pretty heavy on literature or societal ills or anti-racism and whatnot. So when people think back to them in their heyday, I feel like they tend to remember more of them being goofy and affable and drinking beer and destroying shit on TV and a whole lot less of their actual music. So with that in mind, Among the Living is the only logical answer as to which LP has stood out the most over the decades, because it's the one with Indians and Caught in a Mosh. You could argue that Madhouse or Antisocial or Got the Time were more popular and inescapable, but at the end of the day most of their albums had a few major highlights and the rest was filler. The only two that were great the whole way through were Spreading the Disease and Among the Living, and only one of those still dominates their live sets.

Slayer is also obvious with Reign in Blood. Metalloids love to argue for how Hell Awaits or Show No Mercy are superior and there's definitely an argument to be made there, but in the scope of this thread it's not even a question. I can't think of anything even remotely as brutal as that album with mainstream acceptance back then other than I dunno, Kreator a few years later? Angel of Death and Raining Blood alone cemented their legacy as thrash gods for decades to come and they haven't wavered from that. Hanneman and King played off each other really well, Tom still sounded manic, Dave was pretty much the most impressive drummer seen in metal at the time (it's easy to forget that pretty much nobody had his combination of skill, speed, and tightness until Sandoval came around), it's twice the intensity in half the time and it got exposure to the level that people who never explored the underground couldn't escape it, and they had never heard anything quite that furious and intense. You really could just throw out everything I said and just point out that it has their two most iconic songs on it and that's really all you need for this topic.

Metallica... well we all know Ride the Lightning is the best. Every dedicated thrash fan knows that, everybody moderately familiar with anything even slightly more underground than Headbanger's Ball fodder knows that. But at the end of the day, that's not the right answer. It's Master of Puppets, no matter how much you might want to deny it. You could argue that the answer should be Justice since it was so monumentally popular that the Grammys pretty much invented an entire category just for Metallica (and still fucked it up because of course they did), but I think over time the general opinion of that album has soured enough thanks to the production woes, the band's treatment of Jason in general, and the Guitar Hero game simultaneously showing an entirely new generation in no uncertain terms how borked up the production is on that album AND Death Magnetic. Puppets on the other hand is still held in almost universally high regard among the more mainstream metal critics. It had the title track, Battery, Sanitarium, it was just a massive hit and even though it's kind of obviously a calculated imitation of the previous album, this is the one that hit it big in real time. It was very well respected by their peers as well, and kids at the time lost their fuckin' minds over it before internet cynicism eroded so much of the album's status with nerds like us. Add in the inflated status surrounding Cliff's untimely death and the whole thing becomes this monumental swansong of a fallen icon. It was fast, angry, tight, James' balls finally dropped, Cliff noodled around when he could and gave the album loads of character, Lars is obviously kind of a shit drummer but his more simplistic rocking style always added a lot to the band's identity I'd say, and it made it all easier to digest. They didn't go for the throat like Slayer did the same year, they focused on hooks and memorability and as a result a lot of people were hooked and remember it fondly to this day. You could make good arguments for the following two albums to be in this spot, but for my money, Master of Puppets is the most timeless.

And lastly, for Megadeth, I'll just second everything Zodi said. I don't really have much of anything else to add to it. Megadeth completely outdid everybody before them with Rust in Peace and everybody who listens to it is blown away for a reason. It's pretty much the perfect album in my eyes, with the big popular songs (Holy Wars, Hangar 18, Tornado of Souls) being every bit as good as the deep cuts.

If you're going to talk about your favorites or their best or whatever, you could say many different albums, but with "stood the test of time", it'll take some good arguments to sway me from these choices.

Show No Mercy is the best album of all time so it's probably that one.

I really don't understand this take on the album, which seems to have come up in the last few years from people who are spitefully blind of context and looking for a reason to put down a famous album. They did what damn near every band on the rise does a couple years and a couple albums into their career - they continued to evolve and mature, and made their own distinct and unique style. It can be hard to understand this because the album became so iconic and unique, as well as their s/t, that pretty much every metal band we grew up listening to was influenced by Metallica. Of course some parts could be traced to their peers, but the massive, unmistakable influence of Metallica has been almost omnipresent in metal since these albums came out.

KEA was Hetfield and Ulrich's first finished foray into songwriting. The two of them wrote most of the songs together, with Mustaine factoring into four of them. Hetfield gets the only credit for Motorbreath, Cliff Burton's lone credit is his solo - because they were still rough enough around the edges to put a four-minute bass solo on an album - and Kirk Hammett had none, having been hired a month before they recorded the album.

RTL had five songwriters. There were still Mustaine songs, there were riffs Kirk had written in his time with Exodus, and only half the songs were written by the time they got to the studio. Hetfield and Ulrich assembled the other half the songs in the studio from tapes full of riffs and rehearsals. Songs were definitely coming from different places. "Trapped Under Ice" was more reminiscent of KEA, "Escape" as an attempt at a more melodic radio-friendly song, and both of those songs were shorter than anything else Metallica did on this and the next two albums. "Call of Ktulu" was a long and ambitious song still working with Mustaine ideas. Brilliant stuff, and Rasmussen did some great work to capture the Metallica sound and make the album sound as a whole, but there were a lot of refinements it lacked and some loose ends that perhaps only emphasized the thrashing.

MOP was the band's first chance to really work out an album from start to finish. Hetfield and Ulrich built the framework of each song, then brought Hammett and Newsted in to work the songs over. Of course it was reminiscent of their previous album, why wouldn't it be? It was much more refined - it's all Metallica, no more leftover Exodus riffs, and the last part from the Mustaine era worked out nicely. There was no "Escape" - they were really focused on what they were doing.

Master was just a complete album, from how they wrote the songs to the themes to the finishing touches and refinements to the band's image. There are a lot of seemingly little refinements here that make a big difference, subtle things like an extra overdub to create a harmony on a guitar part, or how different parts stacked up at the beginning of Battery or the end of the title track. This kind of stuff really set the standard for what could be done to refine a metal album while remaining aggressive (or killing metal, if you're only concerned about pepperoni pizza, Mountain Dew, and the large boner of thrash.)

There's something else about the incarnation of Metallica that was born during this era, a bit after MOP. Their image really came together, fitting with the sound and themes of Master, the tragic death of their bassist, and the direction of the band. They went from looking like some kids off the street in California to looking like a metal band with darker themes. This really struck me from watching the Seattle show from "Live Shit" and watching the film "Paradise Lost" which really makes the whole feeling and context come together. That was the first time Metallica allowed their music to be used in a film, and it really fit what Metallica were about, and what they stood for in those days. Metallica's music was a respite for normal people seeing the darker side of life, it was something these kids could relate to, and the feelings and themes from Master of Puppets fit so perfectly into this tragic story of teenagers being pulled into something they couldn't control, something they didn't do, and being tormented for it. Back then, you didn't have the internet, more extreme stuff didn't really make it into mainstream culture, but a Metallica album was a touchstone for disaffected youth looking for something they could escape into. What else could more perfectly fit these themes than Master of Puppets? It was musically refined and perfectly produced, it was a complete album and a complete image and experience. It seems like the album so perfectly accomplished this that a generation later it became the antithesis of the Napster thrasher who wanted band after band of abrasive riffs, rather than a complete work to escape into.

"Stand the test of time" could be redefined as "what will people still be listening to x years from now?" The answer is, especially these days "anything and everything." You could take the obscurest, dorkiest 60s or 70s pop album with an album cover of its time (see: Ken By Request), that no one could possibly be listening to. Guess what? Someone is listening to it. If you want to expand that to "which albums will still be selling x years from now" then you're turning it into the numbers game. Fuck the numbers game. Record sales are a necessary evil to keep the genre alive, but to use them as an actual barometer of quality can be problematic. I think the only reason albums like Reign In Blood and Master of Puppets* are constantly brought up in these debates is because they've been beaten over our heads with them in print magazines and such as a result of wanting to consume as much media as possible, even if some of these print magazines have no clue what they are talking about and just go by hearsay and rumor.

Fun fact: When Rolling Stone first made their best albums of the 80s list in 1989 the Metallica album that made that list was Kill Em All.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-best-albums-of-the-eighties-20110418/metallica-kill-em-all-20110322

*Which is NOT to say those albums are bad or that they haven't stood the test of time, but don't underestimate marketing momentum.

We are (all of us in this thread) looking for the one that stands the test of time, but here you're talking about context. You're saying it hit hard at the time, mentioning the statuts that Cliff's passing had on it's statuts and stuff. Plus, you throw in elements of "popularity" to rank it as their most timeless effort. Which is of course pretty logical. This is also why you come to the conclusion at the end of your paragraph that there could be good arguments in favor of the black album. Obviously enough, if we went for popularity and lasting commercial success, it would be a sweeping victory for the black album, but we do want to take into consideration more than that, since we are talking metal music and arts in general here. Even though you presented the case of Metallica as easy to solve by picking MoP, you put in a lot of good words for RtL, and also argued that Justice and the black album could arguably be their most timeless effort. So you basically said the same thing I said in one of my previous posts. You removed KEA from the list and had to pick between the next four. I disagree with the black album for reasons stated above, but between the other three records... I think it's pretty hard to make a definitive choice. MoP has a great balance between catchy/pop songwriting and quality riffing that can, arguably, make it the most obvious choice for the most timeless of all of their records. But popularity aside, I think RtL is the most memorable out of the two.

Well Rust In Peace is still almost unanimously praised as a metal masterpiece, so I think that's the obvious answer. Slayer's first two albums also had a massive influence on all black and death metal bands of the planet, and are still timeless classics (not that RIB is a weaker album, but in my opinion the first two were more influential even to this day).

I think what makes the black album timeless is the fact that it doesn't sound like their 80s thrash and it doesn't sound like 90s metal as that all came after it was released, so it was released at exactly the right time when it was between both sounds. Its pretty unique in that respect. Also it doesn't have any dodgy 80s production or any of the hard overproduced sounds of the mid to late 90s either. It is literally an album that doesn't belong to a particular era which was down to luck as well as design.

I agree with every last word of that, and I think a lot of it is what I was actually trying to say but just didn't have the eloquence to get to. On my part for the quoted section "calculated" may have been the wrong word, but I was purely talking about how the album is structured. It's not really a hot take I developed during a tryhard phase of Borisism, I noticed when I was like seven years old that both of them go intro/fast thrasher - title track (lengthy thrasher) - mid paced brooding track - ballad - fast thrasher - more melodic wildcard, and then the last two were flip flopped but still one was a fast thrasher and the other an epic instrumental. If it seemed like I was diminishing the album, that wasn't my intention really. Puppets is still my third favorite Metallica album behind the two previous and it's one of the most important and influential albums in my own development as a metal fan. I'm probably not at all exaggerating when I say I've listened to it in the quadruple digits at this point in my life.

This is an interesting - and 100% true - point that I haven't seen brought up before. Dunno where I'd go with it, but I appreciate the black album for this reason, although I'd never articulated it before, even in my head.

Otherwise, for me this comes down to Metallica vs. Slayer (probably the same for at least half of you). TBH I can never choose between the two. Both of them have so many awesome songs, moments, etc. One thing I'll say is that Slayer's songwriting is more distinct (although not necessarily better) than Metallica's. You can hear a Slayer song a fuckin mile away. The guitar tone, the riffing and melodies, Araya's voice.... granted, Hetfield had (imitators notwithstanding) a unique voice but Slayer sticks out like a sore thumb.

Throwing my 2 pence into the mix;

Megadeth - Peace Sells - best song and best production.
Metallica - Ride The Lightning - no brainier.
Slayer - Show No Mercy - always considered Slayer a one off album band if I'm being honest
Anthrax - Among the Living - 1st album was power metal, second was too comical, this one works.

The Black Album is clearly quality even if I don't like it much. Those guys worked so hard on that record and it just shows. The songs - despite being overplayed and somewhat boring - are still "good". It's really not comparable to any other metal album, it's just like the absolute biggest hitters in rock and pop. You could compare it to AC/DC's Back in Black, Def Leppard's Hysteria and some Michael Jackson stuff. Back-to-back hits, really. It doesn't even matter if you don't like it... it's a weird case of an objectively good record.

Well said. I think one of the coolest things about its legacy is how the style was really integrated into other styles that emerged in the 90s - very different styles that had a clear Metallica influence, like Paradise Lost's gothic metal with Hetfield-inspired singing, and Decameron's meloblackdeath with a 90s Metallica song.

I agree the Black Album is unique and important even if I don't like it much.
Master of Puppets is just superlative, though. They really hit "classic album" with that.

Slayer, Reign in Blood for being death metal avant la lettre.

Anthrax, Beyond the Living is the only one I ever got into, if I'm honest.

Megadeth - well, Rust in Peace is their triumph like MoP. Everything before is the epitomy of sarcastically biting thrash.

I mean really, all the Big Four's important albums are the 1980s. I enjoy some of their stuff into the 90s but it's hardly the same, epoch defining stuff as before.

I'd say pretty much everything from Megadeth holds up for me. I still listen to Peace Sells pretty regularly although I personally think So Far... is way weaker than the albums before and after it - at least till Risk. I feel like Cryptic Writings has probably aged the best, just because my expectations were so low the first time I listened to it. Hearing Megadeth play Risk live was amazing.

The other three bands I listen to very rarely these days. Metallica's Kill 'Em All is amazingly overrated in my humble opinion and hasn't aged at all well since '83. The song structures is really simple and repetitive on those songs and when you consider the whole album is 51 fucking minuets it wears me down pretty quickly. I usually end up skipping Hit the Lights, Phantom Lord and Metal Militia just to sweeten the deal a little for myself. RTL and MOP are both solid for me though - great through and through.

Slayer's early stuff is really good still and Anthrax's 3rd-5th albums have only gotten better with age.

Saint Anger will stand the test of time. That fucking snare drum will crash fran-tick tick tick tick tick tick tockally into eternity.

Actually the only albums I listen to from any of these bands any more are State of Euphoria and S&M

Slayer's first two albums get my vote . I'm not into the other Big 4 bands at all , so I have no opinion on that count .

In what way?

Kill 'em All is so fun. I think it's the only album where I ended up learning every song on guitar start to finish (obvs a break in Anaesthesia). I can't imagine Metallica playing it all now and it not just seeming horribly embarrassing though.

your opinions are shit, Exciter is shit and so are you

Show No Mercy and Ride The Lightning are eternally glorious and anyone else who says otherwise is a false, but I'd consider swapping in Hell Awaits as well. Absolutely vicious.

I think it's funny how Megadeth debut was ultra technical furious speed / thrash metal and they really toned down the intensity on the following albums (the most flagrant example is Peace Sells, with that lame verse riffs and obvious attempt at a sing-a-long hymn). Yet, Metallica obtained much more success starting as a slight aggressive speed metal band and becoming much more thrashy and technical with each album.

When a "mallcore kid" uses one of his only six posts (to date) to deliberately post controversial shit like that, I tend to suspect his real motives for joining the site in the first place. Incidently, it appears he has deleted his account (or someone did it for him) and it's now just a "Guest" account.

Exciter was okay; they were a good mix of early thrash and Judas Priest styled metal but they are, to me, another one of those "haven't aged well" kinda bands.

I was never a big fan of "So far...so good...etc" but I thought the one they did after made up for it. As for the Metallica "Black Album" for me, I always thought of it as their "sell out and grab the brass ring" kind of album. I was disappointed with it, but at the same time, I also didn't begrudge Metallica wanting to go mainstream and earn the mainstream success I always felt they deserved. I just avoided that album (and most of their 90's output) and continued to admire and respect them for their first four classics.

I'd wager Reign in Blood and Ride the Lightning are the obvious contenders here. RTL has a timeless heavy metal quality that far transcends everything else Metallica did, and Reign in blood is one of the most essential extreme metal albums with killers like Altar of Sacrifice, Raining blood, and Angel of death. MOP would be another bet but I think the song lengths and varying quality of the songs leave it as less of a pick than RTL. I can't listen to Sanitarium, The Thing that should not be, and Orion are nowhere near as memorable to me as the instrumentals, melodies, of RTL so that's the issue for me at least.