The 10 Best Heavy Metal Songs Of The '80s

Following its murky, prolonged origins and maturation in the 1970s, the bizarre history of heavy metal took a turn in the 1980s, when the music hit its stride. The toughest, roughest, and loudest of all rock genres peaked in that decade, with many of the superstars of metal emerging. Metal was at its most visible, popular, and radio-friendly, while also subject to lawsuits, censorship, and claims of indecency and occult connections. All that controversy only served to boost metal more.

So much classic metal, much of it dark and twisted, was born in the shiny, neon 1980s. But only some of it endured in the public consciousness as the most unhinged, thrashing, speaker-ruining, and headbanging. We've selected 10 songs that had the most impact on the history of metal and moved it into the mainstream. With pounding drums and screaming, acrobatic guitar work — all of it fast, heavy, and played as loud as possible — these are the 10 best heavy metal songs of the 1980s.

The eponymous track from Motörhead's 1980 album "Ace of Spades" helped change everything. In the 1970s, heavy metal was primarily slow and turgid, but in the 1980s it got fast and frenetic. Only three musicians play on this sleazy, bombastic song, but they perform with the ferocity of an army. Lead singer Lemmy Kilmister provides the low end — and his famous raspy yelp of a vocal — as he tries to keep up with "Fast" Eddie Clarke's ripping guitar and "Philthy Animal" Taylor's thundering drums.

Ozzy Osbourne was probably the definitive heavy metal artist of the 1980s, in that he packed his music and image with equal parts menace and off-center melody. After being dismissed from metal originators Black Sabbath in 1979, he came back as a solo artist the next year with a formidable backing band that showcased template-setting and classically influenced Randy Rhoads on guitar. All that came together on "Crazy Train," which chugs along like a runaway locomotive as it lets audiences know Osbourne is not to be trifled with and Rhoads is untouchable among hard rock shredders.

AC/DC demonstrated that metal didn't have to be complicated — it just had to be loud and aggressive. Heavy metal is all about the marriage of over-the-top vocalists and guitarists who give it their all, and AC/DC had something to prove on their 1980 album "Back in Black," the first recorded after the tragic death of singer Bon Scott. Brian Johnson stepped into the role and spoke for the whole band when he scream-sang about their triumphant return on the blockbuster LP's title track, a simple, four-beats-per-measure mid-tempo stomp embellished by guitar trickery and powerful drums.

Kicking off with one of the most famous, effective, and delicious guitar riffs in all of rock, "Breaking the Law" is Judas Priest's signature song. Propulsive and sinister, and recorded by a band whose name recalls one of the Bible's most notorious villains, "Breaking the Law" is a boastful call to rebellion. Sounding as much like '70s punk rock as it does '80s metal, "Breaking the Law" is both economical and blistering, the package coming together with broken glass and sirens.

The heavy metal subculture of the 1980s saw an overlap with fantasy fiction, and some artists indulged and obliged fans with works about wizards, quests, battles, and other genre tropes. The best of all such metal is "Holy Diver" by Dio. Fronted by the powerfully voiced Ronnie James Dio, formerly of Rainbow, Black Sabbath, and the mostly forgotten hard rock band Elf, Dio delivers an epic if baffling tale of big cats, dark seas, martyrdom, and "velvet lies." This is the world of the Holy Diver, and the galloping rhythms and screeching guitars of this 1983 single helped define '80s metal.

Credited as one of the bands that created thrash metal with their 1983 album "Kill 'Em All," Metallica made the already technically impressive metal of the '80s even more precision-oriented and performed at an absolutely blistering pace. Their following increased significantly after the 1986 release of "Master of Puppets," which nailed the formula: cleanly recorded but searing guitar riffs from Kirk Hammett, unrelenting drums from Lars Ulrich, and the rage-filled growl of singer James Hetfield.

Quiet Riot lost their guitarist to a mega-successful artist when Randy Rhoads left the band to play for Ozzy Osbourne, but they recovered. In 1983, their stark and proudly simple volume of anthems "Metal Health" became the first metal LP to top the American album chart. The title track is a wordplay-laden treatise on the glories of heavy metal music. Headbanging is a natural and primal reaction to the genre's rhythmic music, and Quiet Riot celebrates it in this extraordinarily catchy, chant-driven song that equates the rebellious attitude of metal with complete madness.

Metal-punk icon Glenn Danzig of the Misfits struck out on his own in 1988 with "Mother," a playfully wicked invitation to court unspeakable danger. While a newer version would be a hit in 1994, the original is prime '80s metal. It touches on the dark themes that got the whole genre in trouble with Tipper Gore's Parents Music Resource Center;  in fact, Danzig wrote "Mother" as a wry and pointed retort to the watchdog group. But the music itself rocks, thrillingly changing tempo from the slow and haunting opening lick with its sing-along lyrics to a rapid-fire delivery to match Danzig's vocal violence.

Slayer has always proudly brought danger to metal, playing up dark and shocking deeds, words, and imagery in horrific tracks like "Raining Blood," the final song on its similarly named 1986 LP "Reign in Blood." Horror-movie strings paired with storm and haunted-house sound effects enhance the mood, along with the towering guitar hooks and drums played inhumanly quickly. It all tells the story of an unholy presence coming to life and making itself known with a tremendous amount of bloodshed.

A misunderstanding that dogs '80s metal is that its singers just shrieked at a high volume. In reality, they were cleverly and compellingly utilizing the higher register in a way that had rarely been attempted, and Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson was a master. When he took over as lead singer, he introduced that unique style on songs like "Run to the Hills." It's also a surprisingly thoughtful and historical song, a lament of how indigenous Americans had to defend their land from invaders. "Run to the Hills" is as overwhelmingly metallic as it is emotionally devastating.