The 21 best heavy metal albums of all time, according to BBC Classical Music

Classical music and metal: two worlds that couldn't be further apart, in some ways diametrically opposed, yet they find common ground in a new list published by the BBC's specialist online magazine, Classical Music. Self-described "metalhead" writer Robin Askew, as the British webzine calls him in its introduction, set out to rank the greatest heavy metal albums ever committed to vinyl. "Well, this was genuinely hard," he wrote in the introduction. "If your favourite album didn't make the cut, sorry, but narrowing it down to just 21 great heavy metal records is quite a challenge. The only rule I set myself was to include each artist just once: otherwise there would have been far more Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath albums, at the expense of plenty of other deserving bands. And of course the late Ronnie James Dio would have popped up several times, but with different bands. The one exception is Ozzy, who appears both with Sabbath and as a solo artist, mainly because the albums sound so different from one another. Also, nothing on this list is less than ten years old: classics need time to become classics."

So here is the ranking of the 21 greatest metal albums of all time according to BBC Classical Music (full feature here)

21. Voivod – “Nothingface”

20. Nightwish – “Endless Forms Most Beautiful”

19. System Of A Down – “Toxicity”

18. Dream Theater – “Images And Words”

17. Carcass – “Heartwork”

16. Opeth – “Blackwater Park”

15. Living Colour – “Vivid”

14. Sepultura – “Beneath The Remains”

13. Ministry – “Psalm 69”

12. Korn – “Korn”

11. Rainbow – “Rising”

10. Pantera – “A Vulgar Display Of Power”

9. Judas Priest – “Painkiller”

8. Megadeth – “Rust In Peace”

7. Metallica – “Metallica”

6. Ozzy Osbourne – “Blizzard Of Ozz”

5. Queensrÿche – “Operation: Mindcrime”

4. Motörhead – “Ace Of Spades”

3. Slayer – “Reign In Blood”

2. Iron Maiden – “The Number Of The Beast”

1. Black Sabbath – "Black Sabbath"

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