11 Heaviest Metallic Albums That Went Multi-Platinum

Solely a handful of steel albums have gone gold (500,000 copies offered) in the US, not to mention multi-platinum (two million or extra copies offered). These are the bands who’ve achieved it — some with the heaviest album of their profession.

Although all these acts are legendary in their very own proper, some (Judas Priest) solely have one multi-platinum album to their title, whereas others (Metallica) have launched extra multi-platinum albums than non-multi-platinum albums. For this checklist, we restricted entries to at least one album per band and tried to pick the heaviest multi-platinum album for every, with somewhat wiggle room for overwhelming success or affect. You may see what we imply.

Judas Priest’s eighth studio album is the band’s solely document that went multi-platinum in the US. Neck-and-neck with British Metal as Priest’s most celebrated album, and subsequent to Defenders of the Religion as their most rip-roaring, Screaming for Vengeance is Exhibit A for why Judas Priest stays the excessive watermark for pure heavy steel. 

The punishing, riff-heavy Countdown to Extinction is Megadeth’s best-selling album, and it’s an absolute thrash beatdown from the band’s most iconic lineup. The perfection of the album’s relative simplicity shines by way of on “Symphony of Destruction” and “Sweating Bullets,” whereas its closing observe, “Ashes in Your Mouth” is a ferociously heavy shred-beast of fury.

Far Past Pushed will be the heaviest album to ever go platinum, however Vulgar Show of Energy might be the heaviest to ever go multi-platinum. It’s the definitive steel document of the Nineteen Nineties, good in its mix of uncooked energy, skilled musicianship, locked-in tightness, emotional mastery and bloody-knuckled aggression. Solely a band like Pantera might go from “Fucking Hostile” straight into “This Love.”

If Vulgar Show of Energy isn’t the heaviest multi-platinum album, then Slipknot’s self-titled document actually is. When Slipknot broke, they have been the rabid canine of nü-metal, mixing the groove-heavy style with absolutely the violence and devastation of demise steel. They grew to become their very own beast, pioneering an audio illness that was as unsettling because it was catchy. 

Many steel aficionados will agree that Black Sabbath‘s Grasp of Actuality was the true starting of doom steel, so it’s unbelievable to assume the album has racked up over two million gross sales within the U.S. Tony Iommi’s tone alone is sufficient to catapult Grasp of Actuality into one the heaviest albums ever, and his riff writing on “Into the Void” impressed lots of if not 1000’s of pot-smoking guitar occultists. We’re really undeserving.

Software’s cult traditional Lateralus was propelled into the mainstream due to the weird reputation of “Schism,” however the lead single of Lateralus solely scratches the floor of this album’s greatness. With godlike cuts like “The Grudge,” “Parabol/Parabola” and “Lateralus,” Software’s third album is sort of a cheat code for the listener’s psychological well-being. Existential and progressive as fuck, Lateralus is remedy for the soul.

5 million copies offered within the U.S — much more than Black Sabbath’s Paranoid at 4 million copies. It’s absolutely the prodigious genius of Randy Rhoads, on full show in tracks like “Loopy Prepare” and “Mr. Crowley” that introduced Ozzy Osbourne to new heights, resulting in the best solo profession in steel historical past. Blizzard of Ozz is a timeless work — a capstone to the golden age of heavy steel.

Korn was in every single place within the late ‘90s, and Comply with the Chief was their absolute industrial peak. This can be probably the most emotionally tumultuous album to ever hit the five-million mark, with an unraveling Jonathan Davis spilling his soul into cuts like “Freak on a Leash” and “Seed.” Comply with the Chief is uncomfortably darkish even when it tries to be enjoyable, and it touches on a number of taboos that make the album’s success completely stunning looking back. 

When nü-metal was extensively lambasted for its shallow and jockish nature, in got here System of a Down with some of the clever, artistic and forward-thinking steel albums to ever hit the mainstream. Toxicity is, frankly, an ideal album. No dangerous tracks, no boring moments, zero filler. It holds up higher than simply about any nü-metal album ever launched, due to iconic cuts like “Toxicity,” “Aerials” and the unfuckwithable “Chop Suey!”

Hybrid Principle was an ideal storm of genre-bending that influenced numerous artists for many years to return. It might function probably the most aggressive vocals to ever grace a diamond-selling album, and it stays the best-selling onerous rock or steel album of the twenty first century. One might argue that solely Rage In opposition to the Machine has ever walked the genre-fluid tightrope higher than Linkin Park, however Linkin Park’s monumental success confirms the band as a generational expertise. 

Metallica’s iconic self-titled “Black Album” has offered over 16 million copies in the US, with worldwide gross sales formally crossing the 20 million mark and presumably even the 30 million mark. Although not fairly as heavy as …And Justice for All (8x Platinum), Metallica is by far and away probably the most profitable steel album of all time, mixing take-no-prisoners ‘80s thrash with the alt-rock rebellion of the early Nineteen Nineties. Boasting tracks like “Enter Sandman” and “Unhappy however True,” the Black Album is the unkillable beast of steel, and it’s spent 10 full years on the Billboard 200 chart.