The Greeks know their Metal Part 1

Blabbermouth is reporting a list of the top 100 albums of all time from the Greek edition of Metal Hammer magazine. I think it'd be fun if I go in ascending order and put my take on the list item by item.Maybe it deserves to be on the list in my mind, maybe I think the ranking is lame, or maybe somethings just flat out not metal. I'll be reading these for the first time as I go. Should be fun.

100. MANOWAR - "Sign of the Hammer" Countries outside of the U.S. eat this stuff up. It's funny to me the approach countires overseas take to metal. Sometimes the cheesier the better for them. True escapist music I guess. Regardless I don't know how this particular album made the list.

99. DEATH - "Leprosy" I know nothing about these guys other then they're considered one of the pioneers of death metal hence their name. I'd probably hate it but whatever.

98. ROTTING CHRIST - "Theogonia" Yay another shock metal band on the list. The Greeks are pretty hardcore so far with the exception of Manowar.

97. SAXON - "Denim and Leather" Ah some classic NWOBHM.Probably my favorite album by them. Saxon was always hit or miss with me but this is a good one.

96. SODOM - "Agent Orange" Yes I suck. I've never listened to these guys. Maybe I will just to see what the big deal is.But it better offer some uniqueness factor.

95. DEATH - "Spiritual Healing" These guys again? Am I missing something?

94. NIRVANA - "Nevermind" Really....Nirvana was metal? I thought they were post punk. (Fuck you if you try and tell me "grunge". That was a term created by MTV to categorize the Seattle scene because they were too stupid to figure it out)First bit of fail Greece. Congrats.

93. SLAYER - "Show no Mercy" Introduced the world to Slayer and in a big way. The fastest most brutal and evil thrash at the time. This album set the bar pretty high and it wasn't until about a decade later were albums able to match the raw fury of this.

92. MOTORHEAD - "Overkill" Classic pioneering album. Very influential. I think this should be bit higher on the list but I'm sure another album by Lemmy will be.

91. VAN HALEN - "Van Halen" This is one of those gray areas for me. Were Van Halen metal? I guess in 1978 they were. Eddies pioneering shredding leads and heavy rythmns in some tunes. But then you get stuff like "Ice Cream Man" for the wtf factor. It's a heavy album for it's time but I think its more of a precursor to hair metal of the mid to late 80's then a metal band.

90. FATES WARNING - "Parallels" Prog metal enters in here for the first time. Honestly I used to hate the high pitch wailing that some power and prog metal vocalist would do. I can appreciate these guys for their contribution to the genre but I could never get into them.

89. QUEENSRŸCHE - "Rage for Order" Interesting from one prog metal band to another. This was an interesting album that was hard to digest when it came out. QR were going for the post punk/metal hybrid look. There were rumors of subliminal messaging and backmasking on here. And it was a big departure from the sword and sorcery stuff of the Warning and their debut. I went back to this later and I like it.

88. SCORPIONS - "Taken by Force" I love me some Scorpions.Again with the differance in tastes from overseas to the States. This album wasn't successful here but I guess all of their work before Lovedrive is loved elsewhere. Sails of Charon is a godamn heavy and badass song for it's time.

87. SLIPKNOT - "Iowa" Nu-metal represent yo! One of the albums to revitalize the metal scene in the late 90's. It took masks and costumes and some heavy screaming to get the world to wake up and see metal is was alive in some sort of fashion. Personally I'm indifferant to the 'knot.

86. MEGADETH - "Peace Sells, But Who's Buying?" Oh I miss these days of Megadeth. This album needs to be higher up.This is what broke Megadeth out and into the pack of other heavy hitting thrash bands. And brought Megadeth out of the shadow of Metallica and into it's own whether Dave or his fans want to think so or not.

85. TOOL - "Aenima" Ahead of it's time.Metal was back in the underground and alternative was all over the place. I originally bought this album because Undertow was so kick ass. I thought it was too wierd compared to the earlier album and got rid of it. I've corrected that error. Complex arrangements with heavy bass overtones.Is it actually metal. From a prog sense yes imo.

84. MASTODON - "Blood Mountain" I've listened to a bit of these guys. Mastodon is one of those bands that I think I'll need to keep listening to until I develop a taste for them. I can appreciate them for being a part of this U.S. metal revitalization though.

83. BLIND GUARDIAN - "Imaginations from the Other Side" It's been awhile since some power metal was back on this list. I want to like Blind Guardian because their style isn't as cheesy as most others. But Hansi's vocals grate on me after awhile. It's not quite a growl and not guttural its like this wierd buzzing that comes from him. It's hard to explain. I like him better when he's a guest vocalist.

82. W.A.S.P. - "The Crimson Idol" Blackie gets some love from the Greeks. W.A.S.P. has all but been forgotten in the States. This epic concept album by him is pretty good too. I think this and the Headless children were the first albums to really show how mature the song writing had become from the "Look at us, we're differant and shocking compared to these other L.A. bands"

81. PINK FLOYD - "The Dark Side Of The Moon" Influential as all hell but metal it isn't.I wonder how many more brain farts are going to be on this list. Not two bad,only two so far.

80. SLIPKNOT - "Slipknot" The Greeks love them some 'knot it seems.

79. SEPULTURA - "Chaos A.D." Yeah! This is the best album imo by Sepultura.Hybrid of death and thrash with chugging riffs. Nice to see this on here.

78. TWISTED SISTER - "Stay Hungry" Wow this whole album got some love. I wonder if it was because of the two seriously overplayed songs or if the Greeks truly enjoyed the whole album. I like it alot and used to play it to death as a kid.

77. BLIND GUARDIAN - "Nightfall in Middle-Earth" Before Battlelore there was this album centered around the Tolkienverse. Again...I wanted to like it but Hansi's droning vocals make me twitch.

76. BLACK SABBATH - "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" Sabbath makes it's first appearance here. This is a really kick ass album with some tracks that would forever shape some metal genres in the years to come. Not sure if this should be higher on the list or not but it's all good.

So I'm going to stop there for now. 25 is a good number to stop typing at. Check back later for the next 25 of my thoughts.