The 50 Greatest Heavy Metal Album Covers
By Nick Schonberger | Nov 8, 2011 | 10:27 am | Permalink
Written by Steven Vogel.
Making a list about something subjective, such as art, is somewhat of a futile attempt. Squeezing your own personal likes into something objective is not going to work, unless of course you explain a few things before hand.
First and foremost, this here list is very subjective. Any list that tries to quantify art has to be. I truly believe that any form of art is not about competition. However, and for the sake of this list I have tried to do base my choices on the following:
1. I gave up trying to define the borders for Heavy Metal here, but let’s not get into the typical knuckle dragging genre defining metal nerdness here. Simply put, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and Mastodon are Heavy Metal. Guns N’Roses is not. Cool?
2. Does the artwork, or has the artwork had, a cultural impact on heavy metal fans and possibly beyond that?
3.. Do I like the artwork and additionally, how does it co-relate to the actual album?
Again, art is a question of personal taste. I am sure some of you might miss the obvious ones in here, but I’ll try and give a reason for it. If not, then it should be obvious or I just couldn’t be bothered.
That said, here are The 50 Greatest Heavy Metal Album Covers.
Related Articles:
Trending Articles:
Most Popular in Art+Design
Most Popular in Complex.com
Friends of Complex
Dissection November 18th, 2011 at 07:03 PM
No "Storm of the Light's Bane" by Dissection????? FOR SHAME
IzzyDedjet November 18th, 2011 at 07:09 PM
Most of these aren't even metal, the ones that are, mostly suck sweaty balls, thus lending proof to the general opinion that the author of this piece is a total dick sneeze and wouldn't know metal if it was rammed up his ass.
rx November 18th, 2011 at 07:15 PM
So this is actually "My favorite 'Metal Covers' from shit I listened to as a teenager" and not really "Greatest of all time." Because shit, man, there's some bullshit on there. And Queens of the Stone Age are about as metal as the jukebox at a roller derby.
the fasha November 18th, 2011 at 07:54 PM
i thought this was suppose to be a list of METAL album covers.There were only 9 metal bands on the list.
Dante Tremayne November 18th, 2011 at 10:28 PM
Definitely not an objective look at the greatest metal covers of all time. First, this is one person's opinion, and to be honest, not a very artistic one at that. Second, like the other folks are saying, often not metal, either. This "article" is a terrible opinion of music and art together. Not good PR for Complex.
Josh November 18th, 2011 at 11:40 PM
Holy shit, I didn't think it would be possible for such a terrible list of album covers to exist. Only one Iron Maiden cover? Two covers which aren't even singles? No Cannibal Corpse, Slayer, or Celtic Frost? Fuck this list! Even if it does have Times of Grace and Coma of Souls
Jimmy November 19th, 2011 at 12:12 AM
If you want a good overview of classic metal (and non-metal) album artwork, check out: radcoverart.tumblr.com
Bosefis November 19th, 2011 at 09:58 AM
This list sucks
Eric November 19th, 2011 at 08:26 PM
Any list that has the words "heavy metal" and does not have Reign in Blood in it, is a poor list. You want to talk about a horrifying album cover......This list sucks crap and I will never come back to the Complex site.....you sir, should be ashamed of yourself for trying to pass yourself off as a "music journalist".
Bryan November 20th, 2011 at 10:17 PM
Converge - Jane Doe. That's all I need to say about this list.