Heavy Metal ruled the airwaves in the mid to late 1980s with songs blasting from radios and videos all over MTV. Bands began to pop up all over the US – especially in Southern California thanks to early success from Quiet Riot, Ratt, Motley Crue and other rockers in spandex with teased hair. Speaking of Quiet Riot, I selected the year 1984 as the starting point for this list since their debut album – Metal Health – ushered the beginning of the chart success of American metal bands. This list of heavy metal bands includes several varieties of music from pure metal, glam metal and hair metal and even includes Aerosmith and a solo album from Robert Plant (which are both on the periphery of heavy metal for sure).
In all, 51 albums under the heavy metal banner landed in the US Billboard Top 200 albums over the 11 year period from 1984 (beginning of the heavy metal heyday) to 1994 (the beginning of the end of the heavy metal heyday). A couple of interesting observations of this list:
Two albums in this list are live recordings – Ozzy Osbourne’s Tribute and Van Halen’s Live: Right Here, Right Now.
One album is a greatest hits compilation – Motley Crue’s Decade of Decadence
Guns N’ Roses and Van Halen made the most appearances with five albums each.
Additionally, (Motley Crue, Poison, Bon Jovi and Def Leppard) had three albums each hit the Top 10.
1988 was the most successful year for heavy metal bands in the Top 10 with eight albums.
