Worst Metal Albums of All Time

Side-tracking away from Maiden,

Some of the Ozzy albums mentioned earlier, Bark at the Moon and Ultimate Sin - I wholeheartedly disagree with anyone and everyone who says those albums are bad. They are by far better than anything Ozzy released with Zakk Wylde imo. Jake E Lee remains an incredibly underrated guitarist and songwriter - he had a tough act to follow of course and had it been Zakk instead of him people would have most likely reacted the same way.

In any case, the 'glam' era of Ozzy if you want to call it that was great. It is the albums that followed, No Rest for the Wicked especially that is imo the worst Ozzy album. I can't really say anything bad about No More Tears, it falls a bit flat at times but it also has more noteworthy songs than anything No Rest gave us on which there was almost nothing interesting.

As far as the worst metal albums - it's a moot question because every metal band under the sun has released some less than stellar albums. No band is ever immune from releasing a bad album and examples are plentiful in every sub-genre of metal.

However, some of the albums which my ears disagree with:

KISS - Unmasked: say what you will about Elder say what you will about 80s KISS, even Dynasty had it moments, but Unmasked for me unlistenable;

Virgin Steele - Life Among the Ruins: to be fair this was not intended as a Virgin Steele release but that's irrelevant since it was released under the band's name. This album is horrible through and through. I love glam as much as anyone else but come on, Virgin Steele is a band that play epic power metal operas; this is beyond dumbing down the band's sound, this is the late 80s / early 90s own St. Anger imo.

Savatage - Dead Winter Dead and Wake of Magellan ... simply fail to capture the true potential 'tage had back in the 80s and early 90s. Though by no means horrible or unlistenable, I think they were better destined for another band.

Quiet Riot's Self-Titled - is this even Quiet Riot anymore? In any case, the only decent song on here is "The Joker" has a nice groove to it but that's about it. The rest is just another mediocre band... Kevin DuBrow (rip) was right about why Quiet Riot never made it big unlike other similar bands of the 80s - they simply did not have the songs ... the good strong hits were far and few in between.

Def Leppard - Adrenalize ... I love 80s Leppard so much so that I think Pyromania is one of the greatest glam/hard rock albums of all times but by Adrenalize the band's sound became so watered down and whatever worked on Hysteria now sounded tired and cliched. If anything, at best this album sounds like b-sides throw outs from the Hysteria sessions but even that may be a bit too generous. To be fair, 'Lets Get Rocked' could have easily been part of Hysteria (and could have easily replaced some of the less interesting ballady songs on there) but the rest of the songs simply miss the mark. What followed was only progressively worse to the point that I only worship leppard for their 80s stuff.

Van Halen ... humm what to choose ... see the easiest target is III but I would say the worst is a little DLR number called ... DIVER DOWN... GAAWWDD why even record this?
I get the comedic tongue-in-cheek value of their twisted version of Pretty Woman (that was a cool video in a style we would see more of from DLR's solo career) but the rest? Admittedly the band was not too into this album either, it was recorded and released more under the pressure of the record company...

As for the Van Hagar era - guilty pleasure there , I won't blast When It's Love on full volume even though I totally love the chorus, but it is far better experienced with headphones on lol ....

Well this list could go on for a while but time as always is not on my side. All in all, every band is guilty or will be guilty of releasing some horrid albums. However, what is bad and how bad it is, is ultimately subjective ... unless we're talking about Risk and St. Anger which stand for the definition of objectively and universally BAD.

I'm with you on the Ozzy albums.

What, no mention of all the hair bands who went "dark and grungy" in the 90s? With albums like LA Guns: American Hardcore, Warrant: Belly 2 Belly, Dokken: Shadowlife,etc?

I think any glam band that morphed into something grungy / dark sounding is automatically disqualified from this list... the assumption they're bad is there to begin with...

Post-Back for the Attack / Up From the Ashes Dokken is godawful. Even Up From the Ashes wasn't anything stellar but at least it featured a different line-up from the 'Dokken' albums.

Warrant post-Cherry Pie was equally worthless.

IMO none of these bands should have changed to something they were never meant to be. They did it at the pressures of their record labels and the dramatic changes of the scene but c'mon - no one was going to all of a sudden buy that Warrant were a dark / grungy band and take them seriously for that. If anything going in that direction made them a parody of themselves.

I sometimes wonder, if these bands had realized that by the late 90s metal would diversify as it did and splinter into so many sub-genre would they have still changed their sound to appease record labels and radio stations? Had they known the internet would take the music industry by its throat, and allow artists to just do whatever they wanted to... would these changes to conform to the latest trends still have happened?

I know there are a lot of what ifs there but seeing it with the eyes of today it is hard to imagine anyone changing anymore to appease anyone. Some bands still do it and some are blamed for selling out but it seems to be occurring at a lower rate nowadays.

My guess is, as bands were still able to make money off the music industry in the 90s, changing styles was viewed as a money making exercise; attempting to reach out audiences that didn't pay attention before when the band was still 'true' to its beginnings / roots. Evidently, it happened with Metallica on the Black Album which reached audiences that had either never heard the band, never listened to thrash metal or had very little interest in metal.

Do you think the same would be possible today?

Ultimate Sin and No Rest for the Wicked are 100% excellent.
Every song would sound well in concert..can you say that for the Bark at the Moon LP ?

The only song I don't care about on Bark at the Moon so much is Slow Down which sounds like a cheesy 80s synth pop song.

The rest of the songs on Bark could easily be played back-to-back in a concert. There are some really strong numbers on there like Centre of Eternity, Waiting for Darkness both of which have this dark epic vibe, and Now You See It... also has Ozzy's haunting style all over it. These songs fit the motif of the album very well. Of course the title track is timeless imo. Whilst Rock n Roll Rebel is a great 80s metal anthem through and through.

The album is not perfect but by the same token, the first two albums weren't perfect either. As much as most will disagree with me, the consistency of Bark at the Moon, the amount of really good songs and so so ones is similar to Diary of a Madman. I've always felt those two albums were tied together in a way. Even though Diary has a more neo-classical vibe whilst Bark is more straight out 80s heavy metal.