IoMP 187: The 1980s – When Metal Became METAL!
Welcome to the ’80s: the decade of horror movies, Satanic Panic, jean jackets, band shirts, glorious mullets and, most importantly, an absolutely ridiculous amount of heavy metal.
After exploring the bands and albums that helped establish metal throughout the 1970s, Collin and Tom continue their journey through metal history with a decade where the genre truly exploded. By the 1980s, heavy metal wasn't simply establishing its identity anymore — it was branching into entirely new sounds, scenes and subgenres that would influence virtually everything that came afterward.
And there’s so much great music that the rules need to change.
Forget trying to choose one Iron Maiden album to represent the decade. That's madness. Instead, our intrepid metalheads are looking at the bands that defined metal in the ’80s and the impact they had on the genre.
That means revisiting the thrash explosion led by Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax; the continuing dominance of bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Black Sabbath; and Ozzy Osbourne’s massive emergence as a solo artist.
But the story of ’80s metal goes much deeper.
Collin and Tom explore the artists helping lay the foundations for death metal, doom, black metal and grindcore, alongside bands that pushed metal toward the mainstream. There are Swedish innovators, Danish legends, Canadian icons, underground pioneers and more than a few albums that would permanently alter the direction of heavy music.
Along the way, the guys get into Dio, Rush and Triumph, debate where certain bands belong on the rock-to-metal spectrum, discover some spectacularly cursed album artwork and somehow turn Napalm Death’s “You Suffer” into a philosophical discussion about the nature of human suffering.
Just the most important music talking points.
The ’70s created the foundation, but the ’80s expanded metal's lore from a notebook into a dictionary. Thrash got faster. Doom got heavier. Extreme metal started getting really extreme. Metal developed a recognizable culture of its own, and bands scattered around the world began creating sounds that would become entire movements during the following decade.
So which bands truly defined metal in the 1980s?
Click play and join the duo as they head back to one of the most important decades in heavy metal history — before the series charges headfirst into the ’90s.
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