Metallica’s Lars Ulrich picks his 15 favourite rock albums of all time
If there’s one man you can guarantee to give you a thumping good playlist, it’s Metallica’s drummer Lars Ulrich. Here, he pulls together an epic selection of the 15 best heavy rock and metal albums of all time. It’s the kind of playlist that can shake a house to its very foundations, featuring Black Sabbath, Alice In Chains, Iron Maiden and more.
The Metallica man brings together a truly satisfying list of the best heavy rock albums of all time for a feature first published through Rolling Stone. From his musical past, Ulrich selects some of the forefathers of heavy metal, looks to his contemporaries for added gusto, and even finds room on the ultimate playlist for some newer records too.
Classic selections on this playlist include AC/DC’s 1977 album Let There Be Rock. Discussing the record, Ulrich said: “This is AC/DC’s heaviest record, AC/DC’s densest record, AC/DC’s most energetic record”. Naturally, the drummer also gives nods to the Blue Öyster Cult effort On Your Feet or On Your Knees and Motörhead record Overkill. When explaining the inclusion of the latter, Ulrich said: “I had never heard anything that sounded like that. It blew my head off. And then that kind of energy continued—it was so raw”.
While many of Metallica’s musical milestones are strewn across the decades, it was during the late 1980s and early ’90s that the band really hit their stride, along with the heavy rock genre as a whole. During this period, the genre and the fuzz only grew larger and larger, creating a swell of acts that has rarely been matched since.
As such, Ulrich has picked out a handful of classic LPs for consideration, such as Guns N’ Roses opus Appetite for Destruction, Alice in Chains’ Dirt, and the little-known Warrior Soul project The Space Age Playboys.
It’s likely not meant to be an insult to the genre of heavy rock, but Ulrich doesn’t really offer many modern musings in his list of the greats. However, he does still doff his cap to one of the 21st century’s best. Ulrich selects System of a Down’s game-changing 2001 record Toxicity, to which he explained: “It was political, it was crazy, it was kooky, it was energetic, it was incredible, from a songwriting point of view, well-crafted. It was very inspirational on what we did”.
While Rage Against The Machine’s The Battle of Los Angeles may just fall short of that moniker, the album is still the pinnacle of rock. “The Battle of Los Angeles just sounds so fucking authentic,” Ulrich said. “There’s no filter. It feels so instinctive, impulsive and from the gut. Until that time, a lot of hard-rock records were very laboured over, including our own”.
The playlist below is what you might come to expect from Lars Ulrich. The Metallica drummer picks a plethora of records from across his amazingly long career. While the length of his career is a wondrous thing, the depth of his knowledge and the passion he has for it is what we really enjoyed. See the full list below.
Lars Ulrich’s 15 favourite albums:
- AC/DC – Let There Be Rock, 1977.
- Alice in Chains – Dirt, 1992.
- Black Sabbath – Sabotage, 1975.
- Blue Öyster Cult – On Your Feet or On Your Knees, 1975.
- Deep Purple – Made in Japan, 1972.
- Diamond Head – Lightning to the Nations, 1980.
- Guns N’ Roses – Appetite for Destruction, 1987.
- Iron Maiden – The Number of the Beast, 1982.
- Judas Priest – Unleashed in the East, 1979.
- Mercyful Fate – Melissa, 1983.
- Motörhead – Overkill, 1979.
- Rage Against the Machine – The Battle of Los Angeles, 1999.
- System of a Down – Toxicity, 2001.
- UFO – Strangers in the Night, 1979.
- Warrior Soul – The Space Age Playboys, 1994.
Stream the playlist, below.
