Kerry King’s Favorite Metal Albums

Slayer‘s Kerry King dished out his top ten favorite metal albums to Rolling Stone as part of the geriatric soft rock magazine’s imbecilic Top 100 Metal Albums list.

King’s list was heavy on records actual influential to Slayer and not 90s nu-metal pandering. King gave his favorite AC/DC (hard rock but at least not whine or rap rock), Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Ozzy Osbourne albums. He also mentioned how Venom “were the best shitty band ever” and:

Slayer looked like Venom early on. We were impressionable and trying to find ourselves and we were probably a cross between Venom and Mercyful Fate, maybe a little bit of Priest, maybe a little bit of punk. That’s where we came from.

On Judas Priest’s influence on Slayer:

We’d covered [Sin After Sin‘s] “Dissident Aggressor” because it was super heavy but very obscure. And after we did, a lot of people still thought it was our own song. But on this one, they had the two-guitar thing and it was a little more cleaned up, maybe how Reign in Blood became Slayer’s sound of the future. We’ve sounded the same basically ever since.

and the strong compositional influence of Mercyful Fate:

There was definitely a Mercyful Fate influence on [Slayer’s] Hell Awaits. You can tell by the super long songs with, like, 10,000 riff changes. That was definitely a Mercyful Fate influence. You can hear that on Melissa on “Into the Coven” and “Melissa” – every time I hear that, it’s such a sad song, it stays with me for like a day. I’ll just sing it in my head.

Kerry King’s Ten Favorite Metal Albums:

  • AC/DC – Highway to Hell (1979)
  • Black Sabbath – Sabotage (1975)
  • Exodus – Bonded by Blood (1985)
  • Iron Maiden – The Number of the Beast (1982)
  • Judas Priest – Stained Class (1978)
  • Mercyful Fate – Melissa (1983)
  • MetallicaMaster of Puppets (1986)
  • Ozzy Osbourne – Diary of a Madman (1981)
  • Rainbow – Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll (1978)
  • Venom – Black Metal (1982)

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9 thoughts on “Kerry King’s Favorite Metal Albums”

  1. 1488 not 1776 says:

    Number of the Beast is fun but I’ll never get why it makes anyone’s top-whatever list over any other 80s Maiden release. Maybe younger metalheads underrate it, but older metalheads overrate it. It’s got like one great song and the rest hover between “okay” and “goodish.” They weren’t even gloriously abusing those dual guitar harmonies yet for the most part.

    Must be something about the marketing and moral panic around it back when it came out.

    1. I Sacrificed My ANUS To Brett Stevens says:

      Agreed, I would’ve personally chosen Powerslave or Somewhere in Time. Still, Maiden did nothing bad in the 80s.

        1. 1488 not 1776 says:

          I love the first two Maiden albums but I’ve determined Bruce is actually the more gritty, ballsy, evil sounding vocalist of the two singers. Everyone says DiAnno is the punk one, but listen to all his “oh baby! Here I come! Oh yeeeEEEAAAH!” shit. That’s pure arena cockrock shit! Now listen to Bruce in the verses of 2 Minutes to Midnight. Snarling evil.

          Death to the the “DiAnno is kvlt” meme!

  2. Cauterized says:

    Interesting that both Lars Ulrich and Kerry King chose Sabotage as their Black Sabbath album. I suppose “Symptom Of The Universe” is quite important.

  3. Who are Kerry King?

  4. AC/DC – Run to the highway of hills
    Black Sabbath – Beasty (Ozzy) Boys
    Exodus – Bob by Marley
    Iron Maiden – The Number of the GREED
    Judas Priest – Gay Class
    Mercyful Fate – don’t break the oath
    Master – Metallica Puppets
    Ozzy Osbourne – Diary of a Thelma Riley
    Rainbow – Long Live the Dwarf
    Venom – Money Metal

  5. GGALLIN1776 says:

    He did say AC/DC wasn’t metal, so kinda odd he mentions them. Seasons in the retirement home.

    1. Mattel Marauder says:

      He’s senile enough to give Hillary Clinton his endorsement, so nothing the old man says at this point should be a shocker.

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