The best year of metal music

[Wästed The Great]

I could give you, at least, my perspective on this.

I've been a huge fan of Maiden from when Di Anno was in the band. One day, I read in Sounds magazine (Summer '81) that stated this: "News from the Maiden camp is that Di Anno is to leave and will be replaced by Bruce Dickinson". At the time, I was absolutely gutted. Not that Bruce was joining, but Di Anno was leaving. All I knew of Bruce was a compilation tape I had with Earth Mother on it and thought he was good, but still - Di Anno was going!

So, months passed by and I then heard news that Maiden were soon to release a new album. Obviously, by then I was over Di Anno and getting excited about this release - by all accounts, it was meant to be good. One Friday evening whilst tuning into Tommy Vance's Friday Rock Show, he announced new material by, amongst others, Maiden - and what was the first song he played that night? Run To The Hills. It was not introduced at all - but knowing what Maiden sounded like and knowing what Bruce sounded like, it took me until "We fought him hard, we fought him well." to know exactly who this was - and I was jumping up and down like a mad jumper-up-and-downer.

I can only imagine how cool that must have been!  But what you have described is what I would have pictured.

@Foro:  Damn, dude, thats a heap of work (and a great 'need to buy' list)!  But, you are right, '84 did have some really outstanding albums.  I still think that I'm digging '88, but that was the year I really started listening to 'Heavy Metal', and it just sticks out for me.

 

[Forostar]

Indeed quite some work, though I confess that I've made the lists a while ago (now I only had to update them and more importantly: choose!)

@Albie, thanks mate, I do enjoy those stories, about experiencing early Maiden.

Thanks to Maidenfreak I'm in the midst of Maiden's first official biography from 1984, and it's a pleasure to read all that old stuff. I'm trying to imagine how it was in those days and this book and all the other stories help a lot.

 

[SinisterMinisterX]

I consistently find myself amazed at the degree to which I disagree with Zare in some threads, and agree with him wholeheartedly in others... Here, I have to say he is right. 1986 was the year. Perun makes a great case for 1980 and Foro for 1984. But 1986 wins for me.

And a big part of the reason for that is personal to me. As a kid, I grew up as a pop fan. Starting around 1982, I slowly started becoming interested in harder music - mostly thanks to The Number Of The Beast and Screaming For Vengeance, but also because that was the first full year of MTV and they played a lot of hard rock in that first year.

As I have stated elsewhere in this forum many times, LAD was the first Maiden album I bought. It's no accident that LAD is my avatar. That was 1985.

So 1986 was my first full year as a metal fan. It was the first time I got to hear all those albums new as they came out, instead of getting them as "old" albums. It was the year of my first metal concert (Ozzy, Ultimate Sin tour, Metallica opening with Cliff). It was the year I picked up the bass and formed my first band (which is still together). It was the year I started learning Steve Harris and Cliff Burton basslines.

So, much like the "top 5 albums" thread, I guess I'm taking this as "the metal year that most influenced the rest of my life". But even disregarding that, it wins on albums alone, just barely beating 1984 and 1980.