The Top 50 Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Acts

Heavy Metal/Hard Rock: Top 50 Acts

This list was created by aggregating 25 lists focused on the best heavy metal and/or hard rock acts of all time. See other lists of Acts/Music Makers by Genre. Metallica 1. Metallica 2. Iron Maiden 3. Black Sabbath 4. Judas Priest 5. Megadeth 6. Slayer 7. Pantera 8. Tool 9. Motörhead 10. Led Zeppelin 11. Mötley Crüe 12. Guns N’ Roses 13. Van Halen 14. AC/DC 15. Ozzy Osbourne 16. Anthrax 17. Aerosmith 18. Kiss 19. Korn 20. Slipknot 21. Deep Purple 22. System of a Down 23. Jimi Hendrix 24. Bon Jovi 25. Def Leppard 26. Alice Cooper 27. Ronnie James Dio 28. Scorpions 29. Avenged Sevenfold 30. Queensrÿche 31. Alice in Chains 32. Marilyn Manson 33. Deftones 34. Rammstein 35. Queen 36. Nirvana 37. Rush 38. Linkin Park 39. Rage Against the Machine 40. Faith No More 41. Whitesnake 42. Ratt 43. Foo Fighters 44. Disturbed 45. Evanescence 46. Rainbow 47. Thin Lizzy 48. Five Finger Death Punch 49. Cinderella 50. Twisted Sister Resources/Related Links: Dave’s Music Database: Top 50 Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Albums Dave’s Music Database: Top 50 Heavy Metal Songs Dave’s Music Database: Top 50 Hair Band/Glam Metal Songs Dave’s Music Database: Lists of Acts/Music Makers by Genre First posted 7/1/2026.

The Top 50 Heavy Metal Songs

Heavy Metal: Top 50 Songs

Heavy metal is rooted in the hard rock of the late ‘60s and ‘70s, most often attributed to Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Led Zeppelin, who all got their start in England in 1968. Distortion, extended guitar solos, and overall loudness characterized the genre and the lyrics are often stereotyped as having Satanic themes. However one defines the genre, here are the top 50 heavy metal songs as determined by aggregating 32 best-of lists. Those songs appearing on 7 or more lists were then re-ranked based on overall points in Dave’s Music Database. Click here to see other genre-specific song lists. 1. Black Sabbath “Paranoid” (1970) 2. AC/DC “Back in Black” (1980) 3. Guns N’ Roses “Welcome to the Jungle” (1987) 4. Metallica “Enter Sandman” (1991) 5. Deep Purple “Smoke on the Water” (1973) 6. Metallica “One” (1988) 7. AC/DC “Highway to Hell” (1979) 8. Kiss “Rock and Roll All Nite” (1975) 9. Ozzy Osbourne “Crazy Train” (1980) 10. Guns N’ Roses “Paradise City” (1987) 11. Black Sabbath “Iron Man” (1970) 12. Scorpions “Rock You Like a Hurricane” (1984) 13. Van Halen “Runnin’ with the Devil” (1978) 14. Motörhead “Ace of Spades” (1980) 15. Metallica “Master of Puppets” (1988) 16. Black Sabbath “War Pigs” (1970) 17. Judas Priest “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” (1982) 18. Judas Priest “Breaking the Law” (1980) 19. Iron Maiden “Run to the Hills” (1982) 20. Kiss “Detroit Rock City” (1976) 21. AC/DC “Hells Bells” (1980) 22. Iron Maiden “Hallowed Be Thy Name” (1982) 23. Quiet Riot “Bang Your Head (Metal Health)” (1983) 24. Whitesnake “Still of the Night” (1987) 25. Iron Maiden “The Number of the Beast” (1982) 26. Dio “Holy Diver” (1983) 27. Black Sabbath “Black Sabbath” (1970) 28. Iron Maiden “The Trooper” (1983) 29. Deep Purple “Highway Star” (1972) 30. Megadeth “Symphony of Destruction” (1992) 31. Dio “Rainbow in the Dark” (1983) 32. Ozzy Osbourne “Mr. Crowley” (1980) 33. Megadeth “Peace Sells” (1986) 34. Metallica “Fade to Black” (1984) 35. Judas Priest “Painkiller” (1990) 36. Pantera “Walk” (1992) 37. Megadeth “Holy Wars…The Punishment Due” (1990) 38. Slayer “Raining Blood” (1986) 39. Megadeth “Hangar 18” (1990) 40. Metallica “For Whom the Bell Tolls” (1984) 41. Pantera “Cowboys from Hell” (1990) 42. Judas Priest “The Hellion/Electric Eye” (1982) 43. Black Sabbath “Heaven and Hell” (1980) 44. Black Sabbath “Children of the Grave” (1971) 45. Rainbow “Stargazer” (1976) 46. Slayer “Angel of Death” (1986) 47. Accept “Balls to the Wall” (1983) 48. Iron Maiden “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (1984) 49. Iron Maiden “Fear of the Dark” (1992) 50. Diamond Head “Am I Evil?” (1980) Resources and Related Links: Dave’s Music Database: “Other Genre/Category Song Lists” First posted 1/24/2018; last updated 5/11/2021.

AC/DC released Highway to Hell

First posted 9/4/2010; updated 9/7/2020.

Highway to Hell AC/DC

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Released: July 27, 1979 Peak: 17 US, 8 UK, 40 CN, 13 AU Sales (in millions): 7.0 US, -- UK, 15.0 world (includes US and UK) Genre: hard rock/heavy metal

Tracks: (Click for codes to singles charts.) Highway to Hell (9/1/79, #47 US, #14 UK, #29 AR) Girls Got Rhythm Walk All Over You Touch Too Much (2/2/90, #29 UK) Beating Around the Bush Shot Down in Flames Get It Hot If You Want Blood, You’ve Got It Love Hungry Man Night Prowler Total Running Time: 41:40 The Players: Bon Scott (vocals) Angus Young (guitar) Malcolm Young (rhythm guitar, backing vocals) Cliff Williams (bass) Phil Rudd (drums)

Rating: 4.167 out of 5.00 (average of 15 ratings) Awards:

About the Album: Highway to Hell is the final album recorded with “Bon Scott, AC/DC’s original lead singer who died just months after this album was released. Scott had a rusty, raspy, scream of a voice, like he might break into a coughing fit at any moment.” DC “He had the perfect instrument for such wild-living anthems” DC and “provided the group with a fair share of its signature sleaze;” STE “Scott literally partied himself to death, dying of alcohol poisoning after a night of drinking, a rock & roll fatality that took no imagination to predict.” STE “In light of his passing, it’s hard not to see Highway to Hell as a last testament of sorts, being that it was his last work and all, and if Scott was going to go out in a blaze of glory” STE this collection of “crunchy, hook-heavy metal classics” DC was “certainly was the way to do it. This is a veritable rogue’s gallery of deviance, from cheerfully clumsy sex talk and drinking anthems to general outlandish behavior. It’s tempting to say that Scott might have been prescient about his end – or to see the title track as ominous in the wake of his death – trying to spill it all out on paper, but it’s more accurate to say that the ride had just gotten very fast and very wild for AC/DC, and he was simply flying high.” STE “After all, it wasn’t just Scott who reached a new peak on Highway to Hell; so did the Young brothers, crafting their monster riffs into full-fledged, undeniable songs. This is their best set of songs yet, from the incessant, intoxicating boogie of Girls Got Rhythm to If You Want Blood (You've Got It).” STE There’s also “Get It Hot which is more roadhouse rock than metal” DC “Some of the credit should also go to Robert John ‘Mutt’ Lange, who gives the album a precision and magnitude that…[earlier albums] lacked in their grimy charm.” STE “Highway to Hell was the first AC/DC album not produced by Harry Vanda and George Young.” WK “Filtered through Mutt’s mixing board, AC/DC has never sounded so enormous, and they’ve never had such great songs, and they had never delivered an album as singularly bone-crunching or classic as this until now.” STE “The change proved to be fortuitous, and the album was the band’s biggest yet.” WK “This would be the first solid success that AC/DC would achieve in the U.S.” WK “and it propelled AC/DC into the top ranks of hard rock acts” WK as Highway to Hell became the band’s “first album to break the U.S. top 100, eventually reaching #17.” WK “Lange would go on to produce the band’s next two albums and biggest sellers, Back in Black and For Those About to Rock We Salute You.” WK

Resources and Related Links: AC/DC’s DMDB Encyclopedia entry Mutt Lange’s DMDB Encyclopedia entry DC David Cantwell, Amazon.com STE Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide WK Wikipedia