Metallica Ranked
A band I go back and forth having a love-hate relationship with. |
| 1 |  | Metallica
...And Justice for All
The peak of the band's songwriting. Some people are irritated by the lack of bass but the guitars are chunky enough where audible bass would've cheapened the sound. The drums sound pretty weak but other than that the production is fine for me. Most of the songs on here could make a Metallica top twenty list for me. 9/10. |
| 2 |  | Metallica
Death Magnetic
Controversial maybe, but this has my favorite collection of riffs outside of AJFA. At no point do I find myself wishing a riff would end sooner, which is the case on songs on every other album. The album isn't perfect, but it's the least forced and most fun sounding Metallica album post-St. Anger. 8/10. |
| 3 |  | Metallica
Master of Puppets
A couple subpar tracks and sections that go on too long mar an otherwise classic album. 8/10. |
| 4 |  | Metallica
Ride the Lightning
See above album. 8/10. |
| 5 |  | Metallica
Metallica
Hard rock Metallica is pretty great when it sounds like this. One of the best produced albums of the 90s. 7/10. |
| 6 |  | Metallica
Kill 'Em All
I'm no Dave Mustaine fanboy, but all the best songs on this album are due to his riffs. Far from perfect, but the band clearly started their career with some great ideas. 7/10. |
| 7 |  | Metallica
St. Anger
A well intentioned album with a very mixed bag of execution. The ingredients are here for a great album but having a studio full of yes-men is what held this back from being great. The majority of the songs on here are solid, they simply drag on for way too long. The drumming and production fit the album, I'm surprised how many extreme metal fans bash on those aspects, but it's the song lengths that tank this from a strong album to a mediocre one. I still revisit this album more often than a lot of their classic stuff. 6/10. |
| 8 |  | Metallica
Load
The experimental touches and genre explorations off the Black Album formula are welcome and they spice up an otherwise dull experience. King Nothing is the only hard rock song on here that could go toe to toe with Black Album material. 5/10. |
| 9 |  | Metallica
72 Seasons
An album full of good moments but in desperate need of trimming. Way too long and repetitive, with a lot of undercooked tracks that don't justify their runtime. It's a shame because it's sonically their most inspired album since the Black Album. 5/10. |
| 10 |  | Metallica
Hardwired...To Self-Destruct
An album with a handful of good songs, only one great one (you know which one), and a whole lot of undercooked ones. Hilarious that Kirk losing a cell phone could tank an album this hard. A lot of the stuff here sounds like the band was forced to write songs at gunpoint. 4/10. |
| 11 |  | Metallica
Reload
The more experimental side introduced on Load is this album's only saving grace as it makes a couple tracks worth listening to. The rest is the Metallica equivalent of a 2022-2023 Drake album. 2/10. |
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