Metallica’s Studio Albums Ranked

#11 – St. Anger – Released 2003
Let’s just get this one out of the way, however there’s something you need to know about me – I listen to every Metallica studio album. While this is the bottom of the list for me I still put it on and still enjoy a number of tracks on this release. That said it is my least favourite for a few reasons; the top of these being the production quality isn’t where is should be and the writing I find to be a little on the amateur side (I know James was in a different head space during the writing of this album). I also feel like there was a learning curve going on here with the band trying to find their footing with a new bass playing adding a unique dynamic to the album.

#10 – ReLoad – Released 1997
Other than the obvious, let’s not talk album cover art here, other than a few tracks on this album it just kind of fell flat for me. This is the teenage years of Metallica, working out their angst and trying everything they could think of to try and define who they but then also show the world that “nobody puts Metallica in the corner”, sorry bad movie references are just something you’re going to have to get used to around here, at least from me. I would have put this in the same line as St. Anger, but don’t like ties and I do go back to this album more frequently than the latter, but also feel like there’s a little more of Metallica on St. Anger than this album.

#9 – Load – Released 1996
After the initial feeling of once again being let down by my favourite band in the world (the first let down was the difference between the S/T album and AJFA, but we’ll get to that soon) I really enjoyed some of the songs on this album – to the point where my first cassette ended up breaking halfway through Bleeding Me, I believe due to the number of times I rewound this song, there is just something about James’ voice in this track that still makes the hair on my neck stand up. With Load and ReLoad being such close releases in both date and sound, there’s is a much more raw feeling to this album. For me it’s reminiscent of Garage Days, like 4 guys just getting together and piecing together songs they love. I know that some will put this album below the previous two due to the “country song”, but a single track doesn’t change my ranking on this one – the rest of the songs on this album make up for that one misstep.

#8 – Death Magnetic – Released 2008
Getting close to a return to form…while some of the newer albums we’re going to receive over the next 15 years from Papa Het and boys go much harder than this one in the order they were initially released, this was the closest we had to hearing a “thrash” type album again since AJFA. Gone were the Metal Pop days and black nail polish and eyeliner, back were the chunky riffs, back were the epic 7 – 9 minute tracks with multiple change ups and long musical sections. I know there are still many that dropped off being fans of Metallica after this one, but I feel like most of them were new fans that came in from the Black Album – not expecting this return to more of the hard, fast and heavy sounding Metallica. While not a true return to the days of Puppets and Lightning, we still have a heavier Metallica here then we’ve had in a number of years.

#7 – The Black Album (S/T) – Released 1991
Okay, it’s true. The day this album was released I skipped my last 3 classes so I could run to the mall and buy a copy. I listened to the entire album, pulled the cassette out of the stereo in my truck and tossed it out the window. It took me close to 6 months to give it another listen. Keep in mind here, I was a fan of Metallica during the Puppets / AJFA era. What was this radio friendly, three and half minute, socially acceptable sound coming from my speakers?! I was pissed. What brought me around? The band I was in at the time wanted to play some friendlier songs for an upcoming set we were going to be playing and Enter Sandman fit the bill. We worked on the track, perfecting it for live play. I learned to like the song due to learning to play it. With that under my wing, I pulled the trigger and went back to listen again and found myself pulled in by the writing, both lyrically and musically – I still think Bob Rock ruined Metallica, but that’s something for another post.

#6 – Hardwired…To Self-Destruct – Released 2016
I took to this album fairly quickly after it’s release, I think it was more to do with it being 8 fucking years since the last release so I was just starving for some new Metallica. That said though it’s still an album I love putting. My favourite track is Moth Into Flame, yes even with the Gaga fiasco – sorry, not a fan of that collaboration. I feel like this is the start of a new generation of Metallica, like their progression towards retiring but showing that even though they may only have a few albums left in them they still have something to prove. Spit Out The Bone being the response to the haters that said they couldn’t write or play “thrash” style music any longer. it was a tough choice between this one landing in the top or 72 Seasons, if not for the more personal connection to the themes in 72 Seasons, Hardwired would have easily slid into the top 5.

#5 – 72 Seasons – Released 2023
There has been a lot of hate around this release including the amount of songs being played on the current tour promoting this album. I know a lot of you are thinking the latest tour isn’t that, but it most definitely is – as such I think they’re a little light on the number of tracks that were played from 72 Seasons. This was the first album of the last 3 that I actually got into fairly quickly, the only other that comes close isn’t even a full album but Moth Into Flame off Hardwired got played for days on end after I first heard it. 72 Seasons just hits me a little different than most maybe due to the themes of the songs. I just felt an almost automatic connection to this album with songs like Too Far Gone, Sleepwalk My Life Away, Screaming Suicide and Room Of Mirrors, it was like my likeness to James went far beyond just the physical. I’ve struggled with depression, acceptance of self and other themes in the songs on this album so it really hit home for me. While not my top album in this list it’s only due to the emotional connection I have to other albums on the list that it’s in 4th place.

#4 – …And Justice For All – Released 1989
I could just say this album lands in the number 4 spot thanks to the 90% grade I received on a paper I wrote in my Grade 10 English class. We were told to find a song that was based on a book and then write a comparison of the book and the lyrics of the song. Needless to say I didn’t actually read Johnny Got His gun, but I did listen to One multiple times and watched the video as often as I could at the time, keep in mind this was the early 90s. We see Metallica go full on into epic song writing on this album – breaking the previously set longest track record on their albums of 8 minutes 53 seconds, , with To Live Is To Die hittig 9 minutes and 48 seconds (the title track …And Justice for All, hitting 9 minutes and 47 seconds for a close second), both of which will only be beat out in a few more future tracks including 2023’s epic 11 minute and 10 second track off 72 Seasons, Inamorata. We also see more writing of songs influenced by what the band was reading at the time, as pointed out above.

#3 – Kill ‘Em All – Released 1983
This album changed the face of Metal for a lot of fans. Influenced by the NWOBHM, James and Lars worked on creating what some will still say is a masterpiece album. For me this one still hits hard and is one of my top choices when I’m in the mood for some old school Metallica, but over all lands in 3rd. While we can see some glimpses here of what Metallica will become this album feels a little all over the place. The songs are simple, with the main focus being “just play everything as fast as we can”, with a few exceptions like Jump In The Fire that lands more in the mid-tempo realm, No Remorse that has some fast paced lead sections but is nowhere near the speed of tracks like Whiplash or Motorbreath, and finally the track that gifted to us by the immensely talented and gone too soon Cliff Burton, (Anesthesia) – Pulling Teeth. While this is an album that will most definitely influence many future bands, in the catalog of music released by Metallica I feel it’s placed where it belongs at numbe 3.

#2 – Master Of Puppets – Released 1986
What many will say is the top rated Metallica album, Puppets falls to number 2 in my ranking, however only due to Lightning being my indoctrination into this amazing genre we call Metal. While they were still beer swilling, long haired, skate punks at heart – Puppets is where Metallica really started to show us what they were made of. This is a more mature side of Metallica where we see the skills they have for crafting songs that really pull us into the beliefs and experiences of the band – from their influences based on what they’re reading to their ability to craft epic masterpiece songs that will hit as hard as the day they were released as they do now, nearly 40 years later.

#1 – Ride The Lightning – Released 1984
I know that placing this in the top spot will have a lot of people ready to blast me in the comments, but hold on – this is my list after all. This was my introduction to Metallica and as such will forever hold a special place for me. It’s not as mature in songwriting or musicianship as Puppets, but being the album that essentially got me listening to metal, this is my #1. This is the quintessential Metallica album for me. It has their old school sound, aggression, speed and those blown out vocals from James after too many beers and just not giving a fuck, attitude like “you want to hear it with vocals?! Go sing it!”, before we knew this is how he was in the studio! These were the good old days of high tops, tight jeans, ripped up tees and long hair that I grew up with and will always fondly recall every time this album plays.