Top 10: Metal Albums of 1971

1971 was lots of fun! The Twenty-Sixth Amendment lowered the American voting age to 18, thanks in part to a band who appears on this list, but more on that in a bit. In other news, Disney World opens, the United Arab Emirates is established, and Jim Morrison is found dead in his Paris apartment at the age of 21. In the metal world, the forefathers of 1970 continue their trek down the path of all things dark and heavy, only to find out they have company. Who are these new wanderers of the metallic wild? We hope you have the “Guts” to read on and find out!

10. Mountain – Nantucket Sleighride

Just 10 months after their debut monolith, Mountain returned with the equally fuzztastic frequencies heard on Nantucket Sleighride. While Eric Clapton had resigned himself to pedestrian pop rock, Leslie West kept his Cream coated spirit alive. I could only imagine the smile upon West’s face while cranking out the riffs to “The Animal Trainer and the Toad”, “Travellin’ in the Dark (To E.M.P.), and “Don’t Look Around”. The crown jewel is the album’s title track which tells the true story of a group of sailors who harpooned a whale. Little did those sailors know that the whale wasn’t done for. No, that whale would take them on the ride of their lives: the “Nantucket Sleighride”. How metal.

9. Alice Cooper – Love It to Death

The Alice Cooper heard on Love It to Death is a far cry from the notorious noisemakers Frank Zappa discovered just a couple years earlier. Gone was the avant-garde psychedelia of Pretties for You (1969) and Easy Action (1970). The band had finally found their identity as an ugly and unsettling hard rock band. While they may be the “lightest” band on this list, Alice Cooper’s dark lyrical content and imagery was pivotal to the early development of metal. “Black Juju” and “Ballad of Dwight Fry” are as disturbing today as they were in 1971. But it was the album’s leadoff single, “I’m Eighteen”, that took the country by storm. It was quickly adopted as a counterculture anthem and the band became a household name overnight. Whether or not President Nixon ever heard the song is up for debate, but there’s no doubt someone in his administration did. Within 6 months of its single release, the Twenty-Sixth amendment was ratified. Coincidence? The Coop thinks not. In re-recordings of “Elected”, he sings, “I helped you get the vote and I told you about school.” God bless America…and Alice Cooper.

8. Flower Travellin’ Band – Satori

The volcano known as Flower Travellin’ Band had been rumbling for a couple years. Originally formed in 1968 as Yuya Uchida and the Flowers, they had three full length albums under their belt in some form or another. Their third album, Anywhere (1970), even featured a cover of Black Sabbath’s “Black Sabbath”, which is arguably heavier than the original. All of this led up to the eruption that was Satori. Forget heavy metal. This is doom metal: some of the darkest, depressed, drug addled doom you’ll ever hear. FTB adds their own exotic, oriental edge that is uniquely theirs, the same way Sabbath’s brand of doom recalls the Birmingham steel factories. Satori is one of the earliest examples of geography being just as important to metal as the musicians themselves.

7. Budgie – Budgie

It was June 1971 when Welsh power trio Budgie stormed from the sky upon a bedazzled warhorse. They shared the same jam band tendencies as Purple and Zeppelin, as heard on “Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman” and “The Author”. In between these extended jam sessions are riffs so heavy, they make Sabbath sound like easy listening in comparison. “Guts” is devastatingly doomy, as is “All Night Petrol” and the confrontational “Homicidal Suicidal”. The band keeps it loud and low, while bassist/singer Burke Shelley delivers what can only be described as a helium induced wail. In other words, Shelley was Geddy Lee before Geddy Lee. One wonders just how influenced Rush was by these unsung giants.

6. Uriah Heep – Salisbury

Salisbury saw Uriah Heep explore new musical territory. The duel guitar/organ attack of “Time to Live” and hard rocking “High Priestess” wouldn’t have sounded out of place on their debut, …Very ‘Eavy …Very ‘Umble. However, it was the acoustic folk stylings of “The Park” and “Lady in Black” that proved Heep to be more than just another metal band. Add to that a 16 minute orchestral epic in the form of the title track and you’ve got an album that the critics were bound to slam as “pretentious”. Though considering these same critics were too busy praising the strung out ramblings of Lou Reed (Some still are!), their opinions were worth less than the paper they were printed on.

5. Uriah Heep – Look at Yourself

Perhaps the world’s first and only album to double as a mirror, Look at Yourself was Uriah Heep’s return to the short, sharp shock formula of their debut. The title track, “Tears in My Eyes”, and “Love Machine” are raucous rockers filled with proto-NWOBHM riffs and song structures. Meanwhile, “July Morning” and “Shadows of Grief” laid down the foundation for progressive metal. These intricate epics wouldn’t be if it weren’t for the experimentation on our #6, Salisbury. As their career went on, Heep would gravitate more towards the prog side of things, but more on that in a future list.

4. Deep Purple – Fireball

The only way Deep Purple could follow up an album as heavy and heart stopping as Deep Purple in Rock is with an album even heavier and more heart stopping…right? From the double bass bombast of the opening title track, arguably the first speed metal song, we think that’s what we’re in store for. Instead, we get funky hard rock (“No No No”, “No One Came”), heavy blues (“Demon’s Eye), and a novelty country song (“Anyone’s Daughter”). I guess you could call this Purple’s Led Zeppelin III. While Fireball isn’t nearly as heavy as its predecessor, the songwriting and musicianship are top notch. Few, if any, could touch Blackmore in the lead guitar department at this time.

3. Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV

Knowing damn well that Led Zeppelin III made many a rocker exclaim “What the folk?”, Page, Plant, Jones, and Bonham returned to playing what they did best: ballsy, bluesy hard rock turned up to 11. Aside from the mandolin laden “The Battle of Evermore”, folksy “Going to California”, and the first half of “Stairway to Heaven”, there ain’t nothing mellow about Led Zeppelin IV. That’s just how the kids liked it. The lyrics to “Black Dog” left much to many teen girls’ imaginations, while “Rock and Roll” became a staple of heavy metal keggers for the next 20 years. Zeppelin was back and more prolific than ever.

2. Alice Cooper – Killer

After the overnight sensation that was Love It to Death, Warner Bros. demanded a second Alice Cooper album for 1971. Killer arrived just in time for the Christmas season. Could you imagine a better soundtrack for children deserving of coal? Killer managed to be even more wicked than its predecessor, spearheaded by “Halo of Flies”, “Dead Babies, and the title track. Sure, “Under My Wheels”, “Be My Lover”, and “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” are fun Detroit style hard rockers. But it was these dark, progressive tracks that convinced an entire nation the band’s namesake was the antichrist incarnate. It was every parent’s worst nightmare to see the bonus poster of Alice’s hanging body taped upon their little Billy or Cindy’s wall.

  1. Black Sabbath – Master of Reality

If you’re reading this, you can already hear Tony Iommi coughing in your head. Master of Reality is where Black Sabbath came into their own as songwriters and musicians. It took two albums of fine tuning, but now here they were: stoner doom swamis of the highest order. The ever relevant themes of war and protest are further explored (“Children of the Grave”), as is marijuana (“Sweet Leaf”), Christianity (“After Forever”), and climate change (“Into the Void”). For those looking for an intellectual alternative to Led Zeppelin’s sex crazed ramblings, Black Sabbath had you covered with riffs heavier than sin, and lyrics equally as heavy. It’s crazy how the messages of these four stoners from Birmingham, England are more relevant today than ever before.

Honorable Mentions

  • Cactus – One Way or Another
  • Dust – Dust
  • Leaf Hound – Growers of Mushroom
  • Mott the Hoople – Brain Capers
  • Sir Lord Baltimore – Sir Lord Baltimore