If the big four is a marketing bracket rather than a musical judgement, the obvious question is what a musical version would look like. The usual answer is to double it, and doubling it produces a list that is considerably more representative and still American.
The four added
Exodus, who were there before Metallica in the East Bay, taught the scene how to play, and made the least diluted record the genre has. Their exclusion from the original four is the single clearest evidence that it was about distribution.
Testament, the best of the second wave, forty years without a disgrace, and a late catalogue as strong as the early one.
Overkill, twenty studio albums and not one bad, and a singer who has been shouting since 1980.
Death Angel, five cousins from Daly City with a drummer of fourteen at the sessions, one of the great debuts, and a band who are demonstrably better now than they were at seventeen.
Why these four rather than others
Because they are American, contemporaneous with the original four, and have catalogues substantial enough to bear the comparison. Those are the criteria the phrase implies, and they are the ones that make the expansion coherent.
Change the criteria and the list changes. Include Europe and Kreator and Sodom go in ahead of at least two of the above. Include South America and Sepultura go in. Rank by influence rather than by catalogue and Possessed have a claim.
| Band | From | Formed | The case |
|---|---|---|---|
| Metallica | Los Angeles and the East Bay | 1981 | The strongest four album run |
| Slayer | Huntington Park | 1981 | Five albums without a weak one |
| Anthrax | New York | 1981 | The East Coast bounce |
| Exodus | The East Bay | 1979 | First, and undiluted |
| Overkill | New Jersey | 1980 | Twenty albums, no duds |
| Megadeth | Los Angeles | 1983 | The finest writing in the genre |
| Death Angel | Daly City | 1982 | The great debut, and the recovery |
| Testament | The East Bay | 1983 | Forty years without a disgrace |
What the expansion fixes
Two things. It puts the Bay Area's actual founders back in, which the original four does not, and it stops the list being a description of who had a major label deal in 1986.
It also produces a considerably better listening syllabus. A newcomer who works through the eight has heard the East Bay, Los Angeles, New York and New Jersey, the first wave and the second, and the full range from Bonded by Blood to Rust in Peace.
What it does not fix
The nationality. A big eight that is entirely American describes American thrash, and this genre had four scenes on three continents by 1987.
Any honest global list has Kreator and Sodom in it, probably ahead of two of the names above, and has Sepultura in it too. The reason those bands never appear in these brackets is that the brackets were invented by an American industry describing its own catalogue, and doubling the number does not fix the underlying problem.
Whether any of it matters
Only as a route in. The value of a list like this is that it gives somebody eight bands to start with rather than three hundred, and on that measure the eight works considerably better than the four.
As a ranking it is worth what any ranking is worth, which is the argument it starts. The labels who created the original bracket are in Metal Blade, Megaforce, Combat, and the full account is in Los Angeles, New York and the Big Four.
The other expansions people propose
Several exist and each fixes a different problem.
The big five usually adds Exodus alone, which is the minimum correction and the one most Bay Area listeners would insist on. The big six adds Testament. A German version circulates in Europe that runs Kreator, Sodom, Destruction and Tankard as a bracket of its own, which is considerably more coherent than the American one because those four actually were a scene.
And there is a global version nobody uses, which would run something like Metallica, Slayer, Kreator, Sepultura, Exodus, Megadeth, Overkill and Sodom, and which would give a much more accurate picture of what this genre produced.
How to build your own
Decide what you are measuring first, which is the step everybody skips. Influence, catalogue quality, historical priority and sales produce four different lists from the same twenty bands, and most arguments about this are two people using different criteria without saying so.
Then apply it consistently. If catalogue quality is the measure, Overkill go high and Metallica go lower than anybody expects. If influence is the measure, Venom and Possessed enter and several famous names leave.
The original bracket, and where it actually came from, is set out in The Big Four of Thrash Explained.
The listening order
Chronological rather than by rank, because the eight cover a decade and hearing them in sequence makes the development visible.
Bonded by Blood and Kill 'Em All for the founding, Reign in Blood and Peace Sells for 1986, Among the Living and The New Order for the second wave, The Years of Decay and Act III for the end of the decade. Eight albums, about six hours.
A listener who does that has a considerably better picture of American thrash than one who has heard the four famous bands' greatest hits, and it takes an afternoon.
Why the number keeps growing
Because every expansion exposes another omission. Four leaves out Exodus. Eight leaves out Europe. A global twelve leaves out the second tier that produced Darkness Descends and Forbidden Evil. Keep going and you arrive at a list of forty bands, which is not a bracket at all.
That is the honest end point, and it is why this site organises the genre by scene rather than by rank almost everywhere else. A map is more useful than a league table for a music that appeared in four countries at once.
Sources and notes
Formation dates follow the bands' published accounts. Selections are editorial.
