Thrash Metal in the 1980s, Year by Year

Thrash metal's whole first life fits inside one decade, and reading it year by year rather than album by album makes something obvious that a list of records hides: the genre was assembled in about thirty months, spent four years at full strength, and had every mechanism of its own decline in place before anybody noticed. What follows is the decade as it happened, in order.

1979 to 1981: the parts arrive

Nothing that could be called thrash exists yet, and everything it will be built from does. Motorhead demonstrate that a band can play at punk tempo with metal equipment and be rejected by neither audience. The New Wave of British Heavy Metal supplies the guitar vocabulary, and Diamond Head in particular supplies the riff writing that an entire American genre will be built on. Hardcore punk supplies the beat.

Then the bands form. Metallica in Los Angeles in October 1981, Anthrax in Queens and Overkill in New Jersey around the same time, Exodus in Richmond, California, and Venom put out Welcome To Hell, which supplies the attitude and, a year later, the name of a different genre entirely.

1982 to 1983: the thirty months

This is the compressed period in which everything is decided. In March 1982 Rampage Radio goes on the air on KUSF in San Francisco, the only outlet in America that will play an unsigned band's demo tape. In June, Metal Massacre carries Metallica's first released recording, with the band's name misspelled. In July, No Life 'til Leather is recorded and starts moving through the tape trading network.

In February 1983 Metallica move to El Cerrito. In April, Dave Mustaine is dismissed, Kirk Hammett is recruited out of Exodus, and Megadeth is formed within weeks. In July, Megaforce releases Kill 'Em All, paid for with a second mortgage. In December, Metal Blade releases Show No Mercy, paid for by the band. The genre now exists and has two albums.

The genre was assembled in about thirty months and had every mechanism of its own decline in place before anybody noticed.

1984 to 1985: the floodgate

1984 is a thin year for albums and a decisive one for everything else. Ride The Lightning comes out in July on Megaforce and Elektra buy it in November, which is the moment a major label first puts money into this music. Possessed title a demo Death Metal and name a genre by accident.

Then 1985 opens the gate. Exodus, Possessed, Megadeth, Overkill, Kreator, Destruction and S.O.D. all release inside twelve months, on both continents, and thrash stops being a tape you copy for a friend and becomes a record you can buy. In September the Senate holds the PMRC hearings, which do not mention a single thrash band and produce the regime that will police them for the next five years.

1986: the year everything peaks and something breaks

Four of the genre's defining albums arrive between March and October, on two continents, from four bands who had all heard each other's previous records. Nothing in the history of the form comes close to that concentration and nothing has since.

On 27 September, on the road in Sweden, Metallica's tour bus goes off the road and Cliff Burton is killed at twenty four. Jason Newsted, whose own band's debut had been released in July, joins in October.

1987 to 1988: division, then scale

1987 is when the form stops being one thing. The Bay Area's second wave delivers its debuts, and in the same five months death metal, grindcore and crossover all acquire founding records, made by musicians who learned the trade from thrash albums. MTV starts Headbangers Ball in April, which for the next eight years is the only way most people can see any of this.

1988 is the year of money. Four founding bands release on major label distribution with arena tours behind them, the records get longer, and three of the four are the weakest of their runs. In the same year Ruthie's Inn stops booking metal and the Bay Area's circuit begins to close.

1989 to 1990: the height, and the exits

1989 belongs to the bands who had spent five years being called the second rank, because three of the Big Four release nothing: Sepultura in Rio, Overkill in New Jersey, Kreator and Sodom in the Ruhr all make career best records. In February a Grammy for metal goes to a progressive folk rock band with a flute, and in August Metallica play Moscow, four years after a list of forbidden Western groups had circulated there.

1990 is the last full year and it looks like strength. Megadeth and Slayer make the best records of their careers sixteen days apart, and the first package tour built entirely from thrash bands fills halls across Europe. In the same twelve months Pantera, Judas Priest and Entombed release the three albums that open the exits, a court in Nevada rejects the case against Judas Priest, and Death Angel's tour bus crashes in Arizona.

What the order shows

Two things a ranked list of albums cannot. First, how short the founding period was: eighteen months between a misspelled compilation credit and two albums that settled the genre's poles, with everything afterwards an elaboration.

Second, that the decline is not an event. It is visible from 1987, when the most extreme musicians start leaving for genres that did not exist yet, and from 1988, when the clubs that built the scenes stop booking and the bands become national touring acts instead of local ones. By the time the collapse arrives in 1991 the causes have been running for four years, and the record that gets blamed for it had nothing to do with any of them.

The full account of what happened next is the chapter this belongs to, and the roll call of who was actually there is 80s Thrash Metal Bands.

Sources and notes

• Wikipedia: Thrash metal
• Wikipedia: Kill 'Em All
• Wikipedia: Master of Puppets
• Wikipedia: Cliff Burton
• Wikipedia: Headbangers Ball
• Wikipedia: Clash of the Titans