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Randy Rhoads: Randall William Rhoads (December 6, 1956 – March 19, 1982) was an American guitarist. He was the co-founder and original guitarist of the heavy metal band Quiet Riot, and the guitarist and co-songwriter for Ozzy Osbourne‘s first two solo albums Blizzard of Ozz (1980) and Diary of a Madman (1981). 

Pursuing an interest in classical guitar, Rhoads combined these influences with heavy metal helping form a sub-genre later known as neoclassical metal. With Quiet Riot, he adopted a black-and-white polka-dot theme which became an emblem for the group. He reached his peak as the guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne’s solo career, performing on tracks including classics “Crazy Train” and “Mr. Crowley” on the Blizzard of Ozz album. “Crazy Train” features one of the most well-known heavy metal guitar riffs.

He died in a plane crash while on tour with Ozzy in Florida in 1982. Despite his short career, Rhoads is regarded as a pivotal figure in metal music, credited with pioneering a fast and technical style of guitar soloing that largely defined the metal scene of the 1980s. He helped popularize various guitar techniques now common in heavy metal music, including two-handed tapping, vibrato bar dive bombs, and intricate scale patterns, drawing comparisons to his contemporary Eddie Van Halen. The Jackson Rhoads guitar was originally commissioned by him. He has been included in several published “Greatest Guitarist” lists, and has been cited by other prominent guitarists as a major influence.

Source: Wikipedia

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Ozzy Osbourne (born 3 December 1948) is an English singer, songwriter, and media personality. He rose to prominence during the 1970s as the lead singer of the heavy metal band Black Sabbath, during which period he adopted the nickname “Prince of Darkness”.

Osbourne became a founding member of Black Sabbath in 1968, providing lead vocals from  1970 to 1978. The band was highly influential in the development of heavy metal music, in particular their critically acclaimed releases Paranoid, Master of Reality, and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. Osbourne was fired from Black Sabbath in 1979 due to alcohol and drug problems. He then began a successful solo career with Blizzard of Ozz in 1980 and has released 13 studio albums, the first seven of which received multi-platinum certifications in the US. He has since reunited with Black Sabbath on several occasions. He rejoined in 1997 and helped record the group’s final studio album, 13 (2013), before they embarked on a farewell tour that ended with a 2017 performance in their native Birmingham. His longevity and success have earned him the informal title of the “Godfather of Metal”.

Ozzy Osbourne’s legacy and career will always be inextricably linked to American guitarist Randy Rhoads (December 6, 1956 – March 19, 1982), and for good reason. In just a few short years, the diminutive guitarist helped transform the Prince of Darkness from a washed-up ’70s relic into a pioneer of a new, upbeat, pop-inflected strain of heavy metal at the dawn of the ’80s. Rhoads’ playing on Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman combines crackling singalong riffs with mind-blowing neoclassical solos, making him arguably the decade’s second-most influential guitarist behind Eddie Van Halen. His playing is even more diabolically exhilarating on Tribute, the 1987 live album Osbourne released to honor his colleague, who perished in a 1982 plane crash at age 25.

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Eddie Van Halen (January 26, 1955 – October 6, 2020) was an American musician. He was the guitarist and primary songwriter of the rock band Van Halen, which he founded with his brother Alex in 1972. Van Halen also provided backing vocals for both David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar, and occasionally played keyboards.

Van Halen is widely regarded as one of the greatest guitarists in rock history and was well-known for popularizing the tapping guitar technique, allowing rapid arpeggios to be played with two hands on the fretboard. Rolling Stone named Van Halen the 4th greatest guitarist of all time in its list of the “250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” in 2023

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Bruce Dickinson (born 7 August 1958) is an English singer who is best known as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Iron Maiden.  He began his career in music fronting small pub bands in the 1970s while attending school in Sheffield and university in London. In 1979, he joined British new wave heavy metal band Samson, with whom he gained some popularity under the stage name “Bruce Bruce” and performed on two studio records. He left Samson in 1981 to join Iron Maiden, replacing Paul Di’Anno, and debuted on their 1982 album The Number of the Beast. On the following albums, 1983’s Piece of Mind and 1984’s Powerslave, Steve Harris‘s song-writing monopoly was pushed aside in favour of other members’ ideas, with Dickinson contributing to a number of tracks, including the singles “Flight of Icarus” and “2 Minutes to Midnight“. During his first tenure in the band, they issued a series of US and UK platinum and gold albums in the 1980s and early 1990s, such as  live album Live After Death, 1986’s Somewhere in Time, 1988’s Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, 1990’s No Prayer for the Dying and 1992’s Fear Of The Dark.

Dickinson quit Iron Maiden in 1993 (being replaced by Blaze Bayley) to pursue his solo career, which saw him experiment with a wide variety of heavy metal and rock styles. He rejoined the band in 1999, along with guitarist Adrian Smith, and has released six subsequent studio albums with the band. Since his return to Iron Maiden, he has released two further solo records, in 2005, Tyranny of Souls and The Mandrake Project in 2024.

Although Dickinson never received formal training, he possesses a wide vocal range which is characterised by his quasi-operatic tenor Along with Ronnie James Dio and Rob Halford, Dickinson is one of the pioneers of the operatic vocal style later to be adopted by power metal vocalists and regularly appears near the top in lists of the greatest rock vocalists/front-men of all time

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Twisted Sister was an American heavy metal band originally from Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, and later based on Long Island, New York. Twisted Sister’s best-known hits include “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “I Wanna Rock”, which had music videos noted for their sense of slapstick humor. Many of the band’s songs explore themes of parent vs. child conflicts and criticisms of the educational system.

Although the band is often considered glam metal for its image, frontman Dee Snider considers the term to be inappropriate. Twisted Sister are also ranked No. 73 in VH1’s 100 greatest artists of hard rock.

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Iron Maiden : one of the most successful heavy metal bands in history

Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band formed in Leyton, East London, in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. The band’s discography has grown to thirty-eight albums, including sixteen studio albums, eleven live albums, four EPs, and seven compilations.

Pioneers of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, Iron Maiden achieved initial success during the early 1980s. Iron Maiden’s eponymous 1980 release, Iron Maiden, debuted at No. 4 in the UK Albums Chart. In addition to the title track, the album includes other early favourites such as “Running Free”, “Transylvania”, “Phantom of the Opera”, and “Sanctuary” – which was not on the original UK release but made the US version and subsequent remasters. The band line-up was bassist Steve Harris, guitarist Dave Murray , vocalist Paul Di’Anno, guitarist Dennis Stratton  and ex-Samson drummer Clive Burr. Iron Maiden set out on a headline tour of the UK, before opening for Kiss on their 1980 Unmasked Tour’s European leg as well as supporting Judas Priest on select dates. After the Kiss tour, guitarist Dennis Stratton was dismissed from the band as a result of creative and personal differences, and was replaced by Adrian Smith in October 1980.

In 1981, Iron Maiden released their second album, entitled Killers. Containing many tracks that had been written prior to their debut release, only two new songs were written for the record: “Prodigal Son” and “Murders in the Rue Morgue (the latter’s title was taken from Edgar Allan Poe’s short story). The record was followed by the band’s first world tour, which included their debut performance in the United States, opening for Judas Priest at The Aladdin Casino, Las Vegas.

By 1981, Paul Di’Anno was demonstrating increasingly self-destructive behaviour, particularly through his drug usage. With his performances suffering, Di’Anno was immediately fired following the Killer World Tour, at which point the band had already selected his replacement :Bruce Dickinson, the ex-member of NWOBHM band Samson, 

With their new vocalist , the band went on to release a series of UK and US platinum and gold albums, including 1982’s The Number of the Beast, 1983’s Piece of Mind, 1984’s Powerslave, 1985’s live album Live After Death, 1986’s Somewhere in Time and 1988’s Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.

In 2010, the band have undergone a resurgence in popularity, with the album The Final Frontier, peaking at No. 1 in 28 different countries and receiving widespread critical acclaim. Their sixteenth studio album, The Book of Souls, was released on 4 September 2015.

Despite little radio or television support, Iron Maiden are considered one of the most successful heavy metal bands in history. The band have sold over 90 million albums worldwide and have played over 2000 live shows throughout their career. For the past 35 years, the band have been supported by their famous mascot, “Eddie“, who has appeared on almost all of their album and single covers, as well as in their live shows.

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Slayer’s Reign In “Thrash”

Slayer is an American thrash metal band from Huntington Park, California, formed in 1981 by guitarists Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King. The two other members were Tom Araya on Bass/Vocals and Dave Lombardo on drums. Slayer rose to fame with its 1986 release Reign in Blood, and is credited as one of the “big four” thrash metal bands, along with Metallica, Megadeth, and Anthrax. They were one of the most distinctive, influential, and extreme thrash metal bands of the 1980s.

The band was spotted by Brian Slagel, a former music journalist who had, at the time, recently founded the label Metal Blade Records. He asked them to record an original song, “Aggressive Perfector”, for his upcoming “Metal Massacre III” compilation. The band agreed and the song created underground buzz, which led to Slagel offering the band a recording contract with Metal Blade. Its debut album Show No Mercy, released in December 1983, generated underground popularity for the band, and the group began its first national club tour in 1984 to promote the album. In August 1984, Slayer released a three song EP titled “Haunting the Chapel“. The band embarked on the 1984 Combat Tour, with Venom and Exodus, and released a live album titled” Live Undead” in November.

Released in September 1985, Slayer’s second full-length release Hell Awaits expanded on the darkness of Haunting the Chapel, with hell and Satan as common song subjects. The album was the band’s most progressive offering, featuring longer and more complex song structures. The album was a hit, with fans choosing Slayer for best band, best live band, Hell Awaits as 1985’s best album, and Dave Lombardo as best drummer in the British magazine Metal Forces’ 1985 Readers Poll.

Following the success of Hell Awaits, Slayer was offered a recording contract with Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin‘s newly founded Def Jam Records. The band accepted and with an experienced producer and major label recording budget, the band underwent a sonic makeover resulting in shorter, faster songs with clearer production and hardcore punk influenced song structures.

Def Jam’s distributor, Columbia Records, refused to release the album Reign in Blood due to its graphic cover art and themes. For example, “Angel of Death” detailed Holocaust concentration camps and the human experiments conducted by Nazi physician Josef Mengele. The album was distributed by Geffen Records on October 7, 1986. However, due to the controversy, Reign in Blood did not appear on Geffen Records’ release schedule. Although the album received virtually no radio airplay, it became the band’s first to enter the Billboard 200, debuting at number 94, and the band’s first album certified gold in the United States. Reign in Blood was an instant classic, breaking the band through to a wider audience, and was hailed by some as the greatest speed metal album of all time.

Slayer returned to the studio to record their fourth studio album. To contrast the speed of Reign in Blood, the band consciously decided to slow down the tempos, and incorporate more melodic singing. According to Hanneman, “We knew we couldn’t top Reign in Blood, so we had to slow down. We knew whatever we did was gonna be compared to that album, and I remember we actually discussed slowing down. It was weird—we’ve never done that on an album, before or since.1 988’s South of Heaven received mixed responses from both fans and critics, although it was Slayer’s most commercially successful release at the time.

Slayer released many successful albums such as Seasons In the Abyss(1990), Decade Of Aggression (1991), Divine Intervention (1994), God Hates Us All (2001), Christ Illusion (2006), World Painted Blood (2009) and Repentless (2015)

The band has received five Grammy nominations, winning one in 2007 for the song Eyes of the Insane, and one in 2008 for the song “Final Six” (both from 2006’s Christ Illusion).

The music of Slayer has been highly influential, often being cited by many bands as an influence musically, visually, and lyrically. Between 1991 and 2013, the band sold 4.9 million albums in the United States.

On May 2, 2013 Jeff Hanneman, the guitarist and founding member of Slayer, the man who wrote the songs “Raining Blood,”War Ensemble,” “South of Heaven,” “Seasons in the Abyss,” and “Angel of Death,” died of liver failure , in Southern California.