Heavy metal is the devil’s music. It’s written in the Bible. When you die (and if you try hard enough, when you’re alive) and you inevitably end up in Hell, you’re going to want to get on Lucifer’s good side. So we’ve provided you with a list of bonafide ‘80s metal tunes you and your new eternal Beelze-bub can play on what we imagine would be a killer sound system and headbang together too. And sure, you might ask, “Who the fuck is this band?” but you want to impress Satan with your heavy metal knowledge while you burn in hellfire for all eternity, right? We thought so.
Running Wild “Chains and Leather”
Before Germany’s Running Wild grew out of their satanic imagery phase towards a more mature, dignified pirate gimmick, they released two of the decade’s most deliciously cheesy Satanic metal records. Gates of Purgatory is probably the more evil of the two, but Branded and Exiled has the song “Chains and Leather” on it. And with lyrics like, “Even Satan wears leather, our souls to it forever,” it holds a place on this list.
Slayer “The Antichrist”
Slayer is synonymous with two things: Satan, and Slayer fans. While we’re sure much of Slayer’s fanbase probably would end up going to hell, we’re here to talk about the devil’s number one fans, Kerry King and Co. And although any number of songs from their classic catalog could have made this list, “The Antichrist” is just….a cut above the rest.
Sabbat “The Church Bizarre”
Sabbat’s 1988 masterpiece, “A History of Time to Come” is a bit different from what most bands who praised the dark lord back in the ‘80s were doing. The imagery, atmosphere of the record and most of all, the lyrics, set them apart from the goofy, comic book villainy nature of most of their contemporaries and take a much more “I like, actually disagree with the church” approach. Definitely one you’re sure to “wow” Satan with.
Mercyful Fate “Black Funeral”
“All hail Satan, YES HAIL SATAN”
Venom “In League With Satan”
When you die, you’ll no doubt see Satan sitting on his throne of skulls or whatever, wearing a Venom shirt. Is he vain to wear a shirt with his own face on it? Who cares! Venom is the band that took blasphemy to new heights within heavy metal music and we can’t imagine when he wouldn’t be their biggest fan.
Possessed “Seven Churches”
Although most of the songs featured on this list are in the more “traditional” sense of the genre, it would be hard to write a list of blasphemous songs without mentioning death metal (yeah, death metal) pioneers, Possessed. Sure to have a high spot on the dark lord’s playlist.
Stormwitch “Priest of Evil”
It’s about a priest. An evil priest. An evil priest who spits on every crucifix.
Black Sabbath “Disturbing the Priest”
The fact that this album sounds like it was recorded in some dark hallway in hell, using a black box from a 1970s 747 jetliner adds to its devilishness. Plus the album cover has one of the few pictures of baby Satan known to man. Not their best, but definitely their biggest ode to the big man.
Mercyful Fate “The Oath”
“I WILL KISS THE GOAT”
Witchfynde “Would Not be Seen Dead in Heaven”
This song takes a unique approach to being evil. A “making your little brother walk 10 feet behind you while walking to school so you aren’t embarrassingly seen with him” sort of way. And the results are fantastic.
Even a bad Bright Eyes album can top a lot of people’s best work. Not this one, though. It’s essentially garbage. We legitimately thought this record was a haphazard compilation of demo recordings, but Wikipedia assured us that it is indeed considered to be the band’s legitimate debut album. If we were to do a ranking of the most unlistenable albums of all time, “A Collection” would certainly hit the top 5. Imagine someone found all of your journal entries from the eighth grade and paired them with all of the half-written songs you have saved in your voice memos. That should give you a pretty good idea of what this record sounds like.
Bright Eyes’ sophomore album was released in the same year as their aforementioned debut. Seemingly someone at their former label Saddle Creek finally got around to listening to “A Collection”, vomited profusely, and demanded a proper release out of Oberst and company. “Letting Off the Happiness” was the first Bright Eyes record to be produced by current member Mike Mogis. Bringing Mogis in was a great move on the band’s part considering his contributions lifted Oberst’s half-baked ideas into the territory of actually listenable music. The seeds that would eventually blossom into the band’s signature sound were firmly planted on this album. It would take a few years, however, for Oberst’s incessant tears to properly saturate the soil.
This album proved to be such a disappointment that the band would go AWOL for nine years after its release. Not a bad record, per say, but also not a great one. At the time that was reason enough to mark it as a nearly irreparable fall from grace. “The People’s Key” attempted to return to the sound and style that informed earlier releases like “Digital Ash in a Digital Urn”, but more often sounded like a cheap imitation. Several tracks uncomfortably appropriated Rastafari and it’s even harder to forgive the QAnon-esque monologues of Denny Brewer that permeated the entire album. No amount of Mogis spin could fix those egregious errors. All things considered, “Triple Spiral” still slaps.
This album is about as exhausting to listen to as its title is to read. Although the record birthed several fan favorites including “Lover I Don’t Have to Love”, the majority of “Lifted” feels overcooked and desperate to please. Remember that time in college when you really felt like you were pulling off that newsboy cap? Now you only feel regret when you are reminded of that phase. That’s essentially this record’s deal. Much like your dweeby hat, “Lifted” seemed cool at the time, but retrospectively failed to give off the matured look the band was hoping to achieve.
“Down in the Weeds” marked a surprising and triumphant return to form for the Nebraska outfit. Rumor has it that this comeback record was inspired by Phoebe Bridgers advising Oberst to “write a good song for a change”, a suggestion for which she should have received dozens of humanitarian awards. He understood the assignment well and delivered not just one, but twelve of his most memorable works in years.
Born out of a spiritual and creative awakening for Oberst that produced nearly 30 songs, “Cassadaga” remains one of the group’s strongest albums. Oberst was so relaxed during the sessions that he no longer felt the need to sing like a vibrating goat. This record also gets significant bonus points for featuring original Sleater-Kinney drummer, Janet Weiss, on three of its best tracks. “Cassadaga” only ranks lower here because several of the songs extend well beyond their welcome. We get it, Conor; you love belonging and you hate the government. We don’t need upwards of a thousand verses on nearly every track.
Released in conjunction with “I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning”, “Digital Ash” granted Bright Eyes an excuse to explore their more electro and distorted side without making the fatal mistake of releasing a double album. The results of this outing deserved the stand-alone designation. Mogis’ production hits such dizzying heights here that, by the record’s end, you won’t even remember that time your date stood you up at Homecoming.
Name another massively successful album that starts with a shaky one-minute-long ramble of a monologue. Oh, did we mention that track is one of their most popular singles? Seriously, what the fuck is that about? On “Wide Awake”, if Oberst isn’t serving as the soundtrack to every fledgling romance with tracks like “First Day of My Life”, he’s moonlighting as a weirdly horny political activist on cuts like “Land Locked Blues”. What a ride. We recommend spinning this one in the springtime. That way you can point to allergies as the source of your puffy eyes when “Lua” comes on and crushes the living fuck out of you.
“Fevers and Mirrors” is an undisputed classic for a reason. To put it simply, this record has everything that makes a Bright Eyes album a Bright Eyes album. Every idea the band would later expand upon exists within its 55 minute runtime. Need a cathartic breakup anthem to snottily scream in your car? “Fevers and Mirrors” easily has about five or six. Not only that, but Todd Fink of the Faint delivers an incredible impression of Oberst in a fake radio interview toward the end of the album. That section alone deserves to rank higher than most of the band’s output. If anyone ever tells you this album isn’t the best one, politely tell them to eat shit and die. Just be sure to turn around before they see the single tear running down your cheek.
“Bedtime for Democracy” is the best effort in giving up that the band could muster at the time. Which is why the court case most closely associated with the album was actually a simple slip and fall case in which frontman Jello Biafra, fully racked up with a neck brace and only one crutch, hobbled out of the studio on the last day of recording. The singer claims to have tripped over a slice of loose carpeting in the booth, and that’s why this album blows.
Alright, alright, we all know about the penis lawsuit. The PMRC shit their collective khakis over the “Frankenchrist” album art. But did you know that the band was later sued again over the dick poster, this time by Tipper Gore alone. Apparently she eventually grew quite fond of the boner cavalcade after many a late night studying it over and over again at PMRC headquarters, and decided to sue the band again for, as it states in the court transcript, “opening [her] eyes to a bright and frightening world of sexual possibilities [she] never would have known otherwise.” In this context, it really adds new meaning to the lyric “invasion of the beef patrol.”
This runner-up of a record saw the band gettin dragged to court by the Peace Corps of all fucking things. This was because at the time recently passed legislation required all publicly distributed images of horrific global conflicts, famine and humanitarian disasters were required by law to be accompanied by an official Peace Corps “But We Tried” sticker. It’s unclear whether the band did not include this sticker as a protest or if someone at Alternative Tentacles just kinda forgot to throw it on there.
“Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables” has all of DK’s best stuff. “Kill the Poor,” “Let’s Lynch the Landlord,” “California uber Alles,” fucking “Holiday In Cambodia” – it’s all there. What’s also there is the class action suit that was filed by Chiquita for defamation. The banana juggernaut claimed the band was slandering the quality of their produce “gratuitously and consistently.” Frankly we have no idea where they got that impression, but still, a judge found in favor of Chiquita and forced the band to pay out $479 million dollars for hurting the multi-billion dollar corporation’s feelings.
