Heavy Metal Album Covers That Rocked The World

March 30, 2006

The U.K.'s Guardian Unlimited has published a short interview with James Sherry, co-author of the book "Heavy Metal Thunder: Album Covers That Rocked the World", a collection of album covers from metal's golden age that began with BLACK SABBATH's 1970 eponymously titled debut.

Heavy-metal album covers are a product of the typical obsessions of a teenage boy: muscle, fantasy, horror movies and violence. "It was Marvel comics with guitars," says Scott Ian from ANTHRAX. "They were larger-thanlife real super-heroes."

Large-breasted women make an occasional entrance, but this is a mainly masculine domain. Strangely, bouffant hair and make-up was briefly acceptable in this manly world. "Looking back, it's completely ludicrous," says Sherry, who delved into the record collection of his adolescence to supply "Heavy Metal Thunder" with many of its images. "But at the age of 13 or 14 I took this all very seriously. Death, blood and mayhem were at the center of my world."

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).