Heavy metal had been slowly growing in popularity for decades by the time it hit its commercial peak. The ’80s are considered mainly the heyday of heavy metal in its official definition. That being ...

The unforgettable riff belongs to one of the band's most iconic songs.

Replacing Dave Mustaine as Metallica’s lead guitarist in 1983, Kirk Hammett cut his teeth on Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. So it’s unsurprising that he lists Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys and Zeppelin’s ...

Metallica's Kirk Hammett named one particular guitar riff that he believes "shifted heavy metal." "The first three Black Sabbath albums are like gospel. Everyone kind of universally agrees. They ...

Black Sabbath's "Sabbra Cadabra" is still celebrated 53 years later as one of the standout songs from a legendary album.

Some guitar riffs are so iconic that they need only a few notes to be instantly recognizable. For Megadeth, that riff is "Symphony of Destruction" ... without question. More than 30 years after its ...

Here are the 10 most metal My Chemical Romance riffs! Guitarist Ray Toro grew up on heavy metal, vocalist Gerard Way has cited Iron Maiden as a key influence ...

The riff. It's everything to metal. You can strip away pretty much any other element that has come to define the genre over the years - haunting atmospherics, scorching wails and guttural screams, ...

For a guy whose riffs have influenced generations of musicians and helped spawn several genres, namely grunge and sludge metal, King Buzzo aka Buzz Osborne doesn’t spend too much time thinking about ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Quentin Singer is music journalist who covers rock and heavy music. As it relates to who should be considered heavy metal’s ...