Metallica

While they didn't technically "invent" thrash metal, Metallica sparked one hell of an underground uprising with their speed-demon debut, Kill 'Em All, an extreme-music milestone that turned a modest tape-trading phenomenon into an arms race. Turns out they were just getting started, too — balancing fast-and-furious beginnings with tempo-shifting, three-dimensional curve balls like the acoustic-led "Fade to Black," the cinematic, sepia-toned "One," and the brittle Bob Seger cover "Turn the Page."

No wonder why our Next Steps sound like a battle royale of Metallica cuts, pulling the band in different directions while still retaining their warts-and-all roots.

Ask any die-hard Metallica fan to break the band's dense catalog down and they'll likely separate it into two key time periods: before and after "the Black Album," a self-titled smash that shifted more than ten million copies Stateside and earned Metallica a crossover audience no one expected in the golden age of grunge and gangsta rap. To understand exactly what we mean, take a trip through time with the following tracks, from the sputtering lawnmower lacerations of "Leper Messiah" and "Motorbreath" to latter-day howl-at-the-moon music like "Ain't My Bitch," "Frantic," and the groove-grinding "King Nothing."

And to make sure you really understand the many sides of Metallica, our Deep Cuts fill in the gaps with B-sides and foundation-exposing cover songs.

Metallica's two-disc Garage, Inc. compilation is more than a collection of cover songs from yesterday and today. It's also a carefully curated time capsule of the countless influences that have infiltrated their songwriting process since the early '80s — prime cuts of hard rock (the Budgie classics "Breadfan" and "Crash Course in Brain Surgery"), hardcore punk (the Misfits' "Die Die My Darling"), and heavy metal (the swirling, face-swiping riffs of Holocaust's "The Small Hours" and Killing Joke's "The Wait") that Metallica's dragged through the dirt and made their own for the past two decades.

How big is Metallica, really? Well, for starters, they've sold more than 90 million albums worldwide, a statistic that suggests they're more than this generation's Black Sabbath. In fact, many would argue that Metallica's the most important hard rock act of our time. The evidence is plentiful in our playlist, as it reveals a band that's survived trends (namely, the speed- and agility-obsessed thrash metal of the '80s) and one another to write immediate, time-tested anthems for arenas (torch ballads like "Nothing Else Matters," mosh pit pleasers like "Enter Sandman") and the underground. (Wanna get your friendly neighborhood metalhead smiling within seconds? Play them any of the following: "Master of Puppets," "Creeping Death," or "The Four Horsemen," and we guarantee a devil horn-flashing sign of solidarity.)