Rolling Stone magazine asked the Prince of Darkness to list his ten favorite metal albums. Here are five of Ozzy's sure-shots:

AC/DC, 'Highway to Hell' (1979)

"I love Brian Johnson but to me my good friend, the late Bon Scott, was the best singer AC/DC ever had. This album was like an addiction to me."

Guns N' Roses, 'Appetite for Destruction' (1987)

"One of the greatest debut albums of all time. There's not a weak song in the bunch. I never get tired of hearing it."

Led Zeppelin, 'Led Zeppelin IV' (1971)

"I've always been a huge Led Zeppelin fan. All of their studio albums are classics but this is one of my all-time favorites."

Metallica, 'Master of Puppets' (1986)

"I took Metallica on tour with me after the release of Master of Puppets. The album was a milestone for the band and for heavy metal."

Motörhead, 'Ace of Spades' (1980)

"The album that put Motörhead over the top. The title track "Ace of Spades" is Motörhead's "Paranoid." It's one of the great metal anthems and, to me, a band hasn't made it until they have their own anthem. This is theirs."

Ozzy Osbourne: My 10 Favorite Metal Albums (Rolling Stone) Read the rest

I believe the track is called "Limerent Death," by The Dillinger Escape Plan. [Thanks, Mr. Raccoon!]

Previously at Chuck E. Cheese's.

Mob-style beating at Chuck E. Cheese's Chuck E. Cheese targets moms with lattes, salad, and more wine and beer Chuck E. Cheese owner agrees to $950 million buyout Chuck E. Cheese Rock-afire robots in MGMT music video Cheese fight at Chuck E Cheese's The Original Fight Read the rest

Somehow I ran across this music, I liked it, and it wasn't recorded 30+ years ago!

I've been enjoying Halestorm's 2015 release Into the Wild Life. Read the rest

Cold welding is the phenomenon of two pieces of metal fusing on contact. It's a big problem in space, but it can even happen on earth at room temperatures with the right metal, as Cody demonstrates. Read the rest

Sad and Useless offers this fantastic collection of Metal album covers. Here are a few that caught my eye. They share many more.

Dr. Rockso, just because.

(Thanks, Tim!) Read the rest

Iain ("an ex-physicist currently working as a data scientist") scraped Dark Lyrics and built a dataset of lyrics to 222,623 songs by 7,364 metal bands, then used traditional natural language processing techniques to analyze them. Read the rest

Joey Muha is a heavy metal drummer of enormous skill and verve and long, beautiful flowing locks who has filled his Youtube channel with dozens and dozens of videos of him drumming along to songs that don't, at first blush, lend themselves to heavy metal percussion. But he proves conclusively that heavy metal drumming makes all music better. Read the rest

Danish photographer Jacob Erhbahn captured metalheads mid-headbang at music festivals around Europe. The result is Headbangers, a full-color book compiling the best of these unrestrained moments of metal bliss.

In this collection Ehrbahn’s camera stops time and captures the surprising and life-affirming moments when the headbangers abandon all semblance of vanity and surrender to the rhythm. Ehrbahn transports us to an intimate world disconnected from time and space—a universe where it’s possible to transcend the frenzy and enter an altered state that brings calm, joy, and relief.

Headbangers by Jacob Erhbahn (Amazon)

Read the rest

South African photographer Paul Shiakallis produced a series of photos, "Leathered Skins, Unchained Hearts," of the "queens" of Botswana's heavy metal "Marok" scene, mostly in their homes. Read the rest

A group at Saudi Arabia's King Abdulla University of Science and Technology have developed a new carbon-nanotube-based material that absorbs 98 to 99 percent of light between 400 and 1,400nm, from all angles, making even blacker than Rice University's 2008 none-more-black, Boston and Duke's 2008 none-more-black and Leiden University's 2009 none-more-black. That's pretty fucking black. Read the rest

Talk about BRUTAL. Rip It Up tells the history of this awesome tribute band, and shares a link to some of their music!

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This Vegan Black Metal Chef is Brutal. Read the rest

"Fingers Bloody Fingers," with Sabbath's Anthony Frank “Tony” Iommi, from The Complete History of Heavy Metal. Read the rest

This. Looping. Forever. Read the rest

Sheer hilarity. (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

See also: Black metal meets Benny Hill Read the rest

Above, Bart's "apology" on behalf of The Simpsons writers for referring to Judas Priest as "death metal" in a previous episode which infuriated the group's very vocal fans. From The Guardian:

The original slur came in a storyline where Homer starts illegally downloading music, leading to an anti-piracy investigation from the FBI and an escape to immunity in a Swedish consulate. The FBI counter by hiring the "death metal" Judas Priest to blast a piracy-themed rework of their track Breaking the Law, with the words changed to "Respecting the law: copyright law!"

"The Simpsons apologise to Judas Priest for calling them 'death metal'" Read the rest

Contrary to my post from earlier this week, Iron Maiden did not decide to tour latinamerica based on Internet analytics about the countries where their music was most pirated. The author of the story made an "error." However, there was research showing that the countries where Maiden was making millions from live shows were also the countries where their music was pirated most. Read the rest