Playlist Postscript: Metal History 101

55 years in 35 songs

Welcome back to Playlist Postscript, a monthly series in which I revisit an old playlist of mine and annotate my past selections with present day observations. As I mentioned in last month’s entry, I’m spending the second of half 2025 focused on my collection of personalized heavy metal recommendations. You spend long enough cultivating a social and professional reputation for knowing a lot about heavy metal and eventually people are going to start asking in friendly tones for you to prove it. One such demand came from my friend, former bandmate in Sharpless, and brand new father, Daniel Ott. Congratulations, Daniel! Listeners of the currently hibernating podcast Lamniformes Radio may remember that Daniel is not cursed with an insatiable hunger for brutal riffs. What Daniel does possess however is a good-natured curiosity about the world, which is why he asked me to give him a quick overview of heavy metal history. To the tune of 35 songs lasting three hours and twenty minutes, I was happy to oblige him.

Some fellow distorted guitar enthusiasts might find even that sizable runtime too slim to cover the 55 year history of the genre. Heeding my own completionist tendencies, I agree. However despite the playlist’s name this is not a college course. If it were, I’d be charging a heck of a lot more than $5 a month for it. As always my annotations include a number of emojis serving as shorthand for readers in a hurry. The Lamniformes Shark Emoji of Approval 🦈 marks my present day favorites. The Drum Emoji of Destiny 🥁 denotes songs which will eventually appear in Drumming Upstream. And, since we listened to this playlist on a stormy and traffic-bloated drive back from Michigan, ~*My Girlfriend’s*~ favorite songs will bear The Cherry Blossom of Excellence 🌸. The dog was with us as well and responded exactly once to a change in the music 🐶. Which song earned this inscrutable honor along with the rest of these visual superlatives? Find out below.

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