11 ‘70s Rock Albums That Used To Be Considered Metal

Here are 10 classic rock albums from the 1970s that used to be considered heavy metal.

Heavy metal didn’t just arrive overnight with a guitar in one hand a bottle of Jack Daniels in the other, but instead was pieced together in real time long before anyone fully agreed on what to call it. In the early to mid 1970s, the term “heavy metal” was used loosely; and often than not was a derogatory term. It applied to bands that sounded heavier and darker than the blues based “flower power” rock that dominated the end of the 1960s.

Bands were experimenting in all different directions; you had a variety of bands pushing the boundaries of what was accepted into something that was far more intense than anything that been heard at the time.

READ MORE: 5 ’70s Rock Musicians Who Never Drank Alcohol or Did Drugs?

At the time, listeners and fans alike didn’t have the benefit of hindsight. Records that felt heavy in 1971 or 1975 were often labeled as metal simply because there wasn’t another name for them. It wasn’t until much later in the decade, and especially in the 1980s, when bands became amplifying the intensity of these sounds with even more speed and aggression that the genre solidified itself into something far more recognizable.

This gray period makes this musical era so interesting to revisit. These albums don’t fully align with what metal has become, but they clearly point toward it. Their influence is undeniable. Looking back now, it’s less about whether these records can still be labeled as heavy metal in the year 2026, but instead, that they were the first ones to do it.

Below, see the best metal song of each year since 1970.

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