Scorpions singer Klaus Meine selects 11 extraordinary singles, and reveals how he tried and failed to bring peace to the Korean peninsular

Cheap Trick's long career has seen them celebrated by everyone from Steve Albini to the entire nation of Japan. Here are their 20 albums, ranked in order of growing magnificence

It's backstage in Vancouver in 1984, and David Lee Roth is having the time of his life. The other band members? Not so much

The story behind Sepultura’s Chaos AD – the album that turned four Brazilian metalheads into global stars

The Moody Blues' astonishing journey from high living in the 60s, pioneering musical alchemy in the 70s to prog's elder statesmen of today

A tale of bottles and Beatles: Metal Hammer unfurls the story of one of the most influential albums of all time

The 1970s was the era when the great heavy metal pioneers laid down the blueprint for everything that was to come after. Here are the 10 most essential albums from that glorious decade

The 30 albums that define heavy metal as we know it

Justin Hawkins from The Darkness picks ten albums that shone a light down the path to rock'n'roll triumph

Ten moments of maverick musical genius from the late Keith Emerson

"Working with Yes was full of drama," says producer Hugh Padgham

They were four lads from Birmingham who took one day to record an album that would give birth to heavy metal. This is the story of Black Sabbath's first album

The six times World Snooker Champion likes a bit of Magma, the Canterbury scene, Gentle Giant and more

There was more to the 1980s than Metallica, Maiden and GN’R

From glam band to heavy groovers, back in '92 there was no sign of stopping these cowboys from hell

Essential facts about the Pantera legend

The true story of the birth, rise and fall of hair metal, from the people who lived through it all

As humanity celebrates 50 years of heavy metal, here’s half a century’s worth of pioneering heavy music, from the classics to the contemporary hard-hitters

As the 70s dawned, the folk with the electric guitars realised that rock could be harder, dirty, louder and faster than before – here's a guide to the albums that shaped heavy metal as we know it

When K.K. Downing and David Ellefson announced a special one-off set of Judas Priest songs, we knew we couldn't miss it. Here's how it all went down