“It’s damn near impossible to adequately explain the impact of this album. We didn’t know what hit us”: The best rock debut album from every year of the 1980s

People were expecting great things from the leaders of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, but no one expected Iron Maiden’s debut to be quite this gritty, ramshackle and ill-refined.

A mile away from the sleek metal machine they would later become, their debut has nevertheless endured the test of time well.

Vocalist Paul Di’Anno (later to be replaced by Bruce Dickinson) barks out the words like a drunk threatening you with a broken pint glass, and the band carry out their hybrid punk/metal thing with aplomb.

Originally issued via the band’s own label Leathur Records in 1981, Mötley Crüe’s debut was remixed by Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker for its international major label release a year later. But no amount of polish could smooth off is rough edges, and the band’s barely competent performance is an integral part of the album’s tacky appeal.

Nikki Sixx is an avowed fan of British glam rock legends Slade and The Sweet, and those influences are in evidence on Too Fast For Love, especially in the terrace-style chants of the title track. But the Crüe also had a cutting edge: a raw, coke-fuelled bovver-boy aggression, felt in the supercharged cowbell-clunking yob-rock of Live Wire. Plainly, these dudes had balls.

A marketing man’s dream, Asia were billed as a prog rock supergroup: Yes guitarist Steve Howe and keyboardist Geoff Downes, ELP drummer Carl Palmer and King Crimson / UK / Uriah Heep bassist/vocalist John Wetton. With such a line-up, nobody expected the concise, radio-friendly vivacity of Heat Of The Moment, Sole Survivor and Only Time Will Tell.

Hugely commercial but with strong prog undertones and impeccable musicianship (plus the prog stamp of approval of a Roger Dean logo and cover), the album earned Asia a huge audience, topped the US chart for nine weeks, and sold 10 million copies worldwide.

Metallica would become far more layered and sophisticated in their songwriting as the 80s wore on, but even four-plus decades later, there’s still something so primal and satisfying about Kill ‘Em All’s snotty, ‘fuck-you’ attitude and relentless, proto-thrash assault.

Smashing together Messrs Hetfield, Ulrich, Burton and Hammett’s love of punk rock fury and NWOBHM might with the subtlety of a brick to the groin (with some not inconsiderable help from former guitarist Dave Mustaine), the quartet kickstarted a movement and produced one of heavy metal’s all-time great debut albums in the process.

It’s easy to overlook just how stacked with classic ‘Tallica cuts Kill ‘Em All is, too: Hit The Lights, The Four Horsemen, Motorbreath, Whiplash, Seek & Destroy… plenty of bands could release all that, call it a day and consider their career a job well done. Incredibly, Metallica were only just getting started.

Ratt revolved around big-mouth singer Stephen Pearcy, even bigger-mouthed drummer Bobby ‘The Blotz’ Blotzer and the sunny and dumb guitarist Robbin Crosby. They took their cue from Aerosmith and Cheap Trick rather than from contemporaries like Motley Crue, but Ratt were neither as smart nor cool.

What they were tremendously good at was having a good time, and this record sums up their appeal: its best song, Round And Round, is ineffably stupid but impossible to forget. Out Of The Cellar is still a pretty tidy serving of arena-baiting pop metal.

Kirk Hammett was in an early version of these Bay Area bangers. Hammett was poached by Metallica to replace Dave Mustaine, and Exodus drafted in replacement guitarist, Rick Hunolt.

By the time Bonded By Blood came out, Metallica were poised to deliver their breakthrough Master Of Puppets; Exodus had become just another snarling band in a burgeoning genre. But the album remains a classic of the genre – albeit an under-appreciated by those outside the thrash scene.

Typical that for his first post-Van Halen record David Lee Roth surrounded himself with the likes of Steve Vai, Billy Sheehan and Greg Bissonette and unleashed a brash, loud and colourful collection of Halen-esque party-influenced hard rock. Yankee Rose, Goin’ Crazy!, Tobacco Road and Shy Boy all rocked, and the ensuing tour was a huge success in the US in ’86.

It’s damn near impossible to adequately explain the impact of Guns N’ Roses’s studio debut. It was like nothing we’d heard before – the sound of a street smart LA gang with a tortured genius of a frontman and a brand new guitar hero with a penchant for top hats. From the ominous opening growl of Welcome To The Jungle to the relentless closer Rocket Queen, Appetite runs the gamut from heartfelt balladry (Sweet Child O’ Mine) to full-on anthems for a new rock world in Paradise City and Mr Brownstone. We just didn’t know what hit us.

One of the great cult debuts of the 1980s, Out Of The Silent Planet was muscular, heavy, delicate and devotional. The decade Houston’s King’s X had spent playing together by that point served them well, with Ty Tabor’s guitar alternately jagged and ornate as it twisted around Doug Pinnick’s metallic 12-string bass, sounding way more powerful than any trio had a right to sound. Hard rock anthems In The New Age, Power Of Love and King were self-consciously Big Music, evoking early 80s U2 in their quest for spiritual connection if not in sound, but it’s the aching hymn to unrequited love Goldilox that proved how special they were.

Nine Inch Nails’ debut is a synth-pop album that’s not really synth-pop. Sure, the arse-shaking perversion of Sin and Sanctified’s naughtiness are reminiscent of Depeche Mode and the darker, more twisted edge of the genre. But songs such as Head Like A Hole rocked hard. Pretty Hate Machine’s tinny production and bygone influences have obviously dated, but the songs themselves are still as affecting.