Only 2 Metal Albums Made Rolling Stone’s Best Albums of the 21st Century So Far

Rolling Stone have released their list of the 250 Best Albums of the 21st Century So Far, but only two metal albums have made the cut.

It’s often not too surprising to see metal get marginalized, especially when you’re encompassing the whole of music including more mainstream acts. But it also speaks to the power of certain records and what they meant to the genre and the music world as a whole when there’s a smaller representation for a specific sound.

So what metal albums made Rolling Stone’s 250 Best Albums of the 21st Century So Far?

The Masterful Mastodon

You have to scroll through to No. 171 before the first metal album appears on the list. That honor goes to Mastodon‘s 2004 masterpiece, Leviathan. In the reflection on the classic record, Rolling Stone writes, “Their meat-and-potatoes approach to heavy metal was a breath of fresh air at a time when the genre was having an identity crisis, torn between nu metal, metalcore, and prog metal. Mastodon merely surveyed the competition and metaphorically growled, ‘You’re gonna need a bigger riff.'”

READ MORE: The 66 Best Metal Songs of the 21st Century

Mastodon’s Leviathan features such staples as “Blood and Thunder,” “Iron Tusk” and “Naked Burn.” It peaked at No. 139 on the Billboard 200 album chart upon its release, but has become one of the more influential albums from its era. The band celebrated the record’s 20th anniversary while on tour in 2024.

Down With the System

Rolling Stone also appears down with System of a Down, choosing their massive 2001 album Toxicity for inclusion on the list. It arrives at No. 159.

“System of a Down invented a jumping, bouncing, pogo-ing style of protest music steeped in ’90s alterna-metal but made for 21st century arenas. Decidedly unmacho compared to their chest-thumping nu-metal peers, they instead dealt in staccato squeaks, death disco, punk polkas, and circus thrash, Pied Piper-ing a generation into radical politics,” noted Rolling Stone in discussing the album.

The band’s sophomore set yielded the hit singles “Chop Suey,” “Toxicity” and “Aerials” while also becoming their first chart-topping record. It’s been certified six times platinum in the U.S.

A Double Down on Metalcore

The Rolling Stone Best Albums of the 21st Century list also included two metalcore acts, showcasing the genre’s burgeoning growth in the 21st Century. The first of the two albums was Pierce the Veil‘s 2012 set, Collide With the Sky, which claimed the No. 243 position on Rolling Stone’s countdown. Honing in on the sense of urgency delivered by the record, Rolling Stone notes, “The band performs as if it’s actively being consumed by a fiery blaze.”

Converge also get some attention here, as 2001’s Jane Doe slots in at No. 192. Of the album, Rolling Stone states, “Converge’s music is pure chaos. There are no verses or choruses, and hell, there’s not even a hummable guitar riff. It’s simply 45 minutes of frightening, rattling, exhilarating aural assaults.”

Other Notable Findings

Recency bias may come into play, but there was only one rock or metal album from the 2020s that made the cut. That would be Turnstile‘s 2021 album Glow On at No. 236.

Only four rock and metal albums came from the 2010s – the aforementioned Pierce the Veil’s Collide With the Sky (2012) at No. 243, The Black Keys‘ Brothers (2010) at No. 217, Arctic Monkeys‘ AM (2013) at No. 57 and David Bowie‘s Blackstar (2016) at No. 24.

And there are only two rock albums that actually made the Top 10 overall. The Strokes 2001 garage rock revival record Is This It came in at No. 10 on the Rolling Stone list, while Radiohead‘s Kid A claimed the No. 2 spot for the Best Album of the 21st Century So Far.

Want to see the full list? It’s currently available through Rolling Stone.