Top 20 Hard Rock and Heavy Metal Albums of 1995

The hard rock and heavy metal albums released in 1995 marked a lot of notable endings and new beginnings.

It was the last year Van Halen released an album with Sammy Hagar, or that Skid Row worked with Sebastian Bach, and the final time Layne Staley was heard on an Alice in Chains album. White Zombie and Kyuss broke up after releasing their 1995 albums, and both Anthrax and Faith No More dealt with the departures of their lead guitarists prior to recording Stomp 442 and King for a Day… Fool for a Lifetime.

There were also exciting new beginnings. Pantera‘s Phil Anselmo expanded his horizons with the southern heavy metal supergroup Down, and Dave Grohl released the first Foo Fighters record – a project originally intended to serve as self-therapy in the wake of Kurt Cobain’s death, which eventually grew to be one of modern rock’s biggest and most beloved bands. Slash began to move on from the wreckage of Guns N’ Roses with his first solo album, It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere.

It was a quiet year for the grunge movement, as both Pearl Jam and Soundgarden wouldn’t release new albums until 1996. But Green Day and the Smashing Pumpkins proved that their recent commercial breakthroughs weren’t flukes with Insomniac and the wildly ambitious Mellen Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Meanwhile, the typically unruffled AC/DC and Motorhead kept on keeping on with Ballbreaker and the particularly savage Sacrifice.