What are the essential Thrash albums?

Essential Hardcore, if you asked me...

Damaged by Black Flag
Group Sex by the Circle Jerks
Minor Threat by Minor Threat
Millions of Dead Cops by MDC
The Record by FEAR
Let Them Eat Jellybeans - Alt. Tentacles compilation

..once again, and loads more (like DOA, Bad Brains, Kraut, Agnostic Front, etc. etc.)

both 1988 I think.

Metallica, Master of Puppets
Megadeth, Rust in Peace
Slayer, Seasons in the Abyss (or Reign in Blood if you insist)
Forbidden, Twisted Into Form

Also Sepultura, Cynic, Iced Earth, etc. for later stuff. I should dig up some of these cds.

So, my favorites that I haven't seen mentioned (sadly, as these are probably my favorites in the genre)
Celtic Frost - To Mega Therion (much more epic than is common for the genre)
Forced Entry - (this sort of takes the bay area mosh thing and makes it a bit "proggier", I guess. It's cool though!)
Coroner - No More Color (or anything by them, really)
Voivod - Killing Technology (ditto, though only the pre-Nothingface stuff is thrashy)
Watchtower - Control & Resistance (probably also the debut, which I have not heard)
Sepultura - Beneath The Remains
Atheist - Unquestionable Presence (this one veers towards death metal)
Annihilator - Alice in Hell
Dark Angel - Darkness Descends and Time Does Not Heal (the former is sorta raw, while the latter has these 8 minute riff-fests - there was supposedly a sticker on the cover stating something like "this album has 246 riffs!" when it first came out)
Jordan mentioned Cynic, I always thought of them as death metal, but "Focus" is by far one of the best metal albums around (despite the cheesy new ageisms)

Oh yeah, can't forget the teutonic thrash trio (generally pretty simplistic, fun stuff):
Sodom - Agent Orange (or Obsessed By Cruelty if you'd like something darker, for me it's a more enjoyable record)
Destruction - Infernal Overkill (preferably with Sentence To Death as bonus tracks)
Kreator - First four or five albums, if you don't want it too dirty and sloppy, you might want to go straight for "Extreme Aggression" and "Coma of Souls")

anyways, for thrash metal oystein's got a good list. i'd add in:
exodus - bonded by blood
possessed - seven churches
slaughter (can) - surrender or die and strappado
razor - violent restitution

if we're talking HC thrash:
the middle class - out of vogue
ydi - out for blood (recent discography cd, fucking great)
septic death - attention (or any of its various permutations)
s.o.b. - any early (pre-metal) stuff

Loving how Alex In NYC just decided to not answer the question AT ALL and then just talk about something completely different in the first response

"Hey all, I'm looking for some great gangsta rap albums"

"Well there's rap and there's hip-hop... I like Sage Francis and..."

I've been listening to a lot of 80s thrash lately. Some things on my playlist, beyond the usual Big Four selections:

Stormtroopers of Death - Speak English or Die
Exodus - Fabulous Disaster
Powermad - Absolute Power
Testament - The Legacy
Sepultura - Chaos AD & Arise
Kreator - Terrible Certainty
Nuclear Assault - Handle w/ Care
Rigor Mortis - s/t
Forbidden - Forbidden Evil
Ludichrist - Power Trip
Sacred Reich - Ignorance

After dabbling in any number of metal subgenres, it is the mid-80s-early-90s thrash stuff that I always come back to most frequently. Surely a key factor in this is the fact that it is one of the musical forms I first fell in love with as a kid. Beyond that, though, I think it contains just the right balance of NWOBHM muscle, rhythm & theatrics & punk/hardcore speed and intensity. Plus, I'm just kind of a sucker for chugga-chugga muted rhythm guitar acrobatics.

theres the obvious- Metallica- Bastard of Muppets, and Slayer-Reign in Blood.. as crazy as it sounds I think we can all agree on that...

then...

Exodus-Bonded by Blood
Testament- 1st two Legacy and New Order
Slayer- Hell Awaits and South of Heaven
Kreator-Terrible Certainty
Megadeth-Killing is my Buisness...
Vio-lence-Enternal Nightmare
Sepultura-Beneath the Remains and Arise

is anthrax the most overrated "legendary" band in metal?

or maybe just the most uncool "legendary" band in metal.

certainly seem to be one of the biggest wankers in legendary bands in metal, and they have some great competition

also why is whiney complaining about a 6 year old post?

is anthrax the most overrated "legendary" band in metal?

Totally.... don't get me wrong they got some good stuff, but basically the Among the Living album and maybe fist full of metal could be have essential potential, but they were goofy.. joking around and being silly all the time. Scott Ian-moster riffer, and master, Charlie Bonante one of the best drummers in metasl period, but its those few highlights of thier career and some good sales that put them in the big 4.
Overall importants?, maybe not so much.. lol

Some people in the earrrrly 80s called hardcore "thrash", which is where ainyc was coming from even though it would have been ridiculous for someone to refer to hardcore as thrash as such in 2005.

xp Loving how Alex In NYC just decided to not answer the question AT ALL and then just talk about something completely different

Thing is, iirc, hardcore was called thrash before thrash-metal was called thrash. Which is maybe what he was getting at in that post, not that he actually said it.

I never got the appeal of Anthrax at all. When they didn't completely bore me, they seemed like a joke band (and not a very funny one, either.)

So whiney's comparison would have been a little offbase. It would be morelike if someone would be all like

What are the essential Tgay house albums?

and alex was like

Well, there's gay and there's happy....

Anthrax had some choice fucking moments, when they would drop the funny stuff. It also helps to not think about

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/68/JamsShorts.jpg/220px-JamsShorts.jpg

only anthrax i have any need for is sound of white noise

cuz they finally had good songs and a great singer

Persistence of Time, for example is fairly humorless and mostly awesome.

Only Anthrax I have any need for is the one by the Gang Of Four.

yeah those shorts were 'tarded...

Don't want to kick off any clusterfucking but reading MRR in the early 00s "thrash" was pretty much standard in those circles for precisely Minor Threat/Negative Approach-inspired kind of business--to distinguish mostly from youth crew and the million other distinct usages for "hardcore" punk. (Had a roommate with a "THRASH" license plate but he didn't know anything about metal--was a Ebullition/Crudos kind of guy.) Obviously, more people in the world are going to use "thrash" for metal...but the punk responses upthread are perfectly good for the current in-group punk definition.

But you guys are right, the term thrash was trown around in reference to hardcore. I'm sure things didn't help when the crossover bands started happening.. Especially D.R.I. and Suicidal.. oh, and S.O.D.!!-shit, crossover before there was a term fo it!

Yeah but at this point isn't it when your little brother is like "I like emo" and you start taling about Rites Of Spring and he's all like o_O

^

i find its everyones duty to tell these kids about rites of spring & embrace et al

Demolition Hammer - Tortured Existence
Onslaught - The Force
Agent Steel - Skeptics Apocalypse
Nuclear Assault - Game Over

80s thrash I love:

Sadus - Illusions
Morbid Saint - Spectrum of Death
Sepultura - Bestial Devastation, Morbid Visions, Schizophrenia
Sodom - Under the Sign of Evil, Obsessed by Cruelty, Persecution Mania
Kreator - Pleasure to Kill
Razor - Violent Restitution
Sacrifice - Forward to Termination

...and a lot of other metal that draws from thrash (ie death-thrash and black/thrash), or is consciously looking back to its glory days

Artillery's "By Inheritance" is really a p great album isn't it?