The 'Big 4' Bands of '90s Metal

Since there have been so many different eras of heavy metal, we picked four groups to represent the "Big 4" of '90s metal.

Metal has branched out and changed a lot since Black Sabbath introduced it in 1970. As the end of the '70s approached, traditional heavy metal gained momentum and started evolving.

The early '80s saw the birth of thrash and that style dominated the decade, thus we aren't including any of those groups in the '90s Big 4 — even though Metallica were massive in the '90s.

The '90s was when a lot of the more extreme styles of metal really came into their own, including black metal in the Scandinavian region of Europe and death metal. The seeds for these subgenres had been planted throughout the '80s, but the '90s were a whole other beast with the sounds they created and how popular it became.

READ MORE: The 'Big 4' Bands of 27 Rock + Metal Subgenres

And of course, halfway through the '90s was when nu-metal really started.

We had a few requirements when selecting four acts to represent all of metal for an entire decade. They didn't have to form within a certain timeframe, but they had to have really broken out during those years. They also had to have shaped metal in some way or another, whether that's spearheading a new style or just having a massive influence on later generations.

In order to demonstrate how diverse metal was in the '90s we tried to pick bands that had different styles and backgrounds, while still adhering to the guidelines we just mentioned above.

Keep scrolling to see our picks for the Big 4 bands of '90s metal.

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