I have seen many who don’t consider that tribute albums deserves any of kind of recognition, but come on, don’t you think that some covers are better than the original? For example; I admire Metallica’s ‘Turn the Page’ than what Bob Seger originally recorded. Anyhow, I know you may not find your favorite tributes here, but at least we won’t disagree about these…
1. Dream Theater – A Change of Seasons
It’s an album dedicated to all the bands that influenced Dream Theater in their career, such as; Iron Maiden, Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple and Elton John.
2. Apocalyptica – Plays Metallica by Four Cellos
To me, Apocalyptica were the first phenomenon I witness to see classical instruments players play such a music genre. They gained fame especially through their masterpiece tribute album, Plays Metallica by Four Cellos.
3. Nativity in Black – A tribute for Black Sabbath
This series album is a paying tribute for the iconic legendary band, Black Sabbath. Megadeth, Pantera, Sepultua, Faith No More, Type O Negative, Cathedral, Godsmack, Machine Head and many more bands were featured in this album.
4. Ronnie James Dio – This Is Your Life
Either I was more into the earlier tribute Holy Dio from 2000, but This Is Your Life is a well-made album. My favorites are Scorpions covering ‘The Temple of the King’ and Doro covering ‘Egypt’.
5. Various Artists – A Tribute to the Scorpions
Although I didn’t like many covers on this album, but some were very good. My favorite was by the power metal band Sonata Arctica covering ‘Still Loving You’.
6. Various Artists – A Tribute to the Legendary Twisted Sister
Damn! I like the variety of styles are made by Koch. Black metal, Speed, Thrash, Power and more many genres were featured in this album paying a tribute for the Legendary hard rock/heavy metal act, Twisted Sister.
7. Strummin’ with the Devil: The Southern Side of Van Halen
Well, this is a different kind of tribute albums. The album was all made by the American folklore style, Bluegrass. VH‘s frontman David Lee Roth was featured in some of the songs as well as promoting the album in many shows. However, I didn’t like ‘Eruption’ banjo cover by Dennis Caplinger but it’s still a fine album.
8. Sigh – A Tribute to Venom (2008)
Sigh is one of my favorite Japanese metal bands. When I knew about them via Terrorizer magazine’s CD in 2002/2003 – when we had no access to internet like now! I loved them so much. This album was released almost 8 years ago, and my favorite is ‘Black Metal’. Hey, don’t expect the chainsaw in the intro! 😉
9. Various Artists – Return Of The Mountain King (2000)
Various artists payed a tribute to the legendary progressive metal act, Savatage. I could say that this album has the lowest rate in this list, as it failed in both promoting as well as the music. Yet, there are some good covers delivered by the harcore band, Chiper for ‘Chance’ and the inactive progressive/power metal act, Cyrcle IX covering ‘Believe’.
10. Various Artists – A Tribute To Accept
This is a two-volumes tribute album; the first was released in 1999 and the second in 2001. The first gained many positive reviews especially for the famous cover by Dimmu Borgir for ‘Metal Heart’.
11. Tribute to Megadeth: This Is the News
I believe that Megdaeth is one of the bands that you need to make as many tribute volumes for as many of their songs are damn great! Although, this album concentrated on certain tracks, it’s a very good one also.
12. Dead Forever: Tribute To Motorhead
Once you realize that there’s a tribute for Motorhead, you check the setlist and see who covered the songs like; Ace of Spades, Overkill and Motorhead. The album was released in 1999 and got some cool reviews, it also delivers a good variety among heavy metal, death, black and speed metal genres.
13. Church of the Devil: Tribute to King Diamond
Although there was already a previous one released by Necropolis Records in 2000 and it’s very good for black and extreme metal lovers. But I prefered to choose the Dwell Records one as it’s more into heavy metal.
14. Various Artists – A Tribute To Manowar
Manowar is one of the bands that you cannot just pass in the heavy metal world. There are numerous covers and tributes for the band because it features many great acts like; Power Symphony, Overkill, Arch Enemy, Therion and Edge of Sanity.
Finally, if you didn’t find what you fancy in my list, definitely you gonna find it within collections that were reproduced by some independent or international record labels, such as; Metal-Hard Rock Covers, Metal museum, Tribute and Great Metal Covers. These assembled songs are from all the covers that have been done but in series of CDs. You can find all metal-related bands (and non-metal too) make covers for each other.
Total respect to Tributes of Metal blog as it was one of my main resources. If you didn’t find what you like in my list, definitely you will find it on their blog.
Edited by: NJ Bakr
