Today is the second to last day in Gibson's countdown of the Top 50 Metal Songs of All Time. Today they lay out their picks for 11-20. Here are a couple of highlights: 19. "Back in Black," AC/DC: It's hard to believe that Malcolm Young at first felt the riff for "Back in Black" was too funky for AC/DC. A celebratory tribute to the band's late singer, Bon Scott, "Back in Black" comes off like a metal-stoked reinvention of Aerosmith's "Walk this Way." To this day, Brian Johnson's scruffy, blue-collar pseudo-rap cuts with knife-edge sharpness against Angus Young's serrated six-string lines. – Russell Hall
13. "Black Sabbath," Black Sabbath: With three notes (a G, its octave and its flatted fifth, C#) Black Sabbath ignited a revolution. Sinister melodies, jagged guitar tones, mournful bass, lyrics about our protagonist coming face-to-face with the horned one himself; "Black Sabbath" was as creepy and confronting as the horror films which inspired the band to write it. Sabbath developed the metal sound much further after writing their namesake track and they even revisited the same musical intervals on "Symptom of the Universe," but no song before or since has summed up a movement so perfectly as "Black Sabbath." – Peter Hodgson more on this story
