2. Megadeth, Countdown to Extinction

We’ll say it straight out here: we liked Rust In Peace more, since it was more thrashy and an instrumental tour de force. However, it was Countdown where Megadeth caught on in a big way. The album was more commercial, and whether that was in response to Metallica’s Black Album the previous year or not is irrelevant, because the song stand on their own. “Symphony of Destruction” and “Sweating Bullets” are classics. And “Foreclosure of a Dream,” with its George Bush sample, proves that Mustaine was political and has hated the president for 20 years running.