Top products from r/Metal101

Here are a few I've read and really enjoyed.

• Marilyn Manson - The Long Hard Road Out of Hello. While I am not a fan, this is a really interesting read. Bryan is very eloquent.
  
• Rex Brown - Official Truth, 101 Proof: The Inside Story of Pantera. Not the most flattering book about of one of my favorite bands, but honest and heartfelt. I consider this a must read for Pantera fans.
  
• The Bloody Reign of Slayer - again a great account of Slayer's history up to about 2007. My only gripe is the author sort of does a review of each album and sometimes he's overly critical.
  
• Eddie Trunk's Essential Hard Rock and Heavy Metal - This book has SO much information and is worth a read. Eddie is a true fan and gets it right 100% of the time.
  
• Sully Erna - The Paths We Choose: A Memoir. While I am not a huge Godsmack fan, I like their earlier stuff and to this day, Godsmack is one of the best live bands I've ever seen. Any musician who is thinking about trying to break out should read this.
  
• Choosing Death (linked many times in other responses), man, a history lesson totally worth reading...know your roots ;)

Give this list a try for Cattle Decapitation.

Some other points:

• Metal Archives is your friend. They keep a log of nearly every metal band that's ever existed (although they're finicky with metal-adjacent stuff so you won't find much nü or -core on there), so whenever you find a new band make sure to look them up. They keep a log of everything you could ever want to know; band members, discography, subgenre information, location, years active, and even similar artists.
  
• If you want to branch out to the wider world of metal music, make sure to give the Subgenre Essentials over at r/metal a look. It's a splendid list of albums that spans the foundations of metal and will give you the context to appreciate most of the scenes and styles of the genre, historical and current.
  
• Don't worry so much about subgenres at first. People are going to throw the terminology at you, but it's probably best not to think too much about it until you've gotten to know more of the genre foundations. I've seen a lot of people get very confused, especially around the edges of certain styles, and it's just not worth the headache. That said, don't write them off as a meaningless formality either, as there is value in being able to classify stuff.
  
• Wear ear protection at concerts/shows. Just do it. Even if it's a small venue. Listening to metal is fun and chances are you'll want to keep doing it in the future. These ones are what I usually see recommended to people although I have these ones and I'm happy with them.

The best book for fans of thrash/death/black metal is undoubtably Metalion: The Slayer Mag Diaries. It is a compilation of the greatest reviews, articles, and interviews from Slayer Mag, which has been around since the 80's. The first few issues are in Norwegian, but are still interesting to look at. After that, it switches over to English and is unbelievably informative. In addition, the author talks about what was going on in his life before each issue of Slayer Mag, which is an interesting insight as well. I would recommend this book over anything else metal-related that I've read.

The Encyclopedia of Heavy Metal by Danial Buszpan is a pretty good visual history of metal, and I definitely learned about some bands from it. The original edition was a bit dated, but apparently they have a revised and updated edition now.

Also, although it's a bit predictable, The 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists by Joel McIver is an entertaining read.

If you're looking for a scholarly/academic take on metal, then you honestly cannot go wrong with Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge by Keith Kahn-Harris and Heavy Metal: Controversies and Counterculture (Studies in Popular Music). Both are excellent reading, and as they're academic studies can be quite in-depth. Definitely worth a look if you can find them.

My personal favorites:

X-M@$ - Corey Taylor

Oh Holy Night - Halford This is just one, but the entire album Winter Songs by Halford is just all, well, winter and Christmas songs sung by Rob Halford. Can't beat the Metal God!

Also, I recommend We Wish You a Metal Xmas and a Headbanging New Year. It has the aforementioned Alice Cooper song, plus ones with Dio and Lemmy and the like.

Grado headphones are considered the best for metal and rock by many people. The Grado SR-60i are amazingly fun headphone for the price. I havea pair of Grado 225i and they are my choice of headphone whenever listening to metal.

I have a few recommendations for you:

• Lords of Chaos: Pretty decent (if not slightly sensationalist) story of the Norwegian BM scene. It also covers Dissection, Absurd and a few other notorious groups.
  
• Swedish Death Metal: A fantastic and exhaustive look into the early Swedih death metal. Lots of super influential bands are covered.
  
• Sound of the Beast: I read this about ten years ago, so it's distant for me. I remember enjoying it. It covers a lot of the early scene very well. Lots of coverage on Motorhead and NWOBHM. It also follows Metallica's early career.

Although I don't like the man now, I had a really good time reading through Dave Mustaine's Autobiography. Kinda the definitive story so far on the events that happened from Metallica's beginning to his dismissal from the band and really cool stories regarding Megadeth's creation.

I heartily recommend Malc Macmillan's [NWOBHM Encyclopedia] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/N-W-O-B-H-M-ENCYCLOPEDIA-Malc-MacMillan/dp/3931624161/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376054798&sr=8-1&keywords=encyclopedia+of+nwobhm) if, er, you like a bit of NWOBHM.

Deena Weinstein's [Heavy Metal - The music and it's culture] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Heavy-Metal-Music-Culture-ebook/dp/B00AHEZGSK/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376054934&sr=1-1&keywords=deena+weinstein) is a bit elderly but still worth a read.

Bang Your Head: The Rise and Fall of Heavy Metal It covers the history of "mainstream" metal from the late 60s and early 70s to the fall of hair metal in the 90s, but doesn't cover any of the underground Death and Grind movements in the 80s and 90s. For that, I'd recommend Choosing Death which has already been mentioned.

I am Ozzy is Ozzy's autobiography that recounts all his crazy stories from his day's with Sabbath, to losing Randy, to getting a reality show, and so on. Good read that gives you a decent perspective on how huge and successful that guy was (and still is).

Crazy Train: The High Life And Tragic Death Of Randy Rhoad is a biography that explains the full extent of Randy's genius. It's also rells the story of how a suburban kid got swept up into the rock star lifestyle.