The first year I was learning the guitar, my friend who was teaching me told me Metallica were really good for learnable riffs and Kirk Hammet was a really good lead player, so I went out to buy an album and remembered another friend saying to me 'Do you like Metallica? I've got their new album Reload, it's cool.' So I bought Reload...

Long story cut as short as possible: Reload probably isn't their best album and together with it's partner album Load it may have divided an entire fanbase in two but for personal reasons I'd still list it in the top ten albums that are of personal significance to me both in terms of music and the way I wanted to play the guitar at the time. I spent countless hours of my teenage striving to play the songs on that album I learned a lot just from attempting them and when I finally bought the book of tab about two years later found I was still learning. I can pick up a guitar tuned to E-flat now and pretty well jam along with the whole album and think 'Did I EVER find this challenging?' But that fact is the answer to that question is yes, and aside from being a guitarist I just loved the way the whole thing sounded. I was just starting to listen to metal back then and when I bought the CD I took it home thinking 'what if I just find this is noise and I really hate it and I've just wasted 15 quid I had to work for....' As soon as I'd played it that changed to 'I actually LOVE Metallica......does that make me cool?' I get a warm glow just writing about this and I can put Re-Load on and get exactly the same thing.

I've been plenty of places musically since then and in the last few years Metallica don't feature much in what I listen to or what I prefer to play but I've still got all the albums on my CD rack, I've been to see them live at the Reading Festival in 2003 and I still catch myself playing Enter Sandman in guitar shops when I'm trying out a bit of gear and I think 'WTF do I play?'

Okay so other people have listed their top 10, I guess I'll have a rough go at mine:

(Oh and by the way, I really love Garage INC, I think it's actually the best thing they've recorded despite it being the one they say they took least seriously....)

10: Ride the Lightening
9: Disposable Heroes
8: Am I Evil
7: My Friend of Misery
6: So What
5: Where the Wild Things Are
4: Helpless
3: The Four Horsemen
2: Astronomy
1: Mercyful Fate Medley