Hard rock and metal in 1984

Hard rock and heavy metal were huge in the 80's and I believe the best year of the decade for this music was 1984. Why was this the best year? Was it because all of the planets were aligned in a certain way? maybe not, but so much happened during the year as there were so many good releases, so many good debuts came out and the metal scene looked very promising that year. The New Wave of British heavy metal was dying down, but the LA scene was heating up, a new kind of metal called speed metal was also gearing up with bands emerging from different countries and more major labels were noticing the possibilities of metal and more bands were signed. So who had debut lp's in 1984? How about these bands-Ratt, Queensryche, WASP, Black -n- Blue, Keel, Trouble, Fates Warning, Pretty Maids, Saint Vitus, Anthrax, Grave Digger, Metal Church, Helstar, Celtic Frost, Running Wild, Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force, Kick Axe, Armored Saint, Voivod and Grim Reaper. A pretty impressive list I would say and I am sure that I forgot someone. Outside of some good debuts, what else happened that year? There were also releases from Van Halen, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Scorpions, Metallica, Whitesnake, Dio, Mercyful Fate, Dokken, Twisted Sister and Accept. That's a good a list of bands to all have releases in the same year, but what may be more impressive is that the albums these bands released in 1984 are all either my favorite or second favorite albums released in those band's respective careers. Not to mention that several of the bands I listed as having debuts also fall in this last category for me as well. So it that it for 1984? Well, there was also the album that I consider to be the best hard rock/metal reunion album of all time and that is Deep Purple's Perfect Strangers. Motorhead also released a double best of called No Remorse and it also featured a few new tracks done by their brand new tow guitarist line-up. So is that it then? Well, how about very good to great ep's from Slayer, Lizzy Borden, Destruction, Sodom and one from AC/DC called '74 Jailbreak that featured five songs with Bon Scott singing and it the songs had only previously been released on Australian albums. Anything else? Well, let's see Saxon released Crusader which was their last really good album for some time. Raven released a live album called Live at the Inferno which is a great live album and Raven's last really good effort for some time. Lita Ford released Dancin' on the edge which I consider to be her last good album. If I can consider Rush as hard rock then Grace under pressure was a really good album and it would be the band's last really good album until Counterparts in 1993.
So is that it then? Well, then that might be most of it and I think that's more than enough to show how great of a year that 1984 was for hard rock and metal.

***On Friday "Eight days of the 80's" continues with my favorite movies of the decade.