The official website for Gibson guitars has released what they perceive to be the top 50 metal songs of all time. Gibson.com’s writers and editors worked on compiling the list over several weeks, releasing 10 entries at a time, and recently released the top 10, which declared the number one metal song to be “Master of Puppets” by Metallica.

In some ways, the number one spot for Metallica is fitting, considering 2011 is the 25th anniversary of the release of their Master of Puppets album. Having said that though, metalheads are notorious for having fierce and strong opinions about what they consider to be their “top songs,” on top of their fierce and strong opinions about what bands are or are not even metal.

March 19 marks a sad day for fans of rock and heavy metal. Two astonishingly talented guitarists, both leading, pioneering figures in their genre and era, died on this date. Paul Kossoff, lead guitarist of rock band Free and Ozzy Osbourne‘s Randy Rhoads died only 6 years apart. Both at the young age of 25.

Ask a cross-section of heavy metal fans who the greatest ever guitarist of the genre is and you can bet your last guitar string the name of Randy Rhoads will not be far from most lips. After Ozzy Osbourne left Black Sabbath he was looking for a guitarist for his solo project. So the story goes, Ozzy heard Rhoads warming up and hired him on the spot, so impressed was the Prince of Darkness with the teenaged guitarist.

Born December 6, 1956, in Santa Monica, California, Randy Rhoads began his reputation as a talented young musician in the heavy metal band Quiet Riot, playing on the band’s first two (very limited release) albums. But it was with Ozzy Osbourne that he became known, and still is known, as one of the greatest guitaristsof all time. Amazingly, Blizzard of Ozz, which contains the well-know song “Crazy Train” and Diary of a Madman are the only two albums Rhoads released with Ozzy before his life was tragically cut short.

Glenn Danzig has announced that he is in the studio and currently recording a covers album. Fans of Danzig will know this project is one the artist has been talking about for some time, and five songs have already been recorded for the album. While Danzig hasn’t released full details yet, it’s understood that among the song selections will be tributes to Black Sabbath and Elvis Presley.

While the Sabbath and Elvis selections, I believe, are somewhat “predictable” choices for Danzig (I imagine he’ll probably throw a song by The Doors in there somewhere too), I would like to think he will choose some tracks that might be a surprise for his fans. I could imagine him doing an interesting interpretation of Nick Cave‘s “Red Right Hand” or a classic rock song like “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals.

This is all just speculation on my part of course, but as a fan I’d like to see Danzig tackle some covers that are a little more unpredictable. Either way, it will be interesting to see what Glenn comes up with for this project. Maybe he could include a hidden track of him paying tribute to the “Glenn Danzig Shopping List” :)

William Shatner is working on another music project, and this time it’s all about metal. Following a “space” theme, and titled Seeking Major Tom, Shatner is joining forces with some major hard rock icons for the new project, which is set to be released later this year. Essentially, the release is a covers album, but with covers brought together to tell the story of a concept album.

So far, Shatner has collaborated with Brian May (Queen), Zakk Wylde (Ozzy Osbourne/Black Label Society), Peter Frampton, Ian Paice (Deep Purple), and Steve Howe (Yes). Seeking Major Tom is said to be a collection of 18 “rock anthems” reinterpreted to tell the story that Shatner is putting forward on the album.

The New York Times released an online hodgepodge of musicians we lost during 2010, and have omitted three major losses during the year that should anger metalheads across the Earth. In their year review, the Times has snubbed Ronnie James Dio (Black Sabbath, Dio), Peter Steele (Type O Negative), and Paul Gray (Slipknot).

You can view the New York Times montage over at their site if you can be bothered. I’m not embedding it here, because for my part, I’m disgusted they’ve overlooked three significant musicians — presumably just because they’re from the metal genre. The grounds upon which I make this assumption are that there is no metal whatsoever in their “tribute.” Rock, Soul, Pop, R&B, Hip Hop, Post-Punk are all included in the company of Funk, Disco, and others. Metal (and related genres) are nowhere to be seen.