Which Group was able to take the First Hard Rock/Metal Grammy Award away from Metallica?

Somehow, when the first Hard Rock/Metal Grammy
Award was introduced in the 80s, the recording industry
voters showed themselves to be so out of touch as to
award it to a group other than Metallica.
Photo credit: Thomas Hawk / Foter / CC BY-NC

Back in the 1980s, the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences began to try to update itself so as to be relevant to the younger music listeners who were coming of age in the time of MTV. Part of this effort involved creating a new Grammy Award category for the Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance.

At the time, the perception was that the category was more or less created to honor one of the most innovative rock groups to come on the scene since the early 1970s, Metallica. Rising from the street and the tape trading underground culture, Metallica was an uncompromising set of musicians who basically created their own genre.

However, in all their collective wisdom, the Recording Academy voters saw fit to award the first Hard Rock/Metal Grammy to a fossilized relic of a group rather than the new heros of rock 'n' roll.