Originally Posted by The Batlord

Well, William the Bloody seems to have stumbled upon the perfect format to get people into music discussion, so I'm stealing his idea for a metal album thread. Given the sheer number of metal albums out there, I'm gonna have separate battles for each sub-genre, and when all battles are finished, we'll have a "Final", where the winners of each sub-genre battle go head to head, so that we can finally have a definitive answer to what is the best metal album of all time. I'll make sure to go with what are generally accepted as each band's best album (each band will only get one nomination per category, though I might allow a band to have another album in a separate sub-genre battle depending on a case-by-case basis). If I've left anything obvious out (if it's an obscure band they'll have to have one hell of an album for me to add it, since I don't want to get bogged down by having people having to listen albums they've never heard of before), and if any sub-genres aren't being represented then, likewise, let me know.

And just FYI, some genres may have less entries than others. I'll ask for recs for some of these if I'm just not familiar enough with them to give a representative list, but again, if it's a genre whose luminaries are just obscure, then they may just have to live with less albums. I know a lot of people on here aren't very fond of metalcore and groove metal, so if popular opinion just isn't very interested in them, I might just combine them into something like "modern metal".

The sub-genres will be:

Traditional metal (Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, etc)
Proto-metal (Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, etc)
Power metal
Thrash metal
Death Metal
Black metal
Doom metal
Stoner/sludge metal
Glam metal (suck it)
Grindcore
Industrial metal
Metalcore
Groove metal
Progressive metal (I'm def gonna need recs for this)
Alternative metal (any nu metal albums will be listed under here, since there just won't be enough for people to care)
Avant-garde metal
Melodic death metal

That's a lot of ****ing genres, so if anyone has ideas about combining genres to save time, then feel free.


We'll start off with thrash...


1. Metallica - Master of Puppets
2. Megadeth - Rust In Peace
3. Anthrax - Among the Living
4. Slayer - Reign In Blood
5. Exodus - Bonded By Blood
6. Kreator - Pleasure to Kill
7. Testament - The New Order
8. SOD - Speak English or Die
9. Dark Angel -Time Does Not Heal
10. Sepultura- Arise

Vote 2 albums, and the bottom 1 will be out.

I believe William had a two day voting limit, so we'll go with that. So, voting ends on January 17. Also, will keep each list to a maximum of ten albums.


My votes:

Sepultura - Arise
Kreator - Pleasure to Kill

Originally Posted by Bobbycob

There's 3 reason why the Rolling Stones are better. I'm going to list them here. 1. Jimi Hendrix from Rolling Stones was a better guitarist then Jimmy Page 2. The bassist from Rolling Stones isn't dead 3. Rolling Stobes wrote Stairway to Heaven and The Ocean so we all know they are superior here.

Originally Posted by Frownland

On DOOM: when did EW release an album called Dopesmoker?

Originally Posted by Wpnfire

I don't understand, Darkness Descends has more than double the listeners than Time Does Not Heal on Last FM. How is the latter their "best?"

Originally Posted by Frownland

On DOOM: when did EW release an album called Dopesmoker? And I think that Master of Reality would be a better pick for the genre than Paranoid.

Originally Posted by EPOCH6

Some recommendations for the Sludge / Stoner Metal top 10 while we're ahead of the game:

Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien

There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.

Originally Posted by The Batlord

Cause it is. Suck it.

Originally Posted by Wpnfire

But it isn't. DD has a higher rating on RYM (3.89 compared to 3.61 for Time) and it has more listeners on Last FM (23,705 compared to 9,644).

Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien

There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.

Originally Posted by The Batlord

I hate to be a genre purist, but is Kyuss considered a metal band or just stoner rock? I'll bow to popular consensus though. I'll need to do some looking into Unida and Acid King though, as I'm not that up on stoner, but remember that nominations are more about popular opinion than personal preference, so if they're not on any top lists I can find, then they're out. Otherwise, those are definitely what I'd have gone with. I'd also add...

Also gonna need some opinions on Clutch and Orange Goblin, which I dig, but don't know much about, and am not even sure if they're considered stoner.

Originally Posted by Bobbycob

There's 3 reason why the Rolling Stones are better. I'm going to list them here. 1. Jimi Hendrix from Rolling Stones was a better guitarist then Jimmy Page 2. The bassist from Rolling Stones isn't dead 3. Rolling Stobes wrote Stairway to Heaven and The Ocean so we all know they are superior here.

Originally Posted by The Batlord

Fixed. And Paranoid is generally considered their best (for some strange reason), so that's why I put it up.

Originally Posted by eraser.time206

If you can't deal with the fact that there are 6+ billion people in the world and none of them think exactly the same that's not my problem. Just deal with it yourself or make actual conversation. This isn't a court and I'm not some poet or prophet that needs everything I say to be analytically critiqued.