Here's my AotY for each year from 1970, with a runner up (or two) following.
Pink Floyd and Yes aren't here, King Crimson is, so I'll include King Crimson

1.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

2.Deep Purple - In Rock

3.Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV

4.Black Sabbath - Master Of Reality

5.Uriah Heep - Demons And Wizards

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* Updating this as I get around to doing song-by-song on RYM.
* 1 album per band
* limiting this to actual black metal releases, as opposed to releases by bands that were, at one time, black metal.
>> Some bands really do incorporate a lot of both death metal or doom (or avant garde or folk, etc) and black metal in their albums, so I consider them to be 'black metal adjacent' even if it might not be 'purely black metal'

1.Weakling - Dead As Dreams

2.Caladan Brood - Echoes Of Battle

3.Deathspell Omega - Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum

4.Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin Kynsi

5.Altar Of Plagues - Teethed Glory & Injury

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A little list of some great black metal albums by someone who generally doesn't listen to black metal. So there will not be any Mayhem, Bathory, Immortal, Watain, Burzum, Marduk or the likes of them on this list since I'm not interested in that kind of traditional old school black metal.
A maximum of one album per band is allowed and they need to have some sort of black metal labeled to them. Enjoy!

1.Caladan Brood - Echoes Of Battle

2.Hail Spirit Noir - Pneuma

3.Hoth - Infinite Darkness

4.Shylmagoghnar - Emergence

5.Agalloch - The Mantle

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Some of the best metal albums ever released have been by bands that only had one full length release.
List is (and probably always will be) a constant work-in-progress.
If you know of a "one-and-done" metal band/album that isn't on my list, feel free to recommend

1.Weakling - Dead As Dreams

2.Caladan Brood - Echoes Of Battle

3.Lykathea Aflame - Elvenefris

4.Timeghoul - 1992-1994 Discography

5.Thorns - Thorns

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This list is meant to be an extensive, but by no means exhaustive, collection of the greatest (modern) metal albums and eps. Running the gamut from avant-garde to trve norweigan black metal. *As someone who is young in age, my tastes tend to revolve around the period of the 80s to the present.* Although certain metal albums from before will certainly be featured, the period of the 60s-70s will be under-represented. I refer you to this excellent list to gain a better appreciation for some of the best metal from that period: https://rateyourmusic.com/list/freis/martin_popoffs_the_top_500_heavy_metal_albums_of_all_time/

1.Gaerea - Unsettling Whispers

2.Galadriel - World Under World

3.Galaktik Cancer Squad - Celestia

4.Galar - De Gjenlevende

5.Gallowbraid - Ashen Eidolon

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It's possible that you've glossed over some of these because they're too "popular".
Maybe you've never heard of a few.
Regardless, these are albums that I think everyone should hear at least once if you're a novice metal fan or have been head banging for years.

1.Edge Of Sanity - Crimson

2.Summoning - Stronghold

3.Death - Human

4.Rush - A Farewell To Kings

5.The Angelic Process - Weighing Souls With Sand

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This list aims to be the counterpart to the Metal Storm Top 200 Albums (plus a few extras).

If you discover a new band or already like any of ones here, please give this list a thumbs up and/or leave a comment so we can get these overlooked gems in front of more people.

Criteria:
• High-quality musicianship (i.e. 9-10/10 IMO)
• 1 album per band

Ordered by number of votes then MS rating.

As these are albums with a low number of votes, the rating is likely to change frequently. I will update this list as often as I can.

Updated: 29-Jan-24

My other lists:
Top 500 Albums (ordered & rated)
Top 25 EPs (also ordered & rated)
Top 200 Overrated Albums (trigger warning)
So I Heard You Like Wintersun... (Time II find new bands)

1.Solipsist - The Human Equation

2.Ayahuasca - Beneath The Mind

3.Cryptomnesia - Primordial Oddity

4.Element (USA) - The Energy

5.Telepathy - 12 Areas

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1.Summoning - Old Mornings Dawn

2.Amorphis - Queen Of Time

3.Moonsorrow - Jumalten Aika

4.Septicflesh - Codex Omega

5.Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind

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2000-2004 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5844
2005-2009 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5838
2015-2019 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=6722

I sure do love this site and it's rating system, it makes finding great music so easy and, even more importantly, when an album is overlooked for a while but starts getting a buzz a few months later, boom, there it appears in the top 20.

All that being said, I still wish there was some way to get a weighted ranking that not only takes the rating of the album into account, but also the number of votes that were cast. For example, an album with a rating of 8.8 and 1000 votes would rank higher than an album with a rating of 8.9 and 20 votes. So, I scraped all the albums on the site with at least 1 vote into a database. Then, taking a leaf out of IMDb's book, I used Bayesian estimation (like the IMDb's Top 250) to calculate a weighted rating for each album based on its Metal Storm rating and the number of votes it had received.

The formula for calculating the Top 100 Albums gives a true Bayesian estimate:
Bayes rating (BR) = ( C × m + R × N ) ÷ ( m + N ) where:
C = average expected rating given...
m = minimum number of votes
R = average rating for the album = (Metal Storm rating)
N = number of votes for the album = (votes)

The way the Bayesian estimator works is that all albums in the database are given and additional m fake votes with an average rating of C, irrespective of how many true votes it already has. Then a new weighted rating is calculated...
If the album has no true votes ( N = 0 ), then BR = ( C × m + R × 0 ) ÷ ( m + 0) = C × m ÷ m = C (the average expected rating).
If the album has a number of true votes equal to the minimum ( N = m ), then BR = ( C × m + R × m ) ÷ ( m + m ) = ( C + R ) × m ÷ 2m = ( C + R ) ÷ 2 (halfway between the two ratings).
If the album has a very large number of true votes ( N >> m ), then BR = ( C × m + R × N ) ÷ ( m + N ) ≈ R × N ÷ N = R (the Metal Storm rating).
This means that the Bayes rating will never equal the Metal Storm rating but will approach it as the true votes grow arbitrarily large.

Now that the maths bit is out of the way, here was my methodology:
Only Studio and EP album types, from the years 2010 to 2014, with at least 1 vote, were included.
The average expected rating (C) was determined by averaging all the Metal Storm ratings from 2010-2014.
The minimum number of votes (m) was determined by calculating the 75th percentile of the votes, rounded to the nearest 10.
I also decided that if an album's Bayes rating was within 0.005 of #100, it would be included too; hence the +2.

C for 2010-2014 = 7.478
m = 20

Number of albums from each year in the list:
2010 - 24
2011 - 28
2012 - 16
2013 - 22
2014 - 12

Ratings are accurate as of 30/10/2023

1.Gallowbraid - Ashen Eidolon

2.Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini

3.Aquilus - Griseus

4.Ne Obliviscaris - Portal Of I

5.Be'lakor - Of Breath And Bone

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I've been listening to Metal since 2005 and it has become my biggest passion in life.

Rarely a day goes by where I don't listen to it in one form or another. The bands I listened to in my teens inspired me to pick up the guitar (and later drums) and start making music of my own.

So here are the albums that have stood out and made the largest impact on me. To be as transparent as possible, I've labelled albums as 'nostalgia bias' where my memories of the album give it an advantage over others.

(Score is an average of each album's song ratings, full list located here. There are a ton of albums that I've rated 9/10 in the 'TBR' tab that may never make it to this list, be sure to check those out.)

If you discovered any new albums or like the same sort of metal, be sure to give this list a thumbs-up and leave a comment so more people can find these amazing bands!

My other lists:
Top 25 EPs (ordered & rated)
Top 200 Overlooked Albums (with genres)
Top 200 Overrated Albums (trigger warning)
So I Heard You Like Wintersun... (Time II find new bands)

Genre-Specific:
Top 50 Black Metal Albums
Top 50 Melodic Death Metal Albums
Top 45 Thrash Metal Albums
Top 40 Power Metal Albums
Top 30 Doom Metal Albums
Top 30 Heavy Metal Albums

1.Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral

2.Opeth - Blackwater Park

3.Metallica - Master Of Puppets

4.Edge Of Sanity - Crimson

5.Opeth - Still Life

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1.Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory

2.Slipknot - Iowa

3.Summoning - Stronghold

4.Septicflesh - Communion

5.Summoning - Old Mornings Dawn

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Just a list of my favorite albums, mostly Black or Death Metal !

There are some albums/bands I would love to put in this list, but they are not on MS.

1.1349 - Liberation

2.Agalloch - The Mantle

3.Amon Amarth - Versus The World

4.Amon Amarth - Twilight Of The Thunder God

5.Amon Amarth - Surtur Rising

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1.Ulver - A Quick Fix Of Melancholy

2.Dream Theater - A Change Of Seasons

3.Cradle Of Filth - Vempire

4.Vader - The Art Of War

5.Darkestrah - Khagan

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- My TOP 75 from 90s (and 80s), 00s and 10s.
- Each TOP 75 ordered from my most favourite down.
- One album for every band in one TOP 75.
- Only full-lengths or EPs/demos with more than half an hour.

Description includes: Genre (traditional/true BM bands are labeled with their countries, e.g. Norwegian Black), year and my personal favourite song of the particular album with link.

Hall of Fame (bands in each time period): Agalloch, Blut Aus Nord, Enslaved, Immortal, Nokturnal Mortum, Summoning

1.

2.Windir - Arntor

3.Paysage d'Hiver - Paysage D'Hiver

4.Blut Aus Nord - Ultima Thulée

5.Dissection - Storm Of The Light's Bane

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Here is the 2010 edition of my very straight forward top lists.

1.Ophis - Withered Shades

2.Akelei - De Zwaarte Van Het Doorstane

3.Alcest - Écailles De Lune

4.Netra - Mélancolie Urbaine

5.Agalloch - Marrow Of The Spirit

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