Yet another one of my lists for no reason other than I feel like it

1.Tool - Lateralus

2.Moonsorrow - Voimasta Ja Kunniasta

3.Iced Earth - Horror Show

4.Opeth - Blackwater Park

5.Amorphis - Am Universum

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1 album per band per subgenre
work in progress, updating as I go through the song-by-song ratings on RateYourMusic.com
I will typically update my black metal faves - https://metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=6924
and my death metal faves - https://metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=6298
prior to updating this one

1.Queensrÿche - Operation: Mindcrime

2.King Diamond - Abigail

3.Voivod - Dimension Hatröss

4.Mastodon - Crack The Skye

5.Lykathea Aflame - Elvenefris

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1.System Of A Down - Toxicity

2.Soen - Lotus

3.Tool - Lateralus

4.Faith No More - The Real Thing

5.Tool - Ænima

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This is the year I basically started listening to music so I was torn between stuff I am somewhat loyal to because it was my gateway and the kind of stuff I listen to now from that year. I genuinely think this was one of the best years ever for Metal.

Congrats to Destruction who have gotten honourable mentions before but never actually made it onto the list until now.

1.Tool - Lateralus

2.System Of A Down - Toxicity

3.Sodom - M-16

4.Destruction - The Antichrist

5.Kreator - Violent Revolution

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The albums below is my definition of extreme metal music, regardless of their genre. Entire list is based only on my personal preferences in metal.
Rules:
1. One album per band
2. 305 groups/305 albums

1.In Flames - Clayman

2.Metallica - ...And Justice For All

3.Chimaira - Chimaira

4.Death - Symbolic

5.Testament - The New Order

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1.Alter Bridge - Blackbird

2.Alter Bridge - One Day Remains

3.Amorphis - Elegy

4.Amorphis - Tuonela

5.Arcturus - La Masquerade Infernale

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It's been like 20 years now, is it safe to post this yet?

1.Korn - Korn

2.System Of A Down - Toxicity

3.Sepultura - Roots

4.System Of A Down - System Of A Down

5.Disturbed - Ten Thousand Fists

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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.S.V.E.S.T. - Veritas Diaboli Manet In Aeternum: Le Diable Est Ma Raison

2.Sabachthani - Miserable Endings

3.Sabaoth - Les Illuminations

4.Sabaton - Carolus Rex

5.Sabbat - Dreamweaver

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An ongoing list for personal use as well as for reference for beginners (& veterans alike). This is solely my personal opinion and taste (Death & Prog mostly but do give every genre a try). Basically will include albums I've rated 8 & above. Sorted by year since I'll need a Venn diagram to sort by genre (seriously MS please make it happen if possible). Will feature multiple releases per year (obviously) and per band (since if a band is putting out better albums it deserves more recognition). Keeping the metal faith alive from India

1.Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin

2.King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King

3.Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin III

4.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

5.Uriah Heep - Look At Yourself

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Must Listen: The First 9

1.System Of A Down - Toxicity

2.Opeth - Blackwater Park

3.Ark - Burn The Sun

4.Evergrey - In Search Of Truth

5.Angra - Rebirth

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Constantly evolving list of my favorite metal albums from the 2000s

1.Trivium - Shogun

2.Opeth - Watershed

3.Tool - Lateralus

4.Deftones - White Pony

5.Trivium - Ascendancy

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1.Korn - Korn

2.Deftones - White Pony

3.System Of A Down - Toxicity

4.Korn - Untouchables

5.Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist

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1.Opeth - Blackwater Park

2.Katatonia - Last Fair Deal Gone Down

3.Green Carnation - Light Of Day, Day Of Darkness

4.Amorphis - Am Universum

5.Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Beethoven's Last Night

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Fifty years of metal, 50 best albums of the year. Note that in order to diversify the list I limited it to one album per band, otherwise there would have been too much Judas Priest and Iron Maiden.

1.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

2.Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV

3.Deep Purple - Machine Head

4.Budgie - Never Turn Your Back On A Friend

5.Queen - Queen II

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2005-2009 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5838
2010-2014 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5828
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 2000 to 2004, with at least 1 vote, were included.
The average expected rating (C) was determined by averaging all the Metal Storm ratings from 2000-2004.
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 +5.

C for 2000-2004 = 7.599
m = 30

Number of albums from each year in the list:
2000 - 15
2001 - 27
2002 - 14
2003 - 20
2004 - 29

Ratings are accurate as of 30/10/2023

1.Opeth - Blackwater Park

2.Agalloch - The Mantle

3.Tool - Lateralus

4.Wintersun - Wintersun

5.Ensiferum - Ensiferum

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