1.Orphaned Land - The Never Ending Way Of ORwarriOR

2.Kalmah - 12 Gauge

3.Barren Earth - Curse Of The Red River

4.Dark Tranquillity - We Are The Void

5.Thulcandra - Fallen Angel's Dominion

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A little list series where I list my top 20 favorite metal albums every year starting from the year I was born in.

2010 was a great start for the decade, a lot of great release came out that year, one of the strongest in power metal, black metal had a strong showing same with Progressive, Gothic and Doom metal, even thrash and old school Havey metal had a great number of releases.

1.Blind Guardian - At The Edge Of Time

2.Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini

3.Accept - Blood Of The Nations

4.Seventh Wonder - The Great Escape

5.Anthriel - The Pathway

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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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My Favorite Albums Of The Year \m/

1.Iron Maiden - The Final Frontier

2.Star One - Victims Of The Modern Age

3.Blind Guardian - At The Edge Of Time

4.Rhapsody Of Fire - The Frozen Tears Of Angels

5.Eluveitie - Everything Remains (As It Never Was)

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1.Orphaned Land - The Never Ending Way Of ORwarriOR

2.Mekong Delta - Wanderer On The Edge Of Time

3.The Ocean - Anthropocentric

4.Pain Of Salvation - Road Salt One

5.Pin-Up Went Down - 342

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Entirely subjective viewpoint. Nothing more, and nothing less.

1.Burzum - Belus

2.Blind Guardian - At The Edge Of Time

3.Triptykon - Eparistera Daimones

4.Blood Of The Black Owl - A Banishing Ritual

5.Motörhead - The Wörld Is Yours

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2010 had a lot of great releases. Here are some my favorites that will look like other people's favorites.

1.Ihsahn - After

2.Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini

3.Finntroll - Nifelvind

4.Barren Earth - Curse Of The Red River

5.Orphaned Land - The Never Ending Way Of ORwarriOR

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1.Heljareyga - Heljareyga

2.Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini

3.Blind Guardian - At The Edge Of Time

4.Keep Of Kalessin - Reptilian

5.Finntroll - Nifelvind

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1.Agalloch - Marrow Of The Spirit

2.Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini

3.Orphaned Land - The Never Ending Way Of ORwarriOR

4.Pain Of Salvation - Road Salt One

5.Iron Maiden - The Final Frontier

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1.Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini

2.Ihsahn - After

3.Agalloch - Marrow Of The Spirit

4.Alcest - Écailles De Lune

5.Pain Of Salvation - Road Salt One

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1.Moonsorrow - Voimasta Ja Kunniasta

2.Primordial - To The Nameless Dead

3.Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja

4.Ensiferum - Ensiferum

5.Orphaned Land - Mabool: The Story Of The Three Sons Of Seven

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1.Leprous - Bilateral

2.Textures - Phenotype

3.Jolly - The Audio Guide To Happiness (Part 1)

4.Pain Of Salvation - In The Passing Light Of Day

5.The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic

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1.Orphaned Land - All Is One

2.Orphaned Land - Mabool: The Story Of The Three Sons Of Seven

3.Orphaned Land - The Never Ending Way Of ORwarriOR

4.Orphaned Land - Unsung Prophets & Dead Messiahs

5.Orphaned Land - El Norra Alila

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1.Dimmu Borgir - Abrahadabra

2.Rotting Christ - Aealo

3.Allegaeon - Fragments Of Form And Function

4.Carach Angren - Death Came Through A Phantom Ship

5.Dark Fortress - Ylem

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1.Dimmu Borgir - Abrahadabra

2.Wuthering Heights - Salt

3.Accept - Blood Of The Nations

4.Volbeat - Beyond Hell/Above Heaven

5.Above Symmetry - Ripples

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