So here we are again . After many years of dedication and love to this music that we call progressive metal, here are some of the best albums that ever existed and made the earth a better place . Give to these albums the attention and the respect they deserve and you will be fully awarded. I think i will try and limit this list to 3 cd's maximum per band to make this thing more challenging .

1.Dan Swanö - Moontower

2.Cynic - Traced In Air

3.Cynic - Focus

4.Enslaved - Axioma Ethica Odini

5.Enslaved - Ruun

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These albums are my favorite since I started listen to Metal.

1.Kamelot - The Black Halo

2.Epica - Consign To Oblivion

3.Within Temptation - The Heart Of Everything

4.After Forever - After Forever

5.Blackfield - Blackfield

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I picked one album by each of my favorite bands for this list. Keep in mind that after the first few albums I put on the list, it became increasingly difficult to figure out where to place artists in my list. Also, this is kind of how my favorite bands lie now, as far as how often I listen to them - whereas some of these bands used to be much more frequently played, years ago. But this is, more or less, a list of my favorite albums by my favorite bands.

1.Dream Theater - Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From A Memory

2.Seventh Wonder - The Great Escape

3.Symphony X - The Odyssey

4.Circus Maximus - Nine

5.Haken - Visions

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1.Warning - Watching From A Distance

2.Aquilus - Griseus

3.King Diamond - Abigail

4.Metallica - Master Of Puppets

5.Candlemass - Nightfall

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This is the top 20 list with my favorite metal albums of 2010. In order. NOW WITH GENRE DESCRIPTION!

1.Iron Maiden - The Final Frontier

2.Avantasia - The Wicked Symphony / Angel Of Babylon

3.Pain Of Salvation - Road Salt One

4.Accept - Blood Of The Nations

5.Hardcore Superstar - Split Your Lip

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last updated: 14th December 2011

1.Machinae Supremacy - A View From The End Of The World

2.In Vain - Mantra

3.Illidiance - Damage Theory

4.Masterplan - Time To Be King

5.Instanzia - Ghosts

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**Trigger warning**

Albums and EPs rated 8.6+ from 100+ votes which I've given an 8 or lower to.

I've listened to and rated every album on MS that meets this criteria (at time of most recent update) - some of them multiple times - so I feel I can give my honest opinion.

The purpose of this is to list and order the albums that I simply don't "get" and to try re-listening to them in the hope of understanding why they've received so many 9 and 10 votes.

Ordered by my rating then MS rating then number of votes.

Updated: 03-Jan-24

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

1.Anathema - Judgement

2.Paradise Lost - Draconian Times

3.Anathema - Alternative 4

4.Motörhead - Ace Of Spades

5.Motörhead - Overkill

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1.Devin Townsend - Ziltoid The Omniscient

2.In Mourning - Shrouded Divine

3.Circus Maximus - The 1st Chapter

4.Threshold - Dead Reckoning

5.Seventh Wonder - Mercy Falls

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These are my favorite progressive/power metal albums that I have listened to. Some of them are for musical technique and others are simply because they blew my mind with the crazy story lines or whatever!

1.Symphony X - Paradise Lost

2.Symphony X - The Odyssey

3.Masterplan - Aeronautics

4.Nightwish - Dark Passion Play

5.Theocracy - As The World Bleeds

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Here are all of the top albums that have come out since I was born in 1993!

1.Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses

2.Amorphis - Tales From The Thousand Lakes

3.Dissection - Storm Of The Light's Bane

4.Edge Of Sanity - Crimson

5.Emperor - Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk

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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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Just a list of my favorite albums!

1.Kamelot - The Black Halo

2.Epica - Design Your Universe

3.Kamelot - Karma

4.The Gathering - Mandylion

5.Nightwish - Century Child

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My all-time best recordings. No particular order. This list will grow over time...

1.Blind Guardian - Somewhere Far Beyond

2.Dalriada - Kikelet

3.Dream Theater - Black Clouds & Silver Linings

4.Helloween - Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part II

5.Iron Maiden - Piece Of Mind

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