A list of my favourite albums i have heard in 2011 from best to worst.

1.Cormorant - Dwellings

2.Grayceon - All We Destroy

3.Vektor - Outer Isolation

4.Primordial - Redemption At The Puritan's Hand

5.40 Watt Sun - The Inside Room

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My best to worst of 2011 so far. I'll keep this updated as the year progresses and as I listen to more.

1.Steven Wilson - Grace For Drowning

2.Vektor - Outer Isolation

3.Haken - Visions

4.Esoteric - Paragon Of Dissonance

5.Thy Catafalque - Rengeteg

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Just because I couldn't leave Sólstafir out

1.Unexpect - Fables Of The Sleepless Empire

2.Devin Townsend - Deconstruction

3.Peste Noire - L'ordure à L'état Pur

4.Mastodon - The Hunter

5.Nightwish - Imaginaerum

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Here we go again...

This year I had more trouble than usual with the order, so I just kind of threw the list together rather than messing with the rankings for hours on end.

1.Vader - Welcome To The Morbid Reich

2.Warbringer - Worlds Torn Asunder

3.Negative Plane - Stained Glass Revelations

4.Vektor - Outer Isolation

5.Disma - Towards The Megalith

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1.Slayer - Reign In Blood

2.Sodom - Agent Orange

3.Testament - The Legacy

4.Megadeth - Peace Sells... But Who's Buying?

5.Atomkraft - Queen Of Death (EP)

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1.Draconian - A Rose For The Apocalypse

2.Heavenwood - Abyss Masterpiece

3.Novembers Doom - Aphotic

4.To Cast A Shadow - In Memory Of

5.Midnattsol - The Metamorphosis Melody

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1.Machine Head - Unto The Locust

2.Anthrax - Worship Music

3.Morbid Angel - Illud Divinum Insanus

4.Vektor - Outer Isolation

5.Primordial - Redemption At The Puritan's Hand

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My top prog albums. The list will be regularly updated.

1.Opeth - Ghost Reveries

2.Opeth - Blackwater Park

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

4.An Abstract Illusion - Woe

5.Gojira - Magma

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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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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.Shining - VII - Född Förlorare

2.Machine Head - Unto The Locust

3.Vildhjarta - Måsstaden

4.Leprous - Bilateral

5.Sylosis - Edge Of The Earth

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1.Machine Head - Unto The Locust

2.Vildhjarta - Måsstaden

3.Sylosis - Edge Of The Earth

4.Shining - VII - Född Förlorare

5.Ghost Brigade - Until Fear No Longer Defines Us

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Here is my personnal top 50 Thrash Metal album of all time, order by my preference. (even if it's really hard to order after the top 20 )
Feel free to suggest me some I've forgot to mention, there's so much excellent band and I should have not listen to all of them ! ^^
In my opinion, the best style to see live !!

1.Megadeth - Rust In Peace

2.Metallica - Ride The Lightning

3.Slayer - Reign In Blood

4.Vektor - Black Future

5.Machine Head - Burn My Eyes

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Purely subjective list based on personal preferences for the year, unrelated to mass opinion of an album or a band's abilities (e.g. Trivium, Oranssi Pazuzu) - many albums lined up to listen to so will increase in size. Also, not entirely in order, middle order mainly just an approximation.

1.Sylosis - Edge Of The Earth

2.Protest The Hero - Scurrilous

3.Infestus - E x I s t

4.Amorphis - The Beginning Of Times

5.Ouroboros - Glorification Of A Myth

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Ordered best to worst. This is entirely my opinion.

1.Insomnium - One For Sorrow

2.Graveyard - Hisingen Blues

3.Havok - Time Is Up

4.Toxic Holocaust - Conjure And Command

5.Deafheaven - Roads To Judah

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