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Thumbs up: +253
Beginner's Guide To Building A Prog Collection (Standards, And A Few Unorthodox Choices)

Limited to only those albums featured on Metal Storm.


1.Jethro Tull - Thick As A Brick
2.Rush - Moving Pictures
3.King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King
4.Pain Of Salvation - Remedy Lane
5.Queensrÿche - Operation: Mindcrime

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Created by Introspekrieg on 03.03.2010



Thumbs up: +38
Classic Metal Albums Of Forever

*** READ ME *** This list is about the greatest metal albums of all-time, from all sub-genres and all countries. You won't see bands like Deep Purple, Rush, BOC, Zeppelin, etc., nor will you see bands like Tool, Rage ATM, Melvins and Soundgarden. While I love many of those bands, my definition of metal does not include them.

1.Black Sabbath - Paranoid
2.Metallica - Ride The Lightning
3.Iron Maiden - Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son
4.Death - Symbolic
5.Mercyful Fate - Don't Break The Oath

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Created by saw_you_drown on 18.05.2011



Thumbs up: +32
Top 20 Atmosphere Makers

1.Paradise Lost - Draconian Times
2.Katatonia - Last Fair Deal Gone Down
3.Fields Of The Nephilim - Mourning Sun
4.Anathema - Judgement
5.Draconian - Turning Season Within

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Created by ravendeath on 22.03.2010



Thumbs up: +12
Best Metal Albums Around!

These Are Albums that give metal a good name, and create metalheads who live for little else. Originality, Raw talent, Brilliant atmosphere, Brutality with a great technical aspect, and just plain ass kicking.

1.Lux Occulta - The Mother And The Enemy
2.Borknagar - The Archaic Course
3.Ancient - Mad Grandiose Bloodfiends
4.Arcturus - La Masquerade Infernale
5.Bloodbath - Resurrection Through Carnage

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Created by SymphonyImpaled on 23.06.2011



Thumbs up: +12
Top 50 Metal Albums Of The 2000's

Comprehensive list of my top 50 metal albums from the previous decade. Though a number of non-metal albums would make my 50, I have excluded them here.

1.Primordial - The Gathering Wilderness
2.Agalloch - The Mantle
3.Negură Bunget - OM
4.Primordial - To The Nameless Dead
5.Green Carnation - Light Of Day, Day Of Darkness

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Created by Damned-In-Black on 06.07.2010



Thumbs up: +10
Bombest's Most Listened To Albums

Progressive Metal/Rock is my main music, but you can't ignore the beauty in other genres.

1.Orphaned Land - The Never Ending Way Of ORwarriOR
2.Opeth - Damnation
3.Porcupine Tree - The Incident
4.Porcupine Tree - In Absentia
5.Tool - 10,000 Days

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Created by Bombest on 04.12.2010



Thumbs up: +6
1001 Metal Albums to Hear Before You Die

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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Created by metalriff on 05.02.2021



Thumbs up: +5
Top 100 (+5) Of 2000-2004

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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Created by Crys1s on 26.09.2019



Thumbs up: +5
Drowned's Most Influential Albums Of All Time.

One album per band in random order. Will be continued very soon.

1.Rapture - Futile
2.Barathrum - Eerie
3.Bathory - Blood Fire Death
4.Diaboli - Mesmerized By Darkness
5.Obituary - Cause Of Death

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Created by Drowned on 29.09.2010



Thumbs up: +4
Metal Albums Ranked From WORSHIP To DISLIKE

Ratings go from:

WORSHIP ❤️❤️❤️: Absolute greatness, a mindblowing album.
LOVE ❤️❤️🖤: Amazing release with very few flaws.
LIKE ❤️🖤🖤: Enjoyable but far from perfect.
DISLIKE 💔: Not very good or maybe not fitting my tastes.

I've decided to stop rating albums with a numerical value as I tend to feel uncomfortable with that. This list has a minimalistic, subjective and visceral approach, based purely on sensations and personal tastes. Mainly for personal use and doesn't pretend to be a serious ranking, but emerges from the need to remember which bands and albums I enjoyed and the ones I disliked. I constantly revisit new releases so first impressions may change over time. It usually takes 8-10 spins for me to get completely sure of a rating.

1.Æther Realm - Tarot
2.Abhoria - Abhoria
3.Acid Bath - When The Kite String Pops
4.Agrypnie - Metamorphosis
5.Allegaeon - Fragments Of Form And Function

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Created by Rinbel on 14.03.2022



Thumbs up: +3
My 20 Top Metal Albuns

In no particular order

1.Emperor - Anthems To The Welkin At Dusk
2.Bal-Sagoth - Starfire Burning Upon The Ice-Veiled Throne Of Ultima Thule
3.Burzum - Filosofem
4.Type O Negative - October Rust
5.A Forest Of Stars - A Shadowplay For Yesterdays

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Created by Filipecosteira on 09.12.2015



Thumbs up: +2
A journey through the limits of Metal music into Amazing Records🔥

When Metal Fusion with Avant-garde, Psychedelic , Prog, Pop, Jazz. Bands outside of regular metal rules. Bands that make something new and different.
An exploration of the metal limits🔥

1.Watchtower - Energetic Disassembly
2.Mr. Bungle - Mr. Bungle
3.Tool - Lateralus
4.Death - Symbolic
5.Dream Theater - Awake

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Created by Blackcrowe on 14.10.2021



Thumbs up: +2
Top 200 Overrated Albums

**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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Created by nonZero on 19.02.2021



Thumbs up: +2
Top 100 Gothic Metal Records

Yes, I decided to do another gothic metal list because it been rapidly changing since my last two lists. I love revisiting this kind of list because of how different my tastes have changed withing this genre of music I'm passionate about.

1.Anathema - Eternity
2.Draconian - Arcane Rain Fell
3.The Foreshadowing - Days Of Nothing
4.Monumentum - In Absentia Christi
5.Tiamat - Wildhoney

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Created by Gothic Metalhead on 16.05.2020



Thumbs up: +2
Sadness And Despair

An unordered list of records on the dark side.
Solitude, despair, sadness, melancholy. Just a bit of rage.
Cooked to introduce you to the dark side of a once sunny day,

1.Mouth Of The Architect - The Ties That Blind
2.Swallow The Sun - The Morning Never Came
3.The Sins Of Thy Beloved - Lake Of Sorrow
4.Potentiam - Bálsýn
5.Doom:VS - Dead Words Speak

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Created by pdepmcp on 27.04.2017