1.Angra - Temple Of Shadows

2.Avantasia - The Metal Opera Part I

3.Avantasia - The Metal Opera Part II

4.Blind Guardian - Somewhere Far Beyond

5.Blind Guardian - Imaginations From The Other Side

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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.

2004 was a another good year, especially for my favorite genres Symphonic metal and power metal, even if it wasn't the strongest overall year for metal the 2000's started pretty slowly for metal, but 2004 was a fantastic year for other music genres

1.Haggard - Eppur Si Muove

2.Ayreon - The Human Equation

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

4.Nightwish - Once

5.Wintersun - Wintersun

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Welcome to what I consider the "1001 Metal Albums You Must Hear Before You Die" or in other words, a list of records of various genres in the arrays of Metal and Hard Rock that I deem essential or at least very recommended to listeners of hard and heavy music. This may be a very overwhelming list but I essentially try to collect all albums in the History of Metal that strike me as worthwhile. May this be a guideline for people that seek for an entrance to a particular genre or certain bands. In no means I am saying, that this list is indisputable by any means. I consider these my personal picks for albums that should be listened to by die-hard metal fans at least once. Hopefully you can discover some new music or relate with my picks. If I missed something that you would include in such a list, please tell me in the form of a comment. Enjoy! \,,/

1.High Tide - Sea Shanties

2.Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

3.Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin

4.Sir Lord Baltimore - Kingdom Come

5.Josefus - Dead Man

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just rating albums as I listen to them, work in progress

1.Blind Guardian - Imaginations From The Other Side

2.Helloween - Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part II

3.Wintersun - Wintersun

4.Symphony X - The Divine Wings Of Tragedy

5.Angra - Temple Of Shadows

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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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This is a list of all the power metal albums I have listened to that are worth remembering. Like my other genre lists, this is not meant to be a definitive guide to power metal or a binding judgment on what power metal is or is not. The list exists purely for my own organizational purposes and may contain bands or albums that are not strictly True Knights of the Eternal Thundersword.

The first cluster includes my favorite albums in the genre (and a significant number of my all-time favorites); beyond that, they are listed by rating from 9/10 down to 6/10 and alphabetically within each bracket.

Last updated November 27, 2021.

1.Blind Guardian - Nightfall In Middle-Earth

2.Blind Guardian - Imaginations From The Other Side

3.Blind Guardian - Somewhere Far Beyond

4.Jag Panzer - Thane To The Throne

5.X Japan - Art Of Life

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Compilation of many Hard Rock or Metal Ballads I've heard. Bands and Albums are ordered by name alphabetically.

1.Accept - Balls To The Wall

2.Accept - Blood Of The Nations

3.Accept - Eat The Heat

4.Adagio - Underworld

5.Aerosmith - Aerosmith

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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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Since many of you felt annoyed by my previous list title I changed it and hopefully you will be ok with it.Power up everybody!!!

1.Helloween - Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part II

2.Blind Guardian - Imaginations From The Other Side

3.Helloween - Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part I

4.Riot - ThunderSteel

5.Gamma Ray - Land Of The Free

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A list for power metal bands and albums, which are sadly overlooked by the majority, but are highly deserving much more attention. That means obviously that this is no place for the genres biggest and most well known acts, like Blind Guardian, Helloween, Sabaton or the likes.
This list is ever progressing, so feel free to suggest as many bands as they come up in your mind. I will check them out and then decide if they need to be included or not.
The only requirements: They should be quite well hidden in the metal world and not only be extraordinary good but also really something else (I obviously don't want to fill this list with a bunch of unknown, but average, generic and thousand times copied plastic power metal bands).
This list is ordered by my personal impressions.

1.Crom - Vengeance

2.Wuthering Heights - The Shadow Cabinet

3.Fairyland - Score To A New Beginning

4.Dol Ammad - Ocean Dynamics

5.Eldritch - El Niño

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Just for my favorite
2016.09.15 update

1.Helloween - Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part II

2.Gamma Ray - Land Of The Free

3.Heavenly - Dust To Dust

4.Theocracy - Mirror Of Souls

5.Angra - Temple Of Shadows

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The best ballads in the history of Metal. Of course, all these bands and other bands have really good ballads but this list shows the very best, handpicked by me. In alphabetical order by bands name to make the list less chaotic and not by order of preference.

1.Accept - Eat The Heat

2.Accept - Blood Of The Nations

3.Adagio - Underworld

4.Aerosmith - Aerosmith

5.Allen/Lande - The Battle

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This is my list of favorite power metal that I've been listening for years . Including all types of power metal, from extreme like Chidren of Bodom, to Symphonic like Nightwish, Progressive as well and so on.

1.Kamelot - Epica

2.Kamelot - The Black Halo

3.Kamelot - Karma

4.Helloween - 7 Sinners

5.Angra - Temple Of Shadows

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Simply a list of the 30 best Power Metal albums of the European/Melodic style in my opinion. One album per band and in order of preference, although the order may change over time.

1.Gamma Ray - Land Of The Free

2.Blind Guardian - Tales From The Twilight World

3.Kiuas - The Spirit Of Ukko

4.Dark Moor - The Hall Of The Olden Dreams

5.Helloween - Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part I

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