1.All time & genre (including Non-Metal on MS)
2.Only studio albums & EPs
3.The genre is primary one.
4.Only ESPECIALLY favorite (a bit more stringently than ver1 and rating 10 is not enough)
5.The order: A to Z (initial of band's name), next release date
6.Black Wisdom, an album of Russian band Grey Heaven Fall, is deleted. When the situation gets better, I will repost.
Last modified on 3 March 2022

1.Akhlys - The Dreaming I

2.Altar Of Plagues - Mammal

3.Angra - Temple Of Shadows

4.Anthrax - Among The Living

5.Arkha Sva - Gloria Satanae

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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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"CALENDAR MADE OF METAL"
February = Black Metal
Listening to as many albums as possible in said genre during said month and listing them here as I go. Suggestions welcome.

1.Tsjuder - Kill For Satan

2.Lord Belial - Kiss The Goat

3.Satyricon - Dark Medieval Times

4.Enthroned - Prophecies Of Pagan Fire

5.Advent Sorrow - Kali Yuga Crown

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Been a bit slow checking releases around the halfway point of the year, but should get back into it soon and hopefully flesh out this list.

1.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

2.Horrendous - Anareta

3.Slugdge - Dim & Slimeridden Kingdoms

4.Teramaze - Her Halo

5.Regarde Les Hommes Tomber - Exile

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1.Leprous - The Congregation

2.Enslaved - In Times

3.Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase.

4.Chelsea Wolfe - Abyss

5.Mgła - Exercises In Futility

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1.Sulphur Aeon - Gateway To The Antisphere

2.

3.Thy Art Is Murder - Holy War

4.George Kollias - Invictus

5.

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1.Steve Von Till - A Life Unto Itself

2.Lana Del Rey - Honeymoon

3.Sunn O))) - Kannon

4.Avatarium - The Girl With The Raven Mask

5.Mgła - Exercises In Futility

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My favorite 26 albums in metal

1.Ne Obliviscaris - Portal Of I

2.In Mourning - Shrouded Divine

3.Agalloch - Pale Folklore

4.Opeth - Blackwater Park

5.Be'lakor - Of Breath And Bone

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Only the 9s or 10s / 10 are here. Roughly ordered in time.

1.Agalloch - Marrow Of The Spirit

2.Kingcrow - Phlegethon

3.Crippled Black Phoenix - I, Vigilante

4.Igorrr - Nostril

5.Triptykon - Eparistera Daimones

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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.

2015 was a great one, I honestly forgot how good that year was for metal, black metal had a strong showing and Symphonic was not that far behind, Progressive and gothic had great releases and the great return of Iron Maiden.

1.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

2.Ghost - Meliora

3.Mgła - Exercises In Futility

4.Draconian - Sovran

5.Swallow The Sun - Songs From The North I, II & III

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1.Agalloch - Pale Folklore

2.Agalloch - The Mantle

3.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

4.Ahab - The Call Of The Wretched Sea

5.Amon Amarth - Twilight Of The Thunder God

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These are my favorite metal albums in no particular order.

1.Gojira - From Mars To Sirius

2.Gojira - The Way Of All Flesh

3.Cattle Decapitation - Monolith Of Inhumanity

4.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

5.Amon Amarth - With Oden On Our Side

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1.Kauan - Sorni Nai

2.Wilderun - Sleep At The Edge Of The Earth

3.Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase.

4.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

5.Dødheimsgard - A Umbra Omega

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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
2010-2014 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5828

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 grows 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 2015 to 2019, with at least 1 vote, were included.
The average expected rating (C) was determined by averaging all the Metal Storm ratings from 2015-2019.
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 2015-2019 = 7.422
m = 20

Number of albums from each year in the list:
2015 - 31
2016 - 24
2017 - 18
2018 - 12
2019 - 17

Ratings are accurate as of 30/10/2023

1.Mgła - Exercises In Futility

2.Insomnium - Winter's Gate

3.Amorphis - Under The Red Cloud

4.Vektor - Terminal Redux

5.Trees Of Eternity - Hour Of The Nightingale

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1.Opeth - Still Life

2.Katatonia - Last Fair Deal Gone Down

3.Dissection - Storm Of The Light's Bane

4.In Flames - Whoracle

5.Emperor - In The Nightside Eclipse

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