Top 50 of 2006

Only LPs

Album count: 180
Average rating: 7.09

1.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

2.Celtic Frost - Monotheist

3.Saturnus - Veronika Decides To Die

4.Summoning - Oath Bound

5.Enslaved - Ruun

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This list shows only my preferences in metal. These albums are not necessarily the best of the bands written by, but I return to them again and again. In my opinion, all this masterpieces confirm the variety and greatness of metal music.
Rules:
1. One album per band.
2. Ordered from highest position (top) to lowest (bottom).
3. No heavy, power, doom, gothic, sludge/stoner albums.

1.Children Of Bodom - Follow The Reaper

2.Dimmu Borgir - Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia

3.In Flames - Clayman

4.Soilwork - Natural Born Chaos

5.Gojira - From Mars To Sirius

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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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1.Katatonia - The Great Cold Distance

2.Saturnus - Veronika Decides To Die

3.Insomnium - Above The Weeping World

4.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

5.The Mars Volta - Amputechture

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The albums below is my definition of extreme metal music, regardless of their genre. Entire list is based only on my personal preferences in metal.
Rules:
1. One album per band
2. 305 groups/305 albums

1.In Flames - Clayman

2.Metallica - ...And Justice For All

3.Chimaira - Chimaira

4.Death - Symbolic

5.Testament - The New Order

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1.Kalmah - The Black Waltz

2.Insomnium - Above The Weeping World

3.Kalmah - They Will Return

4.Amon Amarth - With Oden On Our Side

5.Insomnium - Since The Day It All Came Down

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Each band featured once, except one.

1.Amorphis - Queen Of Time

2.Be'lakor - Of Breath And Bone

3.Burzum - Filosofem

4.Children Of Bodom - Hate Crew Deathroll

5.Dark Tranquillity - Atoma

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2000-2004 list: http://www.metalstorm.net/users/list.php?list_id=5844
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 2005 to 2009, with at least 1 vote, were included.
The average expected rating (C) was determined by averaging all the Metal Storm ratings from 2005-2009.
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 +8.

C for 2005-2009 = 7.593
m = 20

Number of albums from each year in the list:
2005 - 26
2006 - 20
2007 - 23
2008 - 17
2009 - 23

Ratings are accurate as of 30/10/2023

1.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

2.Opeth - Ghost Reveries

3.Be'lakor - Stone's Reach

4.Gojira - From Mars To Sirius

5.Saturnus - Veronika Decides To Die

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No particular order

1.Graveworm - As The Angels Reach The Beauty

2.Graveworm - Scourge Of Malice

3.Dimmu Borgir - For All Tid

4.Dimmu Borgir - Stormblåst

5.Dimmu Borgir - Enthrone Darkness Triumphant

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1.Wintersun - Wintersun

2.Be'lakor - Stone's Reach

3.Ensiferum - Ensiferum

4.Septicflesh - Communion

5.Insomnium - Above The Weeping World

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Metal albums (and yes, I consider metalcore to be metal) that rocked my world, with maximum 2 albums per band sorted by bands in alphabetic order. Live, EP and compilation albums allowed, also including hard rock and stoner rock albums.

It will be updated as I discover new bands so check it sometime

1.Alabama Thunderpussy - Open Fire

2.Alice In Chains - Dirt

3.All That Remains - The Fall Of Ideals

4.Amon Amarth - Twilight Of The Thunder God

5.Annihilator - Alice In Hell

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In no order, just the my favorite of that decade.

1.Swallow The Sun - The Morning Never Came

2.Equilibrium - Sagas

3.The Defaced - Karma In Black

4.Susperia - Vindication

5.Masterplan - Aeronautics

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My top list by far......
last update : 23/01/2019

1.Be'lakor - Of Breath And Bone

2.Gojira - From Mars To Sirius

3.Amon Amarth - Twilight Of The Thunder God

4.Amorphis - Silent Waters

5.Death - Symbolic

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1.Moonspell - Memorial

2.Madder Mortem - Desiderata

3.Scar Symmetry - Pitch Black Progress

4.Katatonia - The Great Cold Distance

5.Into Eternity - The Scattering Of Ashes

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1.Opeth - Blackwater Park

2.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

3.Green Carnation - Light Of Day, Day Of Darkness

4.Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja

5.Porcupine Tree - Fear Of A Blank Planet

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