My top ranked (in order from best down) favorite hard rock/heavy metal albums. I've also one included my top three favorite tracks from each album.

Enjoy!

1.Queensrÿche - Operation: Mindcrime

2.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

3.Rush - Hemispheres

4.Uriah Heep - Demons And Wizards

5.Judas Priest - Painkiller

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Updated 14.4.2024

My rather personal and improvised take on the subject matter. The list is pretty wage, I'll be updating it a lot and the order might vary a little depending on some things, but they're all great and awesome records no matter what. If there are some great records missing, that doesn't necessarily mean I consider them bad, maybe I just forgot about them or just haven't listened to them enough to consider them personal favourites.

Limited to metal and rock albums found on Metal Storm. Most of them (at least 90%) are anyway, so doesn't matter. The absent ones are mostly more pop and synth oriented stuff and some really obscure jazz and fusion albums.

1.Marillion - Marbles

2.Anathema - Weather Systems

3.Iron Maiden - Somewhere In Time

4.Moonsorrow - Voimasta Ja Kunniasta

5.Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja

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The must-have albums of old school heavy metal. Includes genres like Traditional, NWOBHM, U.S.P.M., Speed, Epic, Doom, and prog.

1.Black Sabbath - Master Of Reality

2.Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

3.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

4.Crimson Glory - Transcendence

5.Angel Witch - Angel Witch

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These are the 211 essential hard rock/metal albums of the 80's, as were selected by the Greek Magazine "Metal Hammer" (August 2001 issue).

The albums followed by a star are the "must have", whereas the rest albums are the "could have".

1.Angel Witch - Angel Witch

2.AC/DC - Back In Black

3.Black Sabbath - Heaven And Hell

4.Diamond Head - Lightning To The Nations

5.Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden

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I consider myself very lucky to have grown up, not just on the West Coast of the United States, but right in the heart of one of history's great metal scenes--the San Francisco Bay Area. So many awesome memories from so many incredible local bands, with other acts from all over the world regularly passing through as well. Time to memorialize in no particular order.

1.Anthrax - State Of Euphoria

2.Helloween - Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part II

3.Exodus - Fabulous Disaster

4.Testament - The New Order

5.Voivod - Nothingface

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Creating an Iron Maiden list in 2019 is rather redundant, since it's already been done to death here. But having seen a lot of lists (none of them I agree with) and having listened to some Iron Maiden lately, I thought I'd make my own list.

1.Iron Maiden - Somewhere In Time

2.Iron Maiden - Powerslave

3.Iron Maiden - Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son

4.Iron Maiden - Piece Of Mind

5.Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden

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1.Estatic Fear - Somnium Obmutum

2.Theatre Of Tragedy - Theatre Of Tragedy

3.My Dying Bride - Turn Loose The Swans

4.Iron Maiden - Powerslave

5.Anathema - The Silent Enigma

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1.Warning - Watching From A Distance

2.Aquilus - Griseus

3.King Diamond - Abigail

4.Metallica - Master Of Puppets

5.Candlemass - Nightfall

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The MS top 200 is supposed to represent the absolute peak of metal music, the timeless classics. I have been listening to metal for about 6 years now and would consider myself fairly knowledgeable about the genre. Yet, I have barely heard half of what the top 200 has to offer. I am now on a quest to listen to it all and give an honest opinion on what I thought of it.
This list will show every album of the top 200 and if I've listened to it whether it's an all-time favourite of mine (+++), I really like it (++), I like it (+), it’s good (*), it’s not great (-), I really dislike it (--) or I hate it from the bottom of my heart (---). The same symbols will be used to characterize what I think my opinion of the albums I haven't heard yet will be, based on my knowledge of the bands and of the genre they play. (?) signifies that I have no idea of whether I'll enjoy it or not and (/) means that my opinion of the album is probably obsolete, and I need to listen to it again. A ★ means the album is in my own top 200.
Edit: The bottom of the top 200 has been changing a lot, with some stuff formerly in the list now closer to 240th, so this is now a top 250. I’m not sure I want to expand the list further down, but I’ll see whenever it’s completed if I feel like going for a top 300 or something like that.
Best discoveries so far: Wildhoney, Nightfall, Out Of Myself, Portal Of I, Autumn Aurora, Nemesis Divina, Abigail, V: Hävitetty, Sounds Of Pain.

1.

2.

3.W.A.S.P. - The Crimson Idol

4.Saturnus - Veronika Decides To Die

5.Ensiferum - Ensiferum

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The best decade in history of heavy metal.

1.Judas Priest - Painkiller

2.Iron Maiden - Somewhere In Time

3.Accept - Breaker

4.Metallica - Ride The Lightning

5.Helloween - Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part I

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I'm not a methodic person, so i put my 25 favorite of my collection (are missing some albuns, so my top can chance) from heavy metal (not death, not black, not doom, not folk... only heavy... or anything this could mean)

1.Savatage - Gutter Ballet

2.Virgin Steele - Invictus

3.W.A.S.P. - The Crimson Idol

4.Rage - XIII

5.Queensrÿche - Operation: Mindcrime

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TOP 20 METAL CONCEPT ALBUMS

I was always fascinated by the good concept albums, which manage to tell the story in a extraordinary fashion. So I decided to make a list of best concetual metal albums up to date. I decided to concentrate on truly conceptual albums, since loosening the criteria too much would leave me with having bunch of fantastic albums, which would simply be too much to put on the list. Yes, it would probably be a lot easier to make a huge list, but I wanted to concentrate on a truly top concept-related albums. So since they do not strictly tell about some event, or follow the same story, I decided to drop out loose conceptuals. Unfortunately the likes of "Sirenia - At Sixes and Sevens", "Sabaton - The Art of War" or "Nightwish - Century Child", "Bloodbound - Nosferatu" most of the Therion's albums, Amorphis and so on, went out of the list. I raised the criteria for the 'conceptual' since also there is really a lot of top-quality albums that are connected with a loose story, but they are simply not tight enough to label them as truly concept albums?Otherwise I might as well write a list of 100 albums. Also I tried to avoid multiple occurances of the same band, hence only one album from Ayreon, Symphony X, Evergrey, etc, otherwise they would probably fill up half of the bloody list.

1.Sabaton - Carolus Rex

2.Kamelot - Epica

3.Kamelot - The Black Halo

4.Queensrÿche - Operation: Mindcrime

5.Turisas - The Varangian Way

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1.Megadeth - Rust In Peace

2.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

3.Pantera - Cowboys From Hell

4.Metallica - Master Of Puppets

5.Judas Priest - Painkiller

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N.B. These haven't changed for quite some time.

1.Opeth - Still Life

2.Queensrÿche - Operation: Mindcrime

3.Megadeth - Rust In Peace

4.Iron Maiden - Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son

5.Metallica - Master Of Puppets

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Favorite releases from 1988

1.Vio-lence - Eternal Nightmare

2.Morbid Saint - Spectrum Of Death

3.Coroner - Punishment For Decadence

4.Megadeth - So Far, So Good... So What?

5.Wargasm - Why Play Around

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