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. Albums I am yet to hear:

2. -----------------------------

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

4. Saturnus - Veronika Decides To Die

5. Ensiferum - Ensiferum

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Limiting my picks to one album per band (otherwise it would have been a much larger list), here are my top 50 favorite metal albums of all time including my favorite track for each album:

1. Stratovarius - Episode

2. Angra - Angels Cry

3. Helloween - Better Than Raw

4. Metallica - Ride The Lightning

5. Iron Maiden - Fear Of The Dark

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This is an alphabetical list dedicated for the celebration of great instrumental songs that have been included by vocal groups as original contribution to an album. Therefore, this list does not include instrumental-based groups like Apocalyptica, songs that have a significant part with spoken words / human voices or instrumental versions of vocal songs or other bonus material.

Please feel free to suggest more of your favorite songs for this list !

1. Accept - Objection Overruled

2. Anathema - Judgement

3. Arch Enemy - War Eternal

4. Arch Enemy - Will To Power

5. As I Lay Dying - An Ocean Between Us

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Listen to metal for more than the half of my life, here is the list of my favorites albums of all time.

1. Alcest - Les Voyages De L'âme

2. Alcest - Kodama

3. Alcest - Spiritual Instinct

4. Alestorm - Sunset On The Golden Age

5. Alestorm - No Grave But The Sea

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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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I feel like my overall favorites list is getting too long. I'm splitting it up by rating.

1. Thy Catafalque - Meta

2. Sepulcros - Vazio

3. Kassad - Faces Turn Away

4. Dream Theater - Black Clouds & Silver Linings

5. Xanthochroid - Of Erthe And Axen: Act I

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Subject to change from time to time.

1. Avenged Sevenfold - Waking The Fallen

2. Iron Maiden - The Final Frontier

3. Avenged Sevenfold - City Of Evil

4. Opeth - Still Life

5. Ne Obliviscaris - Citadel

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here another top for a band that have a huge impact in my life.

1. Opeth - Ghost Reveries

2. Opeth - Blackwater Park

3. Opeth - My Arms, Your Hearse

4. Opeth - Deliverance

5. Opeth - Watershed

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I started listening to metal music when I was a teenager, somewhere around the end of the 90's. After all these years, I thought it was high time to compose my personal top list of metal albums. What you see here is the absolute best of the best ... according to my taste.

To compile this list I have put all albums that I have given a 10/10 here on MS. Then I have put all these albums in a Ranking Engine (https://www.pubmeeple.com/ranking-engine) where they were put head to head and I had to choose which I liked more. The list below is what came out of this exercise.

1. Opeth - Deliverance

2. Opeth - Blackwater Park

3. Edge Of Sanity - Crimson

4. Edge Of Sanity - Purgatory Afterglow

5. Cobalt - Eater of Birds

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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.

2002 was a really strong year especially for progressive metal, black metal came back rowing and power metal going through its golden age.

My favorite non metal albums of 2002

1. In absentia

1. Agalloch - The Mantle

2. Dark Tranquillity - Damage Done

3. Arcturus - The Sham Mirrors

4. Taake - ...Bjoergvin...

5. Symphony X - The Odyssey

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1. Pain of Salvation - Remedy Lane

2. Porcupine Tree - In Absentia

3. Agalloch - The Mantle

4. Dream Theater - Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

5. Soilwork - Natural Born Chaos

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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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Last updated on 26 September 2023.

1. Dream Theater - Images and Words

2. Moonsorrow - Kivenkantaja

3. Wintersun - Wintersun

4. Dissection - Storm of the Light's Bane

5. Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast

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The purpose of this list is not to find and record which albums are the best but to define Dark Metal. We will try to specify which albums are the definitive examples of Dark Metal. "Dark Metal" is what we would call a "post-subgenre". An album that's not quite Black, not quite Death, sometimes a little Doom or Gothic, other times just Melodic or Symphonic or even "Atmospheric", anything that could fall somewhere in between some or all of these categories, that could probably be a "Dark Metal" album, as long as the tone is somewhat dark.

1. Rotting Christ - Sanctus Diavolos

2. Celtic Frost - Monotheist

3. Nightfall - At Night We Prey

4. Septicflesh - Sumerian Daemons

5. Behemoth - I Loved You At Your Darkest

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All my favourite songs that are 10 minutes+

Honorable mentions (not featured on MS):

Fairport Convention | Unhalfbricking | Sailor's Life - 11:09

Pentangle | Cruel Sister | Jack Orion - 18:37

Can - Tago Mago | Halleluwah -18:26

Yes | Close To The Edge | Close To The Edge - 18:42

Tangerine Dream | Phaedra | Phaedra - 17:39

ELP | Tarkus | Tarkus - 20:40

Pink Floyd | Meddle | Echoes - 23:35

Pink Floyd | Wish You Were Here | Shine On You Crazy Diamond (parts I-V) - 13:33

Pink Floyd | Animals | Dogs - 18:25

1. Rush - 2112

2. Deep Purple - In Rock

3. The Doors - The Doors

4. Uriah Heep - Look At Yourself

5. Rush - Hemispheres

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