GREATEST METAL ALBUM CUP - Winner: Iron Maiden - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son!

mckindog said:
But favourite doesn’t equal greatest in my world, it’s just an element of it. Objectivity is a smaller element. (For example, I can talk objectively about Slayer but any positives won’t overcome my visceral reaction. Other have expressed similar feelings about Rush)

My favourite hockey team has been a doormat for a long time. Objectively they aren’t great. Music is certainly more subjective than sports, but there are still elements of it that can be discussed objectively.
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You support my point. Sure for discussion it can be interesting, but not for the voting. Unless someone is influenced by objective facts, but then I'd still only vote for an album if it is a better listening experience. It could be the old fav, but also the one that was influenced. Whatever the outcome, the deciding factor for that outcome is not an objective criterium, but a personal feeling, namely: what is more likeable.
 
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Hadn’t heard this Accept album before, and it’s abundantly clear how much influence some of these tracks would have on the German power metal scene as it developed later on, especially on Kai Hansen, in both good and bad ways. There’s some silly Helloween flavor here, but also some influence on the vocal melodies and and guitar leads that would infuse Hansen’s style. That said, the actual vocal performance here is pretty bad, as is the songwriting. “Princess Of The Dawn” is probably the closest this album gets to a well-written song, but even that one plods a bit. Where this album shines is in the guitar leads and soloing, bringing in some neoclassical elements and laying the foundation for power metal to come. But as a whole it’s not a particularly strong record. Compare this to the King Diamond album, which also has polarizing singing, but much better constructed songs and music, and the choice is simple. Winner: King Diamond

No Prayer For The Dying gets more crap than it deserves. I think it’s a solidly good album with a couple of weaker tracks (“The Assassin” and “Hooks In You”) and a few stronger tracks (“Tailgunner”, “Run Silent Run Deep”, and especially “Fates Warning”). It’s probably Janick’s best overall performance on a Maiden album, too. While it’s a middle of the road Maiden record and nowhere near the upper tier of metal albums in general, it would still hold its own against a lot of the competitors we’ve seen in the GMAC. The Warning, on the other hand, is a massively overrated album loaded with mostly filler, along with a small handful of stronger tracks like “Take Hold Of The Flame” and “En Force”. Sorry, @Poto, but Forostaapanael’s nominee takes this one. Winner: Iron Maiden

Hadn’t heard this Slayer album before, and it’s pretty much what I expected. Bad vocals, bad soloing, uneven songwriting and guitar leads, but pretty consistently good thrash riffage. Much like with Anthrax, I think these guys get way too much credit and don’t deserve to be heralded on the same level as Megadeth or Metallica. They’re up against The Final Frontier, another middle of the road Maiden record that has higher highs and lower lows than No Prayer For The Dying, but lands at the same overall rating for me (7/10). While I do believe in applying affirmative action to nominees going up against Maiden records, I don’t believe in quotas — and these contests should ultimately be decided on the merits. So, luckily for @Collin, his merely good Maiden album had more weak competition this round and manages to get my vote again. Winner: Iron Maiden

This Dream Theater album is a lot to absorb on first listen, but I enjoyed large parts of it and only disliked a few tracks. Some of the synth parts are really heavy-handed, and I still have a hard time taking LaBrie seriously when he tries to sing “tough”, but there’s a lot of high-quality stuff here. Compared to a Deep Purple album that I can still barely remember after listening to it multiple times, this is an easy call. Sorry, @matic22, but I have to go with Moshollin’s choice here. Winner: Dream Theater
 
srfc said:
It's showing 8 votes and 10 names for Them now :lol: should be a draw but Restless and Wild is winning now.
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The counts for me are correct except for undercounting Them at 11 votes when it has 12 names assigned to it.

#STOPTHESTEAL
 
First pair presents two absolute heavy metal classics and hugely influential records. If you're not convinced just check the first songs from each album (Fast As A Shark and Welcome Home). Yup both songs were way ahead of their times. But it happens that I'm a KD fan so yeah, I'll give my vote to King Diamond. But if Accept wins at least it loses to a good opponent.

While being a good album with great songs such as Tailgunner, Bring Your Daughter, Fates Warning, Run Silent Run Deep and Mother Russia, No Prayer is indeed far from belonging to a game called GREATEST METAL ALBUM in any other place but a Maiden forum. But fact is I consider pre Rage For Order Queensryche to be quite meh. So yup... I have to go with Iron Maiden.

To begin with I prefer The Final Frontier to Show No Mercy and consider it to be quite a good album without a single bad song. But come on! Once again if this wasn't a Maiden forum this album would be eviscerated in the voting. I mean unlike me, many people love Show No Mercy. Don't get me wrong but like many other bay area thrash bands, I believe there's a huge difference between their debut and sophomore. Those debuts kinda lack coherency and power and are still way too connected with NWOBHM traits. Albums like Kill 'Em All, Show No Mercy, Bonded By Blood and Fistful Of Metal are much more speed metal and close to the sound of bands like Exciter and Razor while SOD, Dark Angel, Voivod, Kreator and Destruction started thrashing hard from the get go. Nevertheless I'm tired of middle tier Maiden albums making it. And even though Show No Mercy shows a band that's still trying to find their sound, it's overall decent. Plus there's one track that already features their future signature guitar harmonies and is a decent blueprint of what's to come in Black Magic. There's also some other cool tracks like Die By The Sword, Evil Has No Boundaries or Fight Till Death. So I'll vote for the record I like the least in order to break the mid to bottom bracket Iron Maiden albums flood. Slayer.

Already gave my two cents on Deep Purple's Perfect Strangers. As for Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence it's one of the few albums I like from the band (to be fair there aren't that few - five - but these dudes already have a considerable catalogue, so...). By being so it's plain to see I'm not a fan because normally die hard fans prefer Images And Words, Metropolis II or Awake. And by now let me get one thing clear... I don't like the title track (that fills the entire 2nd disc) since it's the typical rock opera prog wanking I have no patience for (I have the album, listened to the second disc a couple of times and can't remember a single melody). What Six Degrees' first record offers me is diversity, quality and great song construction within 5 tracks. The Glass Prison is a really private matter dealing with addiction and is a heavy prog rock with some sparkles of Master Of Puppets meets tiny bits of Pantera with a 70's prog rock flavor. After this giant roller coaster we're given a gentle yet addictive late 70's Rush like track in Disappear. Misunderstood is as beautiful as heavy, a truly fantastic mix of emotions with a monster of a crescendo before the 2nd chorus (and the way the song effortlessly starts morphing into the dire tones at the end is something). In The Great Debate the band goes more into their King Crimson bag and even pick one or two ideas from Tool in a huge but exciting prog stravaganza. Finally Disappear's acoustic part is truly something... reminds me of a mix between Pink Floyd and Radiohead. So there you have it... this 1st disc is more than enough for me to go with Dream Theater.
 
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Magnus said:
I don't get it. I know that happens when someone has just voted meanwhile but I've refreshed the page several times and the numbers still don't fit:
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This is FIXED! We got them @Magnus! We got them! :D :D :D :D

Now, more seriously... this is really strange. It seems some votes aren't really being counted and I'm certain it's some bug. @LooseCannon can you check what's going on one more time?
 
karljant said:
This is FIXED! We got them @Magnus! We got them! :D :D :D :D

Now, more seriously... this is really strange. It seems some votes aren't really being counted and I'm certain it's some bug. @LooseCannon can you check what's going on one more time?
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If I had to guess, one person's vote isn't showing up in the database. I checked for known Xenforo bugs, but I wonder if it's because I've been reusing the same poll for so long. So after this round, I'll delete and re-create the poll (not the thread) and hope that cleans it up. I'll count manually for awhile to make sure it's fixed.
 
Seriously, I think Jordan Rudess turns in his best performance on this album. His playing is always going to be over the top, but he plays some really expressive stuff that fits the music perfectly. The piano soloing on Blind Faith for example, or the synth solo on The Great Debate. Not just the soloing, but also the keyboard textures found on every song and the beginning of the back and forth with keyboard and guitar. It feels like a realization of what Dream Theater was trying to achieve from the very beginning. Later on, the balance tends to slip to one side or the other (not enough keys on Train of Thought or Octavarium, but too much on Systematic Chaos and ADTOE etc). Jordan contributes a lot to Six Degrees' atmosphere and each song being its own sonic landscape, which is why I love the album so much.
 
Mosh said:
Seriously, I think Jordan Rudess turns in his best performance on this album. His playing is always going to be over the top, but he plays some really expressive stuff that fits the music perfectly. The piano soloing on Blind Faith for example, or the synth solo on The Great Debate. Not just the soloing, but also the keyboard textures found on every song and the beginning of the back and forth with keyboard and guitar. It feels like a realization of what Dream Theater was trying to achieve from the very beginning. Later on, the balance tends to slip to one side or the other (not enough keys on Train of Thought or Octavarium, but too much on Systematic Chaos and ADTOE etc). Jordan contributes a lot to Six Degrees' atmosphere and each song being its own sonic landscape, which is why I love the album so much.
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I do actually agree with this. Six Degrees and The Astonishing show that he’s capable of restraint, he just doesn’t frequently use it. And granted, Dream Theater is wanky as hell and he fits perfectly, but it’s just so much more obvious with a keyboard.
 
It's interesting that The Astonishing is your other go-to, since it is so overblown, but it is true that he is an MVP on the album and there's quite a bit of restraint throughout. Three Days is the only song that really goes off the rails instrumentally, and they do it in a cool way.
 
Mosh said:
It's interesting that The Astonishing is your other go-to, since it is so overblown, but it is true that he is an MVP on the album and there's quite a bit of restraint throughout. Three Days is the only song that really goes off the rails instrumentally, and they do it in a cool way.
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Oh absolutely, the concept and length is ludicrously masturbatory but the keyboard is incredibly subdued for Rudess (and everyone, honestly).
 
LooseCannon said:
If I had to guess, one person's vote isn't showing up in the database. I checked for known Xenforo bugs, but I wonder if it's because I've been reusing the same poll for so long. So after this round, I'll delete and re-create the poll (not the thread) and hope that cleans it up. I'll count manually for awhile to make sure it's fixed.
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Our luck is having you as a fair and helpful game master. Except when Alter Bridge defeated Bolt Thrower. In that case I hope you burn in hell for not cheating in favor of Bolt Thrower. :D:D:D:D:D
 
LooseCannon said:
If I had to guess, one person's vote isn't showing up in the database. I checked for known Xenforo bugs, but I wonder if it's because I've been reusing the same poll for so long. So after this round, I'll delete and re-create the poll (not the thread) and hope that cleans it up. I'll count manually for awhile to make sure it's fixed.
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My vote for King Diamond in the first match-up doesn't show in bold (like it does for my other votes, Maiden, Slayer, Purple) but my name shows up when checking the voters. So perhaps it's me?! :S
 
mckindog said:
I’m curious where people draw the line at what defines a worthy album? In your world how many “great“ albums are there? 10? 50? 200?
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I'd say only those that end up in 1st league here could be called that (that would make it 64 albums). Any more leagues and some diarrhea could slip in, like Steel Panther or Babymetal (which would make me shiver and drop my smartphone and I can't afford a new one at the moment.)
mckindog said:
I’ve never done the math, but The Final Frontier is a good talking point for me; I love that album, played the shit out of it when it was new and I still go back to it regularly. There is nothing “landmark” or ”iconic” about it, but in terms of what I want to listen to, it ranks exceedingly high on my list: a great mix of song styles, terrific rhythms and melodies, interesting lyrics, good performances. That doesn’t change the fact that it is Iron Maiden being Iron Maiden, it didn’t shake the world in any way.
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Ditto.
I and a couple of friends had similar discussion few months ago and the question was: "What are your perfect albums?" It doesn't matter what the critics or charts or album sales said. It was just down to opinion and there were only 2 rules:
1. You don't skip a single song when listening to the album.
2. Any song from the album you can listen to twice in a row.
I thought TFF would easily fit but I don't think I could listen The Man Who Would Be King twice in a row. So, after several hours, we came to conclusion that none of us have a "perfect album", just a lot that come really close to it (my friend said his would be Blind Guardian's Nightfall at Middle Earth if you cut out all the interludes). What I found funny is that even between 4 of us we couldn't find an album we would call perfect for ourselves, let alone that 4 of us agree that someone else's is great.

Considering DT's 6DOIT: to me, it's what Dream Theater is all about. After that album I got it why people love them so much and I got it why they reached their commercial peak early and lost if afterward. Just the opener is the reason enough why are they are the band I listened to most in past 2 years and why they'll never be in my top favourite bands (but that song will also appear in Crusade of Epics tournament, so I'm going to discuss it there.)

As to Jordan, he's phenomenal on that one. Yes, that small solo section in Blind Faith is what I would enlist into perfect music moments. I would say every member on 6 Degrees has a lot of shining moments (except Myung maybe) while still maintaining cohesiveness rest of the album. You don't hear him that much and later ones (especially Train of Thought) and I'm not saying a word about The Astonishing until I copyright the term "Disney metal".
 
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