Welcome disciples of Metal! The numbers have been crunched, the game has been optimized, and it is now time to decide on the best albums of the year for every year between 2000 and 2024. The winners of each year will then face each other to build a comprehensive top 25 for the century.
Here's how it works:
THIS IS A POWER RANKING GAME. The albums are arranged in the poll from best to worst, with the top seeded album being the top ranked album. I seeded the albums based on two facts: how many lists it appeared on, and my general understanding of this board's tastes after being here for 15 years. This way we don't have to spend multiple rounds moving an album like Brave New World to the top, it's already there unless voters decide to knock it off the top spot.
Essential Questions:
How do you knock albums off the top spot? If you feel like an album is ranked too low, vote for that album. Any album that receives a significant plurality of votes (this number will be fluid and based on participation) will move up a slot. If you like the list as is, vote for the top album.
How often does this update? I will look at the numbers roughly every 24 hours and move albums accordingly. You can vote for as many albums as you want and you can vote whenever the poll resets. After a week, I will close the poll and we will move on to the next year. This will take us to mid December with the finals wrapping up right at the new year.
How were albums selected? I would say 95% of the albums that will appear in this game were sourced from Maidenfans lists. Every album that was submitted will appear in the game. For years that have a lot of duplicates (2000 being one), I filled in the list with other acclaimed albums. Many years surprisingly had close to all unique albums, with 2014, 2020, and 2023 having only one duplicate each. No year featured an entirely unique list of albums. No Maidenfans nominated albums were seeded lower than an album I pulled from an outside source.
Do I need to listen to every album here? Not necessarily, but I would highly encourage it! You have a week to vote and the voting will update every day (so you can vote every day or you can vote once a week or whatever you want). Everybody has unlimited votes. I think you will get more out of this game if you listen to the albums you're not familiar with and see if you can find any new favorites.
My favorite album isn't here! You had 7 months to send me a list!!!
I want to thank everybody who participated. I received 17 lists and 250+ albums! Most years had quite a variety of material and it made me appreciate the diversity of taste around here. I'm really excited to dig into each list I got and I am going to do my best to listen to every album. With that being said, let's get started with...
YEAR MM (2000)
The turn of the century is upon us. By far the biggest event in Metal is the release of Iron Maiden's Brave New World, which easily is the album that showed up on the most lists. With that in mind, this year is a bit weird compared to the others as it features the least amount of unique albums (most people just chose BNW). The story of 2000 is definitely this sort of Metal renaissance, obviously the highlight is Iron Maiden re-emerging with a massive album, but in general there is a resurgence of classic Metal at large present in this year with Halford also making a notable comeback on the Resurrection album. Dio's ambitious concept album Magica is also widely seen as a bit of a return to form from another Metal legend who spent much of the 90s lost in the wilderness.
The other thread you see emerging in this year is big strides from bands that would go on to be major players in the 00s, particularly in the prog scene. Symphony X's V while not a smash, is a big stepping stone to The Odyssey which will be a serious contender in that album's year. Pain of Salvation's Perfect Element Part 1 is still regarded as one of their best, and they remain a fixture in the 00s prog scene. Similarly, Wishmaster is a rawer Nightwish album, but one of their most riff driven and serves as a prelude for yet another band that would go on to be a big part of the decades to come. Electric Wizard's Dopethrone is a massively influential album, but seemed to be outside the scope of most forum users here as it did not receive a single nomination. You might also notice Silicon Messiah in a lower seed. Another album that shockingly did not make any lists. 25 years later, Brave New World is still stealing its thunder.
I invite anyone who feels strongly about their own nominations or any other albums in this list to provide recommended songs or make the case why your album should be higher and something else should be lower!
Here's how it works:
THIS IS A POWER RANKING GAME. The albums are arranged in the poll from best to worst, with the top seeded album being the top ranked album. I seeded the albums based on two facts: how many lists it appeared on, and my general understanding of this board's tastes after being here for 15 years. This way we don't have to spend multiple rounds moving an album like Brave New World to the top, it's already there unless voters decide to knock it off the top spot.
Essential Questions:
How do you knock albums off the top spot? If you feel like an album is ranked too low, vote for that album. Any album that receives a significant plurality of votes (this number will be fluid and based on participation) will move up a slot. If you like the list as is, vote for the top album.
How often does this update? I will look at the numbers roughly every 24 hours and move albums accordingly. You can vote for as many albums as you want and you can vote whenever the poll resets. After a week, I will close the poll and we will move on to the next year. This will take us to mid December with the finals wrapping up right at the new year.
How were albums selected? I would say 95% of the albums that will appear in this game were sourced from Maidenfans lists. Every album that was submitted will appear in the game. For years that have a lot of duplicates (2000 being one), I filled in the list with other acclaimed albums. Many years surprisingly had close to all unique albums, with 2014, 2020, and 2023 having only one duplicate each. No year featured an entirely unique list of albums. No Maidenfans nominated albums were seeded lower than an album I pulled from an outside source.
Do I need to listen to every album here? Not necessarily, but I would highly encourage it! You have a week to vote and the voting will update every day (so you can vote every day or you can vote once a week or whatever you want). Everybody has unlimited votes. I think you will get more out of this game if you listen to the albums you're not familiar with and see if you can find any new favorites.
My favorite album isn't here! You had 7 months to send me a list!!!
I want to thank everybody who participated. I received 17 lists and 250+ albums! Most years had quite a variety of material and it made me appreciate the diversity of taste around here. I'm really excited to dig into each list I got and I am going to do my best to listen to every album. With that being said, let's get started with...
YEAR MM (2000)
The turn of the century is upon us. By far the biggest event in Metal is the release of Iron Maiden's Brave New World, which easily is the album that showed up on the most lists. With that in mind, this year is a bit weird compared to the others as it features the least amount of unique albums (most people just chose BNW). The story of 2000 is definitely this sort of Metal renaissance, obviously the highlight is Iron Maiden re-emerging with a massive album, but in general there is a resurgence of classic Metal at large present in this year with Halford also making a notable comeback on the Resurrection album. Dio's ambitious concept album Magica is also widely seen as a bit of a return to form from another Metal legend who spent much of the 90s lost in the wilderness.
The other thread you see emerging in this year is big strides from bands that would go on to be major players in the 00s, particularly in the prog scene. Symphony X's V while not a smash, is a big stepping stone to The Odyssey which will be a serious contender in that album's year. Pain of Salvation's Perfect Element Part 1 is still regarded as one of their best, and they remain a fixture in the 00s prog scene. Similarly, Wishmaster is a rawer Nightwish album, but one of their most riff driven and serves as a prelude for yet another band that would go on to be a big part of the decades to come. Electric Wizard's Dopethrone is a massively influential album, but seemed to be outside the scope of most forum users here as it did not receive a single nomination. You might also notice Silicon Messiah in a lower seed. Another album that shockingly did not make any lists. 25 years later, Brave New World is still stealing its thunder.
I invite anyone who feels strongly about their own nominations or any other albums in this list to provide recommended songs or make the case why your album should be higher and something else should be lower!
