Maidenfans Best Albums of the Millenium: 2000 FINAL ROUND

vote for any albums that you want to move up (read the post for details)!


  • Total voters
    12
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Mosh

Powerslave
Staff member
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!
 
Happy to support, as always, a growl squad classic, Close to a World Below.

Also the album I almost nominated, V, and Mer de Noms, a great Tool-lite alt/alt metal banger.
 
Skyclad and Symphony X clearly need a bit more love here.

I nominated Skyclad’s Folkémon, which was Martin Walkyier’s swan song with the band, showcasing his excellent pun-filled lyrics alongside heavier arrangements. This is folk metal as it should be, completely growl-free. Highlights are “Polkageist!”, “The Antibody Politic”, and “You Lost My Memory”, but the whole album’s great and well worth your time.
 
How many votes do we get per reset?

Currently, easy votes for V, BNW, and Magica
Unlimited votes every time, and you can vote every day if you want. Since people are getting used to the format I might wait a little longer for the first reset but typically every 24 hours is the goal.
 
I'm sure it's not just nostalgia (although I won't deny it plays a part), but my write-up for the NW game still probably expresses this the best

I'll post my write-up for Wishmaster first. (like I said, I'm dealing with other issues, so I'm doing the best I can).

I was honestly shocked and appalled at the ranking of the album, moreso by the fact most members seemed to be agreeing. I admit, some of it might be because I'm a Wish-era boomer (it was precisely around that album when I first heard the band and Wishmaster was for some time the only album by the band I had - borrowed from my father on a CD with burnt MP3s which he got...somewhere - ah, the early 00s), but I strenuously deny the notion that it's only nostalgia that keeps it in my personal number one - in fact, I'd say that Wishmaster is pretty much the only perfect album, much as I like the band in general. The birth pains are gone, the spirit is still young, Tuomas is still aiming primarily to be vigorous than epic.

In that sense, why go for Wishmaster when you can hear those sounds being fully executed other records?

Unless you mean Oceanborn, I'm not really sure what you're talking about, because - while tastes differ and all and you may like the latter form more - the switch in style came immediately after this album and there are no other songs on the following albums like FantasMic (with that pseudo-Medieval interludes and all), Bare Grace Misery also sounds like early-Tarja and not much like what they'd be doing from Century Child onwards, Wishmaster too, definitely, I'd even argue Two for Tragedy doesn't have any "siblings" on the later albums, nor does Deep Silent Complete, really, but most of all - Crownless would be the last power metal song by the band, a strain that would disappear completely after this album.

Anyway, like I already said, to me the consistency of this album edges it out from the no. 1 spot against Oceanborn. She Is My Sin is a perfect early hit, The Kinslayer, despite being quite topical, has a killer riff and a driving tempo (they would try to recreate this again and again, already with End of All Hope on the next album) and Come Cover Me AND Deep Silent are among the pinnacles of the Tarja-era - also because of the fact none of the other singers would be able to truly recreate those, even if they tried.

It's the middle of the record where the album really soars high for me - Wanderlust has a rather complex and irresistible riff and main vocal melody and a peculiar dissonance between its two halves, Bare Grace Misery is to me personally among the catchiest songs by NW, the haunting night-time atmosphere and the beautiful wordless chorus of Deep Silent Complete makes it stand out even in their discography (and what a queer choice for a single, indeed!) and the already mentioned Crownless is... well, is exactly the type of song I love and something I'd love them to revisit. Well, revisit back then, probably not nowadays.

Oh, and despite me nominating Beauty of the Beast for the Greatest Metal Song Cup (I figured people would like it more; serves me right that it was eliminated immediately), I guess FantasMic is my favourite Tarja-era epic - and therefore my second favourite NW epic overall - being neither as plodding as Beauty, nor as Morriconish as Ghost Love Score and not as weird as Creek Mary's Blood.

Truly, Wishmaster is the deserted island NW pick for me and one of my top 5 albums overall, no contest.

They would never again sound like on FantasMic, like on Deep Silent Complete, like on Crownless. The absolutely last example of truly power metal era Nightwish, and one that probably strikes that balance between hits and deep cuts that leaves absolutely nothing to be desired, sprinkled with the possibly strongest presence of Faërie of potentially all their albums.
Even if many of those songs haven't had the tendency to leave me gasping for breath in that overwhelming, chest crushing, wistful yearning to recreate and reimmerse myself in those rare moments that expand in hindsight, in those perfect occasions of absolute presence that somewhiles peppered the underdeveloped existence of a child - - - you know, those times when the afternoon sun came through the window with a slant, giving everything warmth of the colour that exceeds that of its surface, the clocks ticking, the echoes of laughter hidden somewhere in the nooks and labyrintine halls of the back of my mind, the trips and the pastimes half or even wholly forgotten, the intangible, gossamery wisps of memories buried so deep within the feeble child's brain that they sometimes aren't even ideas anymore, but only feelings...
...well, even then I would probably like the album on its merits alone.

Never a Dull Moment? What's that title doing on a friggin' Rod Stewart record?

From the others, there are really no surprises for me and no albums I wouldn't know, except maybe for the Perfect Circle record. I'll try to re-play as many as possible in the upcoming week, but as of now I'm giving my votes to

Ayreon (the first part of Migrator isn't really metal, but I'm not a purist)
Skyclad
Helloween
Blaze
Electric Wizarrd
Immolation

I feel like I should vote for Pain of Salvation, but it is at a great risk of overthrowing Nightwish, so I don't think I will.
Also not voting for Symph X (yet) - I don't like the longer tracks there all that much (although the short ones are among my favourite Symph X tracks ever) and the album's probably gonna have enough supporters here as is.

Also, despite me having been in a power-melodeath mood recently, I'm not voting for Children of Bodom, at least not yet. We'll see.
 
Mosh, given that we will get about a week to vote, is it perhaps possible to get the next year's list in advance? Listening to ~15 albums isn't easy for me, because most of my workday is now spent in meetings instead of doing paperwork.
 
Mosh, given that we will get about a week to vote, is it perhaps possible to get the next year's list in advance? Listening to ~15 albums isn't easy for me, because most of my workday is now spent in meetings instead of doing paperwork.

Yeah, with work, three kids and the fourth on the way I need to scrape any moment I can and the time for it probably won't be evenly distributed, this would indeed help a lot.
 
The perfect element by far.

Then V - The mythology suite, Dream sequenser, Silicon messiah and Ressurection
 
Ok, let's get started. An easy round for the 2000 albums:

  • Brave New World - my favorite Maiden album.
  • Resurrection - Halford pure metal is very strong and very solid. Rob's vocals and the heavier approach are the real deal. Great! A worthy follow-up to Painkiller, so. Only 2 weak songs!
  • Wishmaster - maybe not the whole album, but the classsic Nightwish style will never get old. Some gems!
  • The Dark Ride - again not the whole album, but the catchy and heavy power metal has enough quality. As a whole, it's solid.
  • Silicon Messiah - Blaze with a great and strong debut. Maiden-esque and heavy, what's not to like.
Btw, all of these albums have somewhat similar productions and I like them a lot. A bit rough, but powerful.

Magica and V are the other curious albums for me.
 
I will be updating album standings and posting future week lists here:
 
I only have BNW, Resurrection and Silicon Messiah from that list, and think I may have had a burn of Magica at one stage but it was quite bad.
 
Updated Power Rankings
Brave New World =
Halford - Resurrection =
Nightwish - Wishmaster =
Blaze - Silicon Messiah +6
Symphony X - V: The New Mythology Suite +3
Helloween - The Dark Ride +1
Ayreon - Universal Migrator Part 1: Dream Sequencer -2
Pain of Salvation - The Perfect Element, Part 1 -4
Skyclad - Folkemon -3
Nevermore - Dead Heart in a Dead World +3
Immolation - Close to the World Below +3
In Flames - Clayman +4
A Perfect Circle - Mer De Noms +2
Dio - Magica -3
Electric Wizard - Dopethrone -3
Children of Bodom - Follow the Reaper -7

Expect big jumps in these early rounds, but now it will either be harder for those albums to maintain their positions or they will continue to garner big support among voters. The big winners in this round are V and Silicon Messiah, it remains to be seen whether they will maintain a high position or if they will get knocked out by stronger albums in the upper tier. The biggest loser is Children of Bodom, which received only one vote and consequently got knocked down 7 places to last place. It's possible that the album performs better in a less competitive tier.

The top three is also surprisingly close, I'll be curious if Wishmaster either overtakes Resurrection or gets knocked out by Symphony X and Blaze.
 
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