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

For the record, I'm not bothered by Screaming for Vengeance winning against Crimson Idol. I think the latter is the better album, but the former is a well-deserved classic in its own right, and next to Stained Class the only Priest album that feels like a no-filler affair to me.

Okay, fine, and next to Defenders of the Faith.
 
Helloween - ok as power metal goes but that's about it

Metallica - Most of side b is painfully average, and even the better tracks aren't as good as their best stuff on earlier albums. Sounds good though which tricks people into thinking it's a monumental album when really it was the weakest album they had delivered at that point in time.

Metallica with the win

Judas Priest - One of the greatest openers to a metal album, you've got 3 pretty average fillers, (Take these) Chains (why is take these in brackets?), Pain and Pleasure, and Fever, but the rest is absolutely boot arse top level metal.

W.A.S.P. - Blackie delivering an album way above what anyone would have thought the writer of Animal (Fuck Like a Beast) would be capable of. @LooseCannon that's the re-recording of Doctor Rockter, but it sounds the exact fucking same anyway :lol:

W.A.S.P. with the win, the beast claims another man

Dream Theatre - I have this album, I got a burn of it from somewhere at some stage, and of the few Dream Theatre albums I have (I got another 2 or 3 in a job lot of cds one time), I really gave this one a fair shot. Pull Me Under is a great track as is the mad long one with the instrumental wig out in the middle, but nothing else clicked and I honestly can't remember anything about the rest of the album.

Iced Earth - this album seems to have had a fairly lucky run, it's not a top 32 metal album, nothing from Iced Earth should be anywhere near the top 32

Dream Theatre with the win

Judas Priest - Title track is like a dictionary definition of what heavy metal is, no musical influences from any other genre, ridiculous lyrics about some sort of sci-fi guff and screaming blue murder vocals, OTT and gratuitous guitar solos, unapologetically Heavy Metal. Most of the rest of the album is exactly the same, though not quite reaching the same highs. The only change of pace is Touch of Evil and that's only a slight one. Out of context, on another album, they might not have got away with the cliched fillers of Leather Rebel and Metal Meltdown but they fit perfectly with the vibe here.

Death - This is ok but I won't be voting for it instead of Painkiller, so say no more. Jazz bass part kicked in as I wrote that, it was so shit :lol:

Judas Priest with the win

EDIT: A bit harsh on Helloween there, the track Halloween is great, I should have mentioned that
 
Last edited:
srfc said:
W.A.S.P. - Blackie delivering an album way above what anyone would have thought the writer of Animal (Fuck Like a Beast) would be capable of.
Click to expand...

You're saying that as if Animals was a bad song. Sure the lyrics are stupid and only there for shock value (as is the title), but seriously, it's a great heavy rocker, something Blackie Lawless excelled at writing back in the day. The immature shock-rock image of W.A.S.P. shouldn't fool anyone over the fact that they are an extremely good band with a sound that is as heavy as the eighties could get.
 
Perun said:
You're saying that as if Animals was a bad song. Sure the lyrics are stupid and only there for shock value (as is the title), but seriously, it's a great heavy rocker, something Blackie Lawless excelled at writing back in the day. The immature shock-rock image of W.A.S.P. shouldn't fool anyone over the fact that they are an extremely good band with a sound that is as heavy as the eighties could get.
Click to expand...

No, I love animal, the riff is great, the hook of "i fuck like a beast" is memorable, and the melody is good enough that Adrian Smith ripped it off for the Great Unknown.

But there's no getting away from the fact that it's juvenile, and you would think anyone who wrote something as base, misogynistic and dripping in toxic machismo would have ideas above his station even trying something like Crimson Idol, never mind actually pulling it off.
 
Last edited:
srfc said:
No, I love animal, the riff is great, the hook of "i fuck like a beast" is memorable, and the melody is good enough that Adrian Smith ripped it off for the Great Unknown.

But there's no getting away from the fact that it's juvenile, and you wouldn't think anyone who wrote something as base, misogynistic and dripping in toxic machismo would have ideas above his station even trying something like Crimson Idol, never mind actually pulling it off.
Click to expand...

Okay, I agree with you there. I just wanted to make sure we're on the same page.
 
srfc said:
(Take these) Chains (why is take these in brackets?)
Click to expand...
This used to be more common practice before the 1990s — if a song had a more ambiguous title and the record company thought people wouldn’t know the name of the song based on the lyrics, they’d modify the title to include what they thought would be the most memorable lyric from the chorus. So in this case the song’s title is “Chains”, but because of the way the chorus goes, the record company tacked on the extra lyrics in parentheses so you’d know for sure it was this song. Same deal with Metallica’s “Welcome Home”, which is more easily identified from the “sanitarium” chorus. It’s a vestige from the single-focused days of early radio, I think.
 
I did not know that.

Could have done with that on some other albums. Despite having the album donkeys years I still struggle with the names of some of the tracks towards the end of Skunkworks, an auld clue in brackets would be a great help!
 
I think the art of the song title is highly underrated. “(Takes These) Chains” is just so much cooler than “Take These Chains” or just “Chains”. “Welcome Home (Sanitarium)” is much more sinister with “Sanitarium” and “Welcome Home” both present.

Conversely, sometimes parentheses mess up the title if added. Consider Steinman songs:
“Life Is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back” is the correct title.
“Life Is a Lemon (And I Want My Money Back)” is how it’s sometimes labeled by people who have reading comprehension issues. :ninja:
The first is a statement. Life sucks. Give me my money.
The second is kinda wishy washy. Man life is a bummer. Oh and if you could give me my money back...

Or my favorite song title of all time:
“Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are”
Vs its bastardized form:
“Objects in the Rear View Mirror (May Appear Closer Than They Are)”
Yuck.
It’s a statement.
Objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are.
If you add parentheses it’s no longer got that oomph.

My overall point to this rant is that what you name a song is æsthetically and artistically important. Of course it should be memorable, but there’s a variety of ways you can get the point across while keeping the vision alive. Anyway I digress.
 
So which song title do you prefer:

Papyrus Containing the Spell to Preserve its Possessor Against Attacks from He Who is in the Water (Nile)

or

Fistfucking God's Planted (Marduk)?
 
Perun said:
Papyrus Containing the Spell to Preserve its Possessor Against Attacks from He Who is in the Water (Nile)
Click to expand...
This, obviously. Nile has some great fucking titles. "The Oxford Handbook of Savage Genocidal Warfare" isn't far behind.

JudasMyGuide said:
Yeah, all I'm taking from this is that you're definitely taking those Steinman/Loaf songs more seriously (than they were ever intended).
Click to expand...
Obviously, I think that's the point. I obsess over this shit. Whether that's good or bad is up to the rest to perceive, but I get really deep into it. Aesthetics are highly important in my worldview lol.
 
Jer said:
This used to be more common practice before the 1990s — if a song had a more ambiguous title and the record company thought people wouldn’t know the name of the song based on the lyrics, they’d modify the title to include what they thought would be the most memorable lyric from the chorus. So in this case the song’s title is “Chains”, but because of the way the chorus goes, the record company tacked on the extra lyrics in parentheses so you’d know for sure it was this song. Same deal with Metallica’s “Welcome Home”, which is more easily identified from the “sanitarium” chorus. It’s a vestige from the single-focused days of early radio, I think.
Click to expand...
Huh, cool to know. I thought that was just a stylistic 80s thing.
 
...aaaaaaanyway, me votes:

I'm probably the only person ever who ranks the 90s Tullica albums thusly: ReLoad > Load >> The Black Album. I know it's beloved. And it's not about "selling out". I don't like the production (although everybody is crazy about it, I know, I know), especially the flat sound of the drums and I mostly find the songs to be aiming at something that they only got really good at doing later in the decade, on the loaded twins.

Let's put it this way - after the whole 80s of going into a certain direction (the band who was recording AJFA was certainly trying to do something completely different than the band who recorded TBA), why should even the first album attempting something different be the best one, the most proficient one? I know it is for many, but there are songs that annoy me to no end (Of Wolf and Man, Don't Tread on Me, The God That Failed - not because the lyrics, but because its plodding nature, going nowhere), songs that would get their better twins on the following albums, especially ReLoad (My Friend of Misery), songs that get overplayed and really annoying uncannily quickly (Holier Than Thou, Nothing Else Matters), some just-okayish looking-back-over-the-shoulder remembrances of the young and bold (Through the Never) that mostly makes you think of their past successes and the genuinely awesome tracks (Sandman, Sad But True, Roam, Unforgiven) are not enough for me to enjoy the whole album throughout. In that regard I find the Keeper no. 1 to be the more cohesive, more consistent pick. And I'm not a huge Helloween fan in general.

---

Again, I don't get the adoration Vengeance gets - I find it to be full of filler (quite unlike Defenders) with some songs that I honestly can hardly stand (You've Got Another Thing is the epitome of a "song for America" in the worst meaning of the word) and while I spoke rather harshly about WASP (and I still do, most of the time), I admit that Idol is a very ambitious record (something the Priest album completely lacks) that certainly has its merits and sometimes even feelings of epicality and I'm going to vote in support of it also because the fucking Priest bias here.

---

Ha-ha-ha. No. Dream Theater. Seriously? The Dark Saga is a low point for an already ... er, challenged band. The fact it got actual 9 votes just shows we tend to vote for our bands all the time here. And against "their" bands all the time.

---

More of a pity vote for Death (also, not willing to vote for Priest), although Painkiller is a really great album (but then again, so is ITP) that only occasionally sounds like an angry Smurf. And is only occasionally boring.
 
KidInTheDark666 said:
You nailed it.
Click to expand...
No he didn't. The reason it got 9 votes is because nine people think The Dark Saga is a pretty strong record. While not Iced Earth's greatest record, it does have a lot of classic songs on it. "Dark Saga", "I Died for You", "Violate", "The Hunter", and the obvious "A Question of Heaven" are some of their best songs. Images and Words sounds more Disney than Tuomas's Music Inspired by the Life and Times of Scrooge at times, the band doesn't know when to stop wanking around (the outro to "Metropolis" loses me completely) and LaBrie isn't in the same ballpark as Barlow - F tier versus S tier. Knick's quip about wanting to punch Tate in the throat honestly is how I feel every time I hear a Dream Theater song. Obviously this is my opinion and Dream Theater are winning and I'm not saying those voting for DT are wrong, but I am saying that it's really easy to make claims like this but they certainly aren't true for me and I doubt for the others who voted for IE too.
 
Well... DT at least have the wankery, if nothing else... IE are more of a metal version of Grand Funk Railroad. I really like the latter, honestly, but I really know better than to butt heads with someone who proclaims them as the best band ever (in so many words).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top