Maidenfans Best Albums of the Millennium: 2011

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


  • Total voters
    8

Mosh

Powerslave
Staff member
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 MMXI
  1. Nightwish - Imaginaerum
  2. Symphony X - Iconoclast
  3. Battle Beast - Steel
  4. Dream Theater - A Dramatic Turn of Events
  5. Devin Townsend Project - Deconstruction
  6. Opeth - Heritage
  7. Powerwolf - Blood of the Saints
  8. Stratovarious - Elysium
  9. Theocracy - As the World Bleeds
  10. Myrath - Tales of Sand
  11. Satan's Host - By the Hands of the Devil
  12. Samael - Lux Mundi
  13. Mastodon - The Hunter
  14. Anthrax - Worship Music
  15. Iced Earth - Dystopia
Year 2011 ends up being pretty competitive with some major albums by artists that are favorites around here. Interestingly, the top two seeds are widely seen as among the weakest albums by their respective bands. It will be interesting to see if they hold their places or if they have a massive fall. I have a hard time seeing Imaginaerum or Iconoclast besting the others. To take it a step further, no offense to those who nominated it, but the Battle Beast album is pretty rough as well. Additionally, we have Opeth's most controversial (and decidedly not Metal) album, Heritage in a somewhat high seed. It's an interesting turnout with the most competitive albums (from my vantage point) being close to the bottom. Theocracy, Powerwolf, Mastodon, and Samael all have highly acclaimed albums that didn't seed very high. Even Iced Earth's album is somewhat a return to form. Going to be interesting to watch, I wonder if Dream Theater will pull out a bit of an upset just for being way more acclaimed and consistent than the top three seeds. My personal pick is Deconstruction, but so far Devin hasn't done well in this game. Will the Mighty Masturbator finally give Devin his flowers in this game?
 
I wonder if Dream Theater will pull out a bit of an upset just for being way more acclaimed and consistent than the top three seeds.
I predict it's going to finish at number 2 and Nightwish at number 1. It could be the other way around but I just feel like Nightwish is stronger around here. Though it seems like there are people here who've only heard Iconoclast and/or Heritage, so who knows what they'll choose. :ninja:
 
2011 sucked. I wasn’t even all that fond of my own nominee, which I won’t bother to mention. I’ll need to check out the rest of the nominees to see what I missed, if anything.

EDIT: After trying out the competition I’ve actually returned to my own nominee here, Powerwolf’s Blood Of The Saints, as well as the Dream Theater album. Yeah, 2011 sucked.
 
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Man I'm DIGGING Myrath here, I thought Wide Shut on the GMSC was pretty good and it turns out it's not even the best song on this album. For sure one of the best discoveries so far!

Also, a reminder that Deconstruction is literally the best album of all time.
 
  • Imaginaerum - not a big fan of the whole album, but it's one of Nightwish's most interesting. Like a fairytale. With 2 of their all time best songs. Anette's voice works for some really well. Still, more than half of it is effective.
  • Elysium - strong ideas, almost all songs are good. The first 2 songs and the title track deliver the best. Stratovarius style is good for whole albums.
  • Steel - that Battle Beast Accept-classic metal sound is good and tasty. Not a single weak song! Their first singer is good and similar too.
  • Dystopia - I think it deserves a vote for the effective ideas. Almost all songs bring something, the heavier sound really helps.

Iconoclast is not my preferred style, but some good ideas and playing.
 
Updated Power Rankings
  1. Dream Theater - A Dramatic Turn of Events +3
  2. Nightwish - Imaginaerum -1
  3. Symphony X - Iconoclast -1
  4. Battle Beast - Steel -1
  5. Devin Townsend Project - Deconstruction =
  6. Opeth - Heritage =
  7. Powerwolf - Blood of the Saints =
  8. Stratovarious - Elysium =
  9. Theocracy - As the World Bleeds =
  10. Myrath - Tales of Sand =
  11. Mastodon - The Hunter +2
  12. Anthrax - Worship Music +2
  13. Iced Earth - Dystopia +2
  14. Satan's Host - By the Hands of the Devil -3
  15. Samael - Lux Mundi -3
 
Updated Power Rankings
  1. Dream Theater - A Dramatic Turn of Events =
  2. Nightwish - Imaginaerum =
  3. Symphony X - Iconoclast =
  4. Battle Beast - Steel =
  5. Devin Townsend Project - Deconstruction =
  6. Powerwolf - Blood of the Saints +1
  7. Stratovarious - Elysium +1
  8. Myrath - Tales of Sand +2
  9. Opeth - Heritage -3
  10. Theocracy - As the World Bleeds -1
  11. Mastodon - The Hunter =
  12. Anthrax - Worship Music =
  13. Iced Earth - Dystopia =
  14. Satan's Host - By the Hands of the Devil =
  15. Samael - Lux Mundi =
 
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