Maidenfans Best Albums of the Millennium: 2016

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


  • Total voters
    11

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...

MMXVI
  1. Metallica - Hardwired To Self Destruct
  2. Megadeth - Dystopia
  3. Avantasia - Ghostlights
  4. Devin Townsend - Transcendence
  5. Amon Amarth - Jomsviking
  6. Borknagar - Winter Thrice
  7. Vektor - Terminal Redux
  8. Epica - The Holographic Principle
  9. Cult of Luna - Mariner
  10. Myrath - Legacy
  11. Hammerfall - Built to Last
  12. Gojira - Magma
  13. Sabaton - The Last Stand
  14. Anthrax - For All Kings
Coming off of a strong year in 2015, I feel that 2016 is potentially even stronger. I previously argued that 2008 was potentially the year with the worst top seeded album in the game initially (Judas Priest - Nostradamus), while I wouldn't go that far with Hardwired I find this to be another example where the top seed is quite weak and I don't expect to remain at the top. The other noteworthy thing though, and unlike 2008, there are at least four albums underneath Metallica that are now classics in their genres or among that particular band's best work. I'm a huge fan of Winter Thrice and Dystopia in particular, Terminal Redux was a huge album when it came out, and Jomsviking was a pretty big mainstream moment for a band like Amon Amarth. Is there an extreme metal song that is more hook-y and more of an arena roc anthem than Raise Your Horns?

I don't dislike Metallica's album - I actually think it is a decent enough followup to Death Magnetic although maybe not worth the 8 year wait - but considering Death Magnetic was not able to move beyond the #3 slot in a much stronger year, I don't see it this time around either. In the lower seeds we have Hammerfall, who have consistently had a small but firm base of support throughout the game. We have Gojira who are famous but none of their albums have really caught on here, Magma is a pretty big departure so we'll see if it makes a difference. I don't see Anthrax or Sabaton moving much here but I could be wrong.
 
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I'm gonna need to listen to every album this year that I haven't heard because, wow, this is a super uninspiring year of releases for me.

Shockingly, For All Kings (no "the" BTW) might be the best album released by the Big Three this year. And I really, really don't like Joey Belladonna.

Megadeth, Sabaton, and Amon Amarth all have albums here with a couple of great tunes and a whole ton of tired material. Same goes for Metallica: I love the good songs on Hardwired, but the other half is dull as hell.
 
I still don't get why everyone went nuts for Magma back then. I have tried, and I just don't get it.

The Holographic Principle, on the other hand, was great. The Swedish drinking bands also deserve a vote.
 
I mean it was a big moment for them commercially and in the mainstream press because it was a watered down Gojira, but I remember fan response was pretty mixed. It is kind of a situation like Mastodon and Opeth where the bands break due to heavy touring and less because the quality of their work is getting better necessarily.
 
I'm gonna need to listen to every album this year that I haven't heard because, wow, this is a super uninspiring year of releases for me.

Shockingly, For All Kings (no "the" BTW) might be the best album released by the Big Three this year. And I really, really don't like Joey Belladonna.

Megadeth, Sabaton, and Amon Amarth all have albums here with a couple of great tunes and a whole ton of tired material. Same goes for Metallica: I love the good songs on Hardwired, but the other half is dull as hell.
I don't agree on Megadeth, but can agree with the rest. I think Borknagar and Vektor deserve more attention here. Devin Townsend's album isn't an all timer but it's a very competent entry and a rare instance of it sounding like a band rather than just a solo project, but I don't see this album getting any traction when most of his stuff here has been met with a resounding "meh."
 
Only 2 votes in this round.

  • Built To Last - a solid album of theirs with memorable singles. Some of the songs sound not exciting enough, but at least half of them are quite good.
  • Ghostlights - Avantasia are always interesting. Solid and fun music. Almost all songs (sans 2-3) are very good and working, especially Unchain, Pendulum and Storm Descend.

The Last Stand is the first not so enjoyable Sabaton album (I like the title track, Shiroyama, Winged Hussars, Last Battle). Hardwired has 5 great songs, but the rest is not strong at all (their next album is better as a whole). Megadeth's Dystopia is more exciting as a whole, but I only like the title track and maybe Poisonous Shadows/Conquer Or Die. For All Kings is solid Anthrax, but I'm not a fan of Joey's voice for some reason. I appreciate Epica.
 
Only have Hardwired and Dystopia, Hardwired is pretty decent, Dystopia is another interchangeable Megadeth post TSHF album
 
Albums I’ve sampled over the past day:

Borknagar - Winter Thrice
Brilliant music. Amazing atmosphere. Clean vocals are pretty good. Harsh vocals are too black metal for me. There’s a lot to dig into here and I might give this a vote.

And all of the following which are very much not for me: Vektor, Cult of Luna, Heavy Devy, Hammerfall, Epica.
 
Ghostlights - Avantasia are always interesting. Solid and fun music. Almost all songs (sans 2-3) are very good and working, especially Unchain, Pendulum and Storm Descend.
Let the Storm Descend Upon You is phenomenal. Maybe the best song Tobias Sammet has written.
 
Continuing to listen...

Anthrax - For All Kings
I've been very, very loud with my critique of Joey Belladonna and Anthrax as a whole. That said, this album is really, really good. Not even Belladonna can stop it from being great. The last three songs are a bit of a letdown (especially Thieves and Zero Tolerance), but the prior 8 songs are all good, some great. This will get a vote. Shockingly.

Myrath - Legacy
I'm literally only 4 songs in, but I can already tell you: this is getting all my votes for this. I am not very familiar with Myrath beyond their most recent album, Karma, and I know they've received criticism for going too poppy/radio-friendly, but like...they do it perfectly. The music is infectious, the instrumentation is great, the vocals are awesome...it just works.
 
I also gave some casual quick-run listens through Dystopia, Jomsviking and The Last Stand and all of them are the same thing: a decent album by a band that has already peaked and is just repeating themselves to get to the next tour. Of the three, Last Stand has the most standout tracks, but none of them deserve a vote.

I'll get around to listening to Ghostlights again at some point, but for this first round my votes are:

MYRATH
Anthrax
Metallica
(5 songs are throwaways, but the other 7 make a pretty great latter-day Metallica record)
 
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