METALLICA ALBUM RANKING GAME: #10 REVEALED

Mosh

Mosh

PM me your Metallica album rankings!
Staff member
Hey all! Most of you know the deal by now, our next game will be the Metal titans Metallica!

Here's how it works:

1: Each user will submit their rankings of the 11 Metallica studio albums to me via PM. The #1 album will receive 11 points, and #2 will receive 10, all the way down to #11 which will receive 1 point.

2: I will tally up the results and create a forum-wide ranking.

3: I will reveal the results one album at a time, starting at #11. This will be a more discussion based affair, since there will be no voting at this point.

So if you would like to participate, PM me your Metallica ranking from #1 (best) to #11 (worst). Any lists that ignore this format or don't include every Metallica studio album will be ignored! Any comments to this post with rankings will also be ignored, they must be sent via PM and no revisions! Please be aware of the Metallica studio discography (found below for your reference). No Lulu, no Garage Inc, only albums that are part of the "main" studio discography.

You have until the end of the Nightwish ranking game. I will do a "last call" when it's about to wrap up.

I want to give folks plenty of notice to revisit any albums they want, but I also want to get as many lists as possible so that we can get a more interesting ranking. If there are albums that you're less familiar with but still want to submit a list, now is your time to revisit those albums. But also if you rank an album last because you don't know it that well, I'm also not going to reject your list. I would rather you participate than not!

The Metallica discography for your reference:

Kill 'Em All
Ride the Lightning
Master of Puppets
And Justice For All
Metallica (black album)
Load
ReLoad
St. Anger
Death Magnetic
Hardwired To Self Destruct
72 Seasons
 
Mosh said:
No Lulu
Click to expand...

Pity, it wouldn't even be the lowest one for me.

(I agree it's more of a Lou Reed album, however I'd also argue it's an example of a band doing something completely out of the whack and actually improving their reputation - this here is a band that could by all means just fold their arms and cash in on their legacy, and yet ... they keep doing these weird things...)
 
Ever since Mosh posted this - and it's been over a month - I've been time and again returning to it, thinking about it, re-listening to various Tullica albums and I still have no fucking idea how to order the list. Especially across the eras, I have a pretty good idea how to order the original four, how to order the hard rock three and how to order the comeback three, but I have absolutely no fucking idea how they interact together.

Also, I just realised
Mosh said:
No Lulu, no Garage Inc, only albums that are part of the "main" studio discography.
Click to expand...
does this also mean no Beyond Magnetic? I. e. possibly their best and most consistent release in the past 27 years? :eek:
(I have only now realised that it's not supposed to be a "proper" album)

Consider it a second disc of Death Magnetic, mayeebs? Pretty pretty please?
 
One last bump for this, I'm going to start crunching the numbers next week so get your lists in now! So far it looks like Metallica may be tied with Nightwish for highest non-Maiden participation in one of these.
 
Just a reminder - weren't we supposed to keep any particular rankings to ourselves beforehand? I remember that being the rule in the first ranking games (maybe because of the trivia/guessing questions Mosh uses to choose the blokes to pick the next band to play) so I was quite silent about my rankings until now, but I don't know when it's fair game to talk about it.
 
I guess that's fair, although it's not really a spoiler for me personally - I am not quiet about this particular fact. I spoilered it though.
 
LooseCannon said:
I guess that's fair, although it's not really a spoiler for me personally - I am not quiet about this particular fact. I spoilered it though.
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Yeah, I don't mind it personally at all, but I seem to remember Mosh was saying something like he would disqualify the spoiled lists or something back then (which seemed to me pretty harsh, maybe he doesn't do it anymore - I certainly hope so :D )

Anyway, I'm quite interested how many people will go against the grain (honestly, not just trolling) - like having Ride the Lightning last or Lulu first or something like that. (I know Lulu isn't in the game, whatever)
 
JudasMyGuide said:
Yeah, I don't mind it personally at all, but I seem to remember Mosh was saying something like he would disqualify the spoiled lists or something back then (which seemed to me pretty harsh, maybe he doesn't do it anymore - I certainly hope so :D )

Anyway, I'm quite interested how many people will go against the grain (honestly, not just trolling) - like having Ride the Lightning last or Lulu first or something like that. (I know Lulu isn't in the game, whatever)
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Have a feeling my picks could fall into that category...
 
JudasMyGuide said:
Yeah, I don't mind it personally at all, but I seem to remember Mosh was saying something like he would disqualify the spoiled lists or something back then (which seemed to me pretty harsh, maybe he doesn't do it anymore - I certainly hope so :D )

Anyway, I'm quite interested how many people will go against the grain (honestly, not just trolling) - like having Ride the Lightning last or Lulu first or something like that. (I know Lulu isn't in the game, whatever)
Click to expand...
The only times lists get disqualified is if they break the rules.
 
I would have liked to have voted in this but it would have been unfair since I stopped listening to Metallica in the 90s so I didn't vote.
Having said that, Ride the Lightning is my favorite Metallica album.
 
el diablo said:
I would have liked to have voted in this but it would have been unfair since I stopped listening to Metallica in the 90s so I didn't vote.
Having said that, Ride the Lightning is my favorite Metallica album.
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I say, don't let that stop you, it's a nice opportunity to hear the new stuff and rediscover the classics, if you care to try. I haven't been into Metallica for a while too (well, relatively to how long I'm listening to music) and barely know the new album.

E: well I guess there also isn't much time to send a list, but consider this if and when we're doing the next one.
 
I never listened to Reload, St Anger, Hardwired or The Yellow Album in full but still made a ranking because @Mosh rather had full lists than no lists at all.
 
Yeah, I actually forced myself to replay even Kill Em All, so that my ranking was an informed one.

:ninja:
 
I love all of the albums and have ranked them several times, a couple of spots were a bit tricky but generally it was an easy job for me.
 
Alright folks, thanks for your patience as always. The lists have been tallied, and the bell tolls for the Maidenfans Metallica albums ranking.

Our next game will be OPETH. Feel free to send your Opeth lists now, I would like to start the countdown around mid-October. Obviously the new album will not be included.

Back to Metallica. I have to say this might be the most unhinged set of lists I've gotten since starting these countdown games. In a lot of ways the aggregate results are fairly predictable, but there were a lot of surprises across the individual lists. Some albums scored higher than I thought possible and some scored lower than I thought possible. This led to a few statistical oddities for our trivia challenge.

1: There are two ties in the game. One of the ties I think is mostly unsurprising, while one is a little bit more random (and I would say quite surprising).

2: Only one album failed to be ranked first or last on any list. That means 10 out of the 11 Metallica albums are either somebody's #1 or #11 album. Can you name the album Maidenfans were most indifferent about?

3: There were a total of six albums that were ranked as somebody's favorite (#1). Can you name all six?

As usual, those who make a correct guess will be given the opportunity to pick a future game.

Now for our first entry:

1:
2:
3:
4:
5:
6:
7:
8:
9:
10:
11: St. Anger

Total score: 39

Highest score: 7 (@eddie666)
Lowest score: 1 (almost everybody else)

What to say about St Anger? I feel like this album is kind of similar to The Phantom Menace, where it was derided at the time and has a small band of contrarian defenders, but at the end of the day still holds up as being exactly as bad as it was perceived to be at the time and has not improved with age. Unlike other "black sheep" albums that may have some top tier hidden gem songs (Virtual XI) or maybe came out at a bad time for the artist but might have other redeemable qualities (Van Halen 3), St. Anger has almost nothing going for it. From the production, to the songwriting, to the performances, it's the definition of a disastrous record. Even among Metallica's discography, something like Load/ReLoad might be more deserving of a second look from fans who disregarded Metallica by this point in their career.

Yea, not sure what else to say there. St. Anger is so universally disliked that it's basically a meme, so I'm not sure what I can contribute that hasn't been said already. Out of 21 lists, only 5 had the album not placed last and the next album on the list has almost twice as many points. It wasn't close, and this is possibly the closest thing we've seen to a unanimous ranking from Maidenfans.
 
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