Rexorcist

This one for starters.

Well when I say best and worst, I mean in context. I check RYM for the ratings and check them out. Of course there's no obligation to agree. Example: The Satanist was RYM's top black metal album for a while, but my favorite of 2014 is Roads to the North. And RYM worships Burzum in that context and it gets on my fucking nerves. My favorite bm band is easily Immortal, the first bm band I ever tried. But this doesn't change the fact that I'm always trying to look for the best and the worst music, in regards to how I view it. Basically, I start with what other people say about the best and worst, and then I check to see what I would say, and if I agreed. So for future reference, if you see me say I'm checking for the best, just assume it's in internet context. If you see me say I believe something is their best, it's always considering high quality as opposed to popularity.

I agree. I usually only go for the best or the worst albums of a genre, and maybe put together a top 20 for the year, if I'm that active in the genre. And I'll usually stick with bands I've already heard unless the bands release something extremely notable on that year, then I check out more of their stuff regardless of the rating so that my log isn't riddled with one-time acts.

Since I'm trying to make a 2023 chart of much more than just metal, I'm getting through discographies by non-metal artists so I don't look like I don't know what I'm talking about when I expose myself to new music. Today I'm getting through this small-time post-rock group called MOLLY and some of the shitty-ass trap artist Trippie Redd.

If you check RYM, there will be a bare-minimum of 1000 black metal studio albums every year. Kinda too much...

METAL: Metallica Symphony X Blind Guardian Alice in Chains Scorpions ALL TIME: Led Zeppelin Simon and Garfunkel Meat Loaf Metallica Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

We're attracting quite a few A7F fans recently. Welcome to Metalforums.

I know a few metal websites that could use some more alternative and metalcore fans. Just from yout first three guesses, I knew you were an Avenged Sevenfold fan.

Yo.

I'm hoping to get through a bunch of Anti-Flag albums today. I've never checked them out before. I just checked my list and found that I've heard exactly 80 skate punk albums, so I might as well work on a top 100 and listen to quite a few more over the next couple weeks.

&.H Target - Yantra Creating I've been waiting over a year for news on this album, and now I just have to wait three weeks for the release!

They started out pretty good, then their music fluctuated from OK to just bad. If you want Christian death metal, Extol is the way to go. Their songs are written like most death metal songs, but they sometimes use hymnal like poetry and imagery.

Yep. Even if you use the words "best " or "greatest," it's all still one guy in the end. The critical mindsets and personal mindsets each have their own criteria, but whether you consider something best by criteria, like I do with LZ4, the criteria itself is also subjective, so me saying the best album I've ever heard based on my own criteria for quality is LZ4 would hardly be any different from saying my favorite album to listen to in general is Graceland.

Listening to "Iconoclast" by Symphony X, I read a few reviews and found that this is an album that took more than one try for the fans to get, especially since it practically threw away the neoclassical elements in favor of power metal. Me, I love power metal and have no complaints about a band stretching their influence (I was kinda hoping they'd do a full-on power metal album). But I get the vibe that as a result this album's less about the art of music and more about saying, "Look what I can do." It's still a good album, being about 75-80 / 100 on the technical scale, but it's not really living up to the legend. Maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, there have been quite a few albums that took me like six tries to grasp. The most relevant to this theme is the Ramones debut, which I used to really hate. Even as a punk fan I needed more creativity about it, which is why my favorites are The Clash and NoMeansNo. And an infamous one aamong the music masses is Radiohead's Kid A, which took me roughly five tries as well.

^ That's a big part of the reason why my number 1 metal album is Ride the Lightning. The production isn't quite studio quality, but it brings the most "metallic" sound I've ever heard in any album.