LISTMANIA 2023: ROLLING STONE’S 11 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2023

 LISTMANIA 2023  8 Responses »
Dec 182023
 

Here’s the final entry in the part of our annual LISTMANIA orgy where we share lists of metal from “big platform” web sites and print zines — the kind of places that get a lot more eyeballs on them than filthy little metal-only hovels like ours — as a way of getting a view about what “normal” people are being told is the year’s best metal.

Rolling Stone magazine should need no introduction, so I’m not going to provide one. Three years ago we didn’t include a Rolling Stone metal list in our year-end LISTMANIA series — because they didn’t publish one. Although we surmised that they had jettisoned the idea permanently, their Top 10 metal list made a return in 2021, and in 2022 they expanded the list to 15 names. This year it’s 11 (so of course they made a Spinal Tap joke). Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2021: ROLLING STONE’S LIST OF THE 10 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2021

 LISTMANIA 2021  4 Responses »
Dec 202021
 

Here’s another entry in the part of our annual LISTMANIA orgy where we re-post lists of metal from “big platform” web sites and print zines — the kind of places that get a lot more eyeballs on them than filthy little metal-only hovels like ours.

Rolling Stone magazine should need no introduction, so I’m not going to provide one. Last year we didn’t include a Rolling Stone metal list in our year-end LISTMANIA series — because they didn’t publish one. I thought they’d jettisoned the idea permanently, but their Top 10 metal list has made a return this year — and it’s better than I expected it would be. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2020: THE ROLLING STONE JOKE IS DEAD

 LISTMANIA 2020  13 Responses »
Jan 042021
 

 

Honestly, in recent years the only reason I’ve continued to post year-end lists by Rolling Stone magazine as part of our Listmania series is to give people a chance to renew the Gorguts joke. Sadly, Rolling Stone magazine has deprived me of the opportunity this year.

Mournfully, I must report that for the first time in a long number of years (I don’t really care enough to count them), Rolling Stone has failed to post a year-end list of best metal albums. I’ve waited patiently, but it’s now January 4th and no such list has appeared. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2019: ROLLING STONE’S LIST OF THE 10 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2019

 LISTMANIA 2019  9 Responses »
Dec 122019
 

 

Here’s another entry in the part of our annual LISTMANIA orgy where we re-post lists of metal from “big platform” web sites and print zines — the kind of places that get a lot more eyeballs on them than festering little metal-only hovels like ours.

Rolling Stone magazine should need no introduction, so I’m not going to provide one. Not long ago they published their list of The 50 Best Albums of 2019. The sub-headline for the article reads as follows:  “From ‘Lover’ to ‘Cuz I Love You,’ ‘Death Race to Love,’ and beyond, here are the records that defined the year”. The list didn’t exactly define the year for metal. In fact, I didn’t spot even one metal album on that list. Not one.

However, more recently Rolling Stone published a separate list of The 10 Best Metal Albums of 2019 (presented by Mercedes-Benz, because of course that’s the brand preferred by most metal bands when they’re throwing around their big piles of cash). Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2018: ROLLING STONE’S LIST OF THE “20 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2018”

 LISTMANIA 2018  14 Responses »
Dec 122018
 

 

As usual, let’s just get this out of the way right now:

THIS IS ROLLING STONE’S LIST. IT IS NOT OUR LIST.

THIS IS ROLLING STONE’S LIST. IT IS NOT OUR LIST.

If you thought that was already so obvious that only an idiot would need to be told, well, you obviously don’t remember the famous/infamous Comment No. 7 to our re-post of Rolling Stone’s list in 2013. Though you may have seen how that has been transformed into a running joke every fucking year since then. The only uncertainty now is who will be the first person to do it on this post. The line forms to the left. Continue reading »

LISTAMNIA 2017: ROLLING STONE’S 20 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2017

 LISTMANIA 2017  27 Responses »
Dec 072017
 


 

Let’s just get this out of the way right now: THIS IS ROLLING STONE’S LIST. IT IS NOT OUR LIST. THIS IS ROLLING STONE’S LIST. IT IS NOT OUR LIST.

If you thought that was already so obvious that only an idiot would need to be told, well, you obviously don’t remember the famous/infamous Comment No. 7 to our re-post of Rolling Stone’s list in 2013. Though you may have seen how that has been transformed into a running joke every fucking year since then. The only uncertainty now is who will be the first person to do it on this post. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2016: ROLLING STONE’S 20 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2016

 LISTMANIA 2016  40 Responses »
Dec 102016
 

rolling-stone-20-best-metal-albums-2016

 

No, we’re not being repetitive. Yes, we did post a year-end list by Rolling Stone magazine earlier in our LISTMANIA series, but that one was the magazine’s list of the top 50 albums across all genres of music that they care about. This, however, is a list in which metal isn’t elbowed aside by the likes of The Monkees, Elton John, and Brandy Clark, leaving only Metallica standing as the lone metal recognition.

This is Rolling Stone’s list of the “20 Best Metal Albums of 2016”, which appeared yesterday. And here it is: Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2016: METAL NAMES ON YEAR-END LISTS FROM ROLLING STONE AND NPR

 LISTMANIA 2016  21 Responses »
Dec 082016
 

rolling-stone-logo

 

As part of our year-end LISTMANIA series, we bring you lists of the year’s best metal from a few print zines with wide circulation and from some cross-genre web platforms that get orders-of-magnitude more eyeballs than we do. In the case of most of these other lists, we do this as a way of peaking at what the wider world sees, since our world is very narrow and subterranean. In this post, we’re looking at Rolling Stone and NPR. It won’t take you long to read the metal names on these lists.

ROLLING STONE

Last week, the venerable Rolling Stone magazine posted on their web site a list of the 50 Best Albums of 2016. This list isn’t limited to metal. In past years, Rolling Stone has published a separate list of the year’s best metal, but I’m not sure if they will do that this year. So what I did was to scroll through that “50 Best” list and carve out the metal names, which I’m listing below along with their rank on the list.

The full article appears here, with accompanying explanations for the choices: Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: ROLLING STONE’S 20 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2015

 LISTMANIA 2015  31 Responses »
Dec 102015
 

Rolling Stone-20 Best Metal Albums-2015

 

As part of our continuing effort to bring you year-end “best of” lists published by selected print zines and “big platform” web sites, today we’re re-posting Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “20 Best Metal Albums of 2015“, which has just appeared.

You may remember that not long ago we identified the lone metal album that appeared in Rolling Stone’s overall list of the 50 Best Albums of 2015. But this list is a metal-only list, and it’s obviously a much bigger collection of names. Here’s the list: Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: METAL NAMES ON LISTS OF THE 50 BEST ALBUMS OF 2015 FROM STEREOGUM, ROLLING STONE, AND SPIN

 LISTMANIA 2015  16 Responses »
Dec 072015
 

Stereogum 50 Best

 

As part of our year-end LISTMANIA series, we bring you lists of the year’s best metal from a few print zines with wide circulation and from some cross-genre web platforms that get orders-of-magnitude more eyeballs than we do. In the case of most of these other lists, we do this as a way of peaking at what the wider world sees, since our world is very narrow and subterranean. In this post, we’re looking at Stereogum, Rolling Stone, and SPIN. It won’t take you long to read the metal names on these lists.

STEREOGUM

Stereogum is a music web site founded in 2002. It’s part of the same SPINMusic network that includes the SPIN webzine (featured at the end of this post) and Brooklyn Vegan, among other music-oriented sites. SpinMusic says that Stereogum reaches more than 700,000 music fans a month.

In past years, Stereogum has published a list of the year’s best metal albums, and I assume that will happen again this year — and we’ll pay attention to that, because their staff of metal writers is a good one. But last week Stereogum rolled out its list of The 50 Best Albums of 2015 — not limited to metal. I perused the list in an effort to spot metal names, and below I’m listing what I found, along with their placement in the overall list. Continue reading »

 Older Entries