Great list. I checked out ANVIL CHORUS on their MySpace page... I like it. A true melting pot of influences, not an easy thing to do, but it works. Good stuff. - KYF
Easily my most-listened to album of the year. I got it directly from the label: http://www.rockadrome.com/superstore/product_info.php?products_id=4231&osCsid=7f940b1f73992b0098a825b3db41468f
Here are two Top 20s from Metal Asylum 1. Megadeth Endgame 2. Candlemass Death Magic Doom 3. Alex Beyrodts Voodoo Circle 4. House Of Lords Cartesian Dreams 5. Lazarus A.D. The Onslaught 6. Dream Theater Black Clouds & Silver Linings 7. Winger Karma 8. Outloud - Well Rock You To Hell And Back Again 9. HammerFall - No Sacrifice No Victory 10. Primal Fear - 16:6 (Before The Devil Knows Youre Dead) 11. Artillery When Death Comes 12. Grave Digger Ballads of a Hangman 13. Lynch Mob - Smoke And Mirrors 14. Mantic Ritual Executioner 15. Immortal All Shall Fall 16. Ace Frehley Anomaly 17. Almah Fragile Equality 18. Heaven and Hell The Devil You Know 19. Sacred Oath Sacred Oath 20. Ravage - The End Of Tomorrow ---------------------------------------------------- 1. Outloud Well Rock You To Hell And Back Again 2. Alex Beyrodt - Voodoo Circle 3. Dark The Suns All Ends In Silence 4. Forest Stream The Crown Of Winter 5. While Heaven Wept - Vast Oceans Lachrymose 6. Cage - Science Of Annihilation 7. Blood Tsunami - Grand Feast For Vultures 8. Primal Fear - 16.6 Before The Devil Knows Youre Dead 9. Wilde Starr Arrival 10. Immortal All Shall Fall 11. Amberian Dawn - The Clouds Of Northern Thunder 12. Disaster Peace - Disaster Peace 13. Insomnium Across The Dark 14. Amorphis - Skyforger 15. Artillery When Death Comes 16. God Dethroned - Passiondale 17. Necrophobic Death To All 18. Candlemass Death Magic Doom 19. Wino Punctured Equilibrium 20. Nightrage - Wearing A Martyrs Crown Read the rest here http://www.metalasylum.net/feature/feature3.php
Okay, here's my list. Amorphis- Skyforger Redemption- Snowfall on Judgment Day DTP "Addicted" and "Ki" Týr By The Light of The Northern Star Vreid - Milorg Samael- Above Bloodbound- Tabula Rasa Immortal- All Shall Fall Dethklok Dethalbum II Megadeth - Endgame Between the Buried & Me - The Great Misdirect Nile - Those Whom The Gods Detest Behemoth - Evangelion Satyricon - The Age of Nero Therion - The Miskolc Experience Scale the Summit - Carving Desert Canyons Old Man's Child - Slaves of the World Suidakra - Crógacht Korpiklaani - Karkelo Graveworm - Diabolical Figures Dommin - Love Is Gone Insomnium - Across the Dark The 69 Eyes -- Back In Blood Agathodaimon - Phoenix Faith and the Muse - :tatsu: (EP) Ozric Tentacles -- The YumYum Tree VNV Nation - Of Faith, Power and Glory
http://allmediareviews.blogspot.com/2009/12/2009-music-disappointments-and-turkeys.html 95-51 (missing the cut) Devin Townsend - Addicted Devin Townsend Ki Gavin Castleton - Home Paper Route - Absence Shadow Gallery - Digital Ghosts U2 - No Line on the Horizon Microfilm - The Bay of Future Passed God Help the Girl - God Help the Girl St. Vincent - Actor Archive - Controlling Crowds Part IV Courtney Yasmineh - Beautiful Lonely 3 - Revisions Transatlantic - The Whirlwind BrainFreeze - Focus Phideaux - Number Seven Rx Bandits - Mandala Modern Skirts - All of Us in Our Night Operahouse - Escape From the Sun Persefone - Shin-ken OneRepublic - Waking Up Other Lives - Other Lives Pain of Salvation - Linoleum [EP] August Burns Red - Constellations Nile - Those Whom the Gods Detest Job for a Cowboy - Ruination Skidmore Fountain - Cloudless Blue BLK JKS - After Robots Vektor - Black Future Hotel of the Laughing Tree - Old Dominion [EP] The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love Imogen Heap - Ellipse Behemoth - Evangelion Marillion - Less Is More Murder by Death - Finch Between the Buried and Me - The Great Misdirect Do Make Say Think - Other Truths Headlights - Wildlife Russian Circles - Geneva From Monument to Masses -On Little Known Frequencies Riverside - Anno Domini High Definition Mastodon - Crack the Skye Karnivool - Sound Awake Muse - The Resistance As Tall as Lions - You Can't Take It With You Obscura - Cosmogenesis http://allmediareviews.blogspot.com/2009/12/2009-albums-index-list-and-podcasts.html 50-1 50. The Arusha Accord - The Echo Verses 49. The Swell Season - Strict Joy 48. Baroness - Blue Record 47. The Mars Volta - Octahedron 46. Yeah Yeah Yeah's – It's Blitz 45. Total Babe - Heatwave 44. Wolfmother - Cosmic Egg 43. Lights on the Highway - Amanita Muscaria 42. Dream Theater - Black Clouds and Silver Linings 41. The Boy Will Drown - Fetish 40. Solstafir - Kold 39. Graph - EP 2 (EP) 38. Oceansize - Home and Minor (EP) 37. Warpaint - Exquisite Corpse (EP) 36. 100Ft Snowman - Juggling Knives (EP) 35. Brooke Waggoner - Go Easy Little Doves 34. Scott Matthews - Elsewhere 33. Water & Bodies - Water & Bodies (EP) 32. Doves - Kingdom of Rust 31. Painted in Exile - Revitalized (EP) 30. The Most Serene Republic - ...And the Ever Expanding Universe 29. Shelter Red - Strike a Mortal Terror 28. Mute Math - Armistice 27. Biffy Clyro - Only Revolutions 26. Porcupine Tree - The Incident 25. The Diablo Swing Orchestra - Sing-Along Songs for the Damned & Delirious 24. The Antlers - Hospice 23. The House Harkonnen - Vol.6 22. Sholi - Sholi 21. The Kris Norris Projekt - Icons of the Illogical 20. Grammatics - Grammatics 19. Malajube - Labyrinthes 18. Sound & Shape - The Love Electric (EP) 17. maudlin of the Well - Part the Second 16. My Latest Novel - Death and Entrances 15. Ramona Falls - Intuit 14. Archive - Controlling Crowds 13. Greg Herriges - Telluric Currents 12. Karen O - Where the Wild Things Are 11. Kiss Kiss - The Meek Shall Inherit What's Left 10. note. - my city of ghosts, stars and hours 9. Local Natives - Gorilla Manor 8. Long Distance Calling - Avoid the Light 7. Umphrey's McGee - Mantis 6. Pure Reason Revolution - Amor Vincit Omnia 3c. dredg - The Pariah, the Parrot, the Delusion 3b. The Dear Hunter - Act III: Life and Death 3a. Mew - No More Stories Are Told Today I'm Sorry They Washed Away No More Stories the World is Grey I'm Tired Let's Wash Away 2. Soundscape - Grave New World 1. Kevin Gilbert - Nuts/Bolts
Really don't know where you're coming from on this list of turkeys. I'm gathering the ones I really take issue with fell into the "overhyped" category because there's a ton of stuff on this list that I was really excited about and listened to all year. I didn't think it was possible to be that jaded but this board always surprises me.
I have to say, I've never known quite what to think of lists like this one. They always strike me as intentionally diverse. I'm not sure how anyone could possibly have enough time in their day to keep their finger on the pulse of so many genres and sub-genres. That said, if some people can truly appreciate this kind of musical diversity, I say kudos. I wish I could. Zod
How many new albums do you think you listen to a year? I bet I listened to well over a 100 2009 releases. But, I neglected to keep track, and thus cannot rank them as such. I don't think its difficult to keep a finger on the pulse, by visiting a couple forums or review sites, though it is difficult to get deeper. For example, I like jazz, but I don't know 99.9% of the material being releases every year. Same with progressive rock, and certain forms of indie rock. But I'd say with metal that I'm closer to knowing or being familiar with about 25%. I decided to keep my list brief this year and focus on what I really liked, and maybe somebody else who likes some of what I listed will find something else on my list to give a try. A list of a 100 or so albums in some arbitrary ranking system (not explained at all) with no descriptions of the bands, seems altogether worthless.
It depends on how you measure that. I'd say I check out somewhere between 300 - 400 bands a year. What does "check out" mean? Anything from listening to a song on MySpace or YouTube to sitting through the entire CD two or three times. Obviously, those bands whose CDs I buy, I listen to quite a bit more. Interestingly, my purchasing habits have been trending downward... 2003 - 96 2004 - 79 2005 - 77 2006 - 74 2007 - 61 2008 - 59 2009 - 56 I'd attribute the above trend to age. I've become more discerning. I no longer feel a need to buy CDs that will invariably do little more than collect dust on my shelves. Same here. With the non-Metal genres I enjoy, I suspect I'm missing a ton of good music, simply because I'm not in the loop with the genre. His blog had descriptions for the Top 50. However, they weren't fulll reviews, they were mostly sentence or two blurbs that included the band's origin and genre/sub-genre. Personally, I prefer more descriptive reviews, especially for bands outside the Metal genre. Zod
Thanks. I guess I find I fall somewhere in no-man's land frankly, as I rarely encounter others whose tastes cross-over to most of the styles and bands I enjoy. While I would hardly call myself the most or as diverse as some people's music taste, I do pride myself at being open to listening to as many things as possible. I mean part of it is there is so much music out there, and there are so many genres, and sub-genres, that if one likes to expand what they listen to, there is a wealth of material to at least sample. The stuff on my list, really the lists I've made over the last 5 years I'd say, has a lot of "indie" rock, but that's a bit vague. I guess I used to be one who would seek out tons of prog and progmetal 10 years ago. And that obvious/overt/blatant style of music isn't as much my thing as it once was. I suppose this newer kind of prog "indie-prog" or "alt-prog" has kind of replaced that as a passion I have. And there's a ton of it being made every year now. And Metal, rather than the traditional Dream Theater-influenced progmetal that I was so into 10 years ago, I guess I would say I instead listen to a lot more of the extreme metal. Tech/death, a bit of black, metalcore, jazz and "post-metal" I guess you might include in there. While that may seem diverse, I guess I just see it as music that is interesting, has good songwriting or album composition, or just draws a stronger appeal to me than the avg radio-pop or corporate metal (or prog and power metal). Others may not seek out music in those ways (or see the music I am referring to having those qualities entirely), but I guess that's how I perceive all the music I hear. Time? I work a dayjob that allows me to listen to music or other things (podcasts, radio, etc) nearly 8hours a day. Someone wondered the same thing last year about time, and I think I estimated I spend approximately 1500 hours/year just listening to music (at work. alone). So it may not seem like so much music to take in, if you consider that many hours are spent.
<<Time? I work a dayjob that allows me to listen to music or other things (podcasts, radio, etc) nearly 8hours a day. Someone wondered the same thing last year about time, and I think I estimated I spend approximately 1500 hours/year just listening to music (at work. alone). So it may not seem like so much music to take in, if you consider that many hours are spent.>> This is absolutely one thing I LOVE about what I do. I get to listen to music all day long. Now, a lot of those listens take awhile to sink in because I'm always focused on work, but every once in awhile I take time out to crank it up and head bang like a mofo That and then I go home and listen to music on Youtube, watch DVD's, and browse boards like this a couple times a week. I don't know how I'd keep up on anything if I couldn't do it at work.
I really haven't listened to many albums this year. And more than likely, I probably won't even listen to my real favorite album of 2009 until 2010 (usually happens) but here's a basic list of metal/rock albums I loved so far: 1. Riverside - Anno Domini High Definition Only album I'll put a number next to. I absolutely love this album from beginning to end. I can't listen to a single song without playing the entire album, which is pretty rare for me. Diablo Swing Orchestra - Sing Along Songs for the Damned & Delirious Nothing too much to say about this. I listened to it for a month straight after PP and it keeps making my playlists no matter what genre they be (I've been listening to a lot of mashups & pop music lately). Mastodon - Crack the Skye I was never able to get into their previous albums but I love this one. It was the first album of 2009 that got heavy rotation on my mp3 player. dredg - The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion Another band I didn't get into until this year despite hearing a lot about. It's a great album to listen to as background music but also has plenty of layers to it when you give it your full attention. Just the right mix of alternative and progressive rock. Devin Townsend Project - Addicted This is the last "metal" album of the year that has had a ton of plays in my car. I've probably listened to Bend it Like Bender 50x and In-Ah is such a simplistic but catchy song. It probably helps that this album came while I'd been listening to a lot of pop/dance as it's very much a modern dance influenced album. Guilt Machine - On This Perfect Day It took me a week to get into this album but once I did, it also got heavy rotation. It's got enough of the Ayreon sound I love, a singer that sounds great, Huge Disappointment: Muse - The Resistance There's maybe 2 songs on the album I enjoy and then the album just looses my interest. I can't get into the 3 pt Exogenesis before skipping to the next album a few minutes in. Where something like Green Carnation's Light of Day, Day of Darkness can hold my interest the entire 60 minutes, I cannot give that song more than a few moments of my time before getting bored. And then the few parts I like of other songs are because they're a total rip off of Queen. There's little of their sound I enjoyed on Absolution and Black Holes & Revelations and yet they didn't progress so much as just copy another band's style. If I wanted to listen to Queen, I'd put in A Night at the Opera or Jazz. So many people are posting Redemption, that I really need to start spinning that album again. It lost the battle to DSO and then Guilt Machine and got buried once I started listening to a lot of pop.
