Be sure to check out our two new posts today (below this one). Here, we have an announcement and an invitation.
The end of the year draws nigh, and with it comes lists. Many lists, everywhere you turn. Lists of the best of what 2010 has offered us. Last year, when this site was just an ugly, smelly baby a few days old, we wrote a post about year-end lists and why people bother with them. The best reason still seems to be this: Reading someone else’s list of the albums they thought were the year’s best is a good way to discover music you missed and might like.
My original collaborators and I don’t do a year-end “best albums” list for NCS. It’s just too damned much work. We listened to a mountain-sized pile of new music this year, we liked a helluva lot of it, and trying to decide which 10 or 15 or even 20 albums were the best we heard would be a bunch of effort we’d rather devote to coming up with new posts for this site. Plus, the music we like is so varied that trying to compare this apple to that orange and decide which one tastes better is a very confusing enterprise.
But mainly, we’re just too fucking lazy.
Fortunately, we have some regular contributors who have more energy, and we’ll be publishing their year-end lists beginning next week. We’ll also have our own list of the extreme metal songs from 2010 that we thought were the most infectious. We did that last year, but this year’s list will be even more ambitious.
But we ain’t stopping there. If YOU have made your own mental list of the best metal albums you heard this year, we want to see it. Because we’re fucking nosy like that. (details about this invitation are after the jump . . .)
Here’s the deal. On Monday, we’re going to put up a post that will be called THE BEST OF 2010: NCS READER LISTS (unless we can come up with a more clever title over the weekend). And the only purpose of that post will be to establish a location where our readers can post their Best of 2010 lists as comments.
That’s about it. We don’t expect a specific number — doesn’t have to be a “Top 10” or “Top 20” list, it could be a Top 2 list. And it doesn’t have to be a cross-genre list, i.e., the best of all metal you’ve heard this year. It could be the best hardcore albums you heard, or the best black metal, or the best folk metal, or the best reggae metal, or the best rap metal — pretty much whatever you want to do and feel comfortable doing, as long as it fits your definition of metal (except we didn’t mean it when we said rap-metal).
And speaking of feeling comfortable, although we can’t offer any assurances about other NCS readers, it ain’t our style to criticize or poke fun at what someone else thinks is great metal. So, don’t be bashful. (Besides, our readers seem to be a pretty tolerant, civilized lot, as metalheads go. The troll repellant we put out seems to work pretty well.)
Obviously, if you’re interested in doing this but won’t have a list ready for us by Monday, don’t sweat it, because you can add a comment to that post whenever you want. It will be there forever.
Or at least until we stop paying the bill for our web hosting service.
Or they go bankrupt.
Or the world ends in a fiery armageddon.
But other than that, it will be there.
13 Responses to “LISTMANIA”
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i didn’t bother making a pure metal list for 2010, here are my top 10 albums and top 5 eps for this year in order
Top 10 albums of 2010
1. Kvelertak – Kvelertak
2. Periphery – Periphery
3. The Wonder Years – The Upsides (Deluxe Edition)
4. As I Lay Dying – The Powerless Rise
5. Sleigh Bells – Treats
6. Cee Lo Green – The Lady Killer
7. Valencia – Dancing With A Ghost
8. Man Overboard – Real Talk
9. Hour Of Penance – Paradogma
10. First Blood – Silence Is Betrayal
Top 5 Eps of 2010
1. I Call Fives – Bad Advice
2. Tesseract – Concealing Fate
3. Such Gold – Pedestals
4. Elitist – Caves
5. Handguns – Anywhere But Home
and i posted early because i might not be able to post here on the exact date so… yeah lol
Hey, it’s cool. But sometime next week, whenever you can get to it, you should cut and paste the list into that post we’ll put up on Monday so they’ll all be collected in one place for people to see.
And this is exactly what i was talking about in the post — I see a big group of albums and EPs on your list that I haven’t heard and that I might never have bothered to check out without someone else pointing them out.
I always like looking at these lists myself…Its been a good year for metal as far as Im concerned. While there wasnt as many “big name” releases as last year, Ive found a ton of less mainstream bands that I really enjoy.
I completely agree. I’ve seen complaints by other people on other sites that this was a disappointing year for metal releases. That may well be a function of their individual tastes, but I thought it was a really strong year. I sure found a ton of music I thought was excellent.
i also enjoy seeing other people’s top 10s, i don’t know why, i just enjoy it alot hahaha
yeah maybe i’ll just copy paste this sometime next week
Top 10:
1 Watain – Lawless Darkness
2 Weapon – From the Devil’s Tomb
3 Thulcandra – Fallen Angel’s Dominion
4 Nightbringer – Apocalypse Sun
5 Deathspell Omega – Paracletus
6 Odem Arcarum – Outrageous Reverie above the Erosion of Barren Earth
7 Negura Bunget – Maiestrit
8 Ondskapt – Arisen from the Ashes
9 Imperium Dekadenz – Procella Vadens
10 Kalmah – 12 Gauge
I know it’s almost exclusively black metal, bu that’s simply the genre I like the most. All in all it’s been a great year for black metal (and metal in general). I don’t remember many releases from 2009 (except for the Deathspell Omega/SVEST split), but this year, there’s been a plethora of fantastic black metal albums. The only thing that’s been a little disappointing to me is the new Deathspell Omega album. They’re still one of the best black metal bands ever but I would have expected their album to be the first on my list.
Awesome list. We reviewed the albums from Thulcandra, Odem Arcarum, Negura Bunget, and Kalmah, and if I’d not been distracted by one thing or another, we would have published glowing reviews of the Watain, Deathspell Omega, and Imperium Dekadenz, too. We did create a translation of an Invisible Oranges review of the Imperium Dekadenz album here:
https://www.nocleansinging.com/2010/03/25/imperium-dekadenz/
And liking every one of the albums on your list that I do know, now I need to listen to the ones I don’t know!
Weapon is fucking sick, if you havent checked them out before start with them. One of the best Blackend Death metal bands around. Are we supposed to list our picks now, or wait till Monday?
Doesn’t really matter — though if you think of it, you should re-post your list in the comments on the post we’ll put up on Monday so we’ll have all of the lists collected in the same place.
And I’m going to check out Weapon right away. I’m writing a MISCELLANY piece for tomorrow, so it’s perfect timing.
Fuck, completely forgot to include “Maestrit” and “Outrageous Reverie…” on my list. Damn.
I included so many albums though that at least some were bound to get missed.
Plus I just received the new Malevolent Creation as an early “Secret Satan” present and haven’t had chance to really absorb that one yet.
Oh, and funny story… with regards to the new Enslaved album (phenomenal work btw, definitely superior to “Vertebrae” in every way) I read a review that crtiticised it for including, wait for it, “metalcore clean vocals”.
That’s right everyone, Enslaved have sold out and gone metalcore on us. They’ll never be as good as “insert generic metalcore band Number 10,000 – here” though.
I don’t mind top 10/20 lists or whatever, but I do prefer the ones with a bit more variety, which is more likely coming from readers instead of publications or some of the usual suspect blogs/sites. Plus, if someone has a couple albums you like on their list, maybe there’s something else on their list you might enjoy. So, for someone looking to find decent stuff that’s new to them, best of lists can be beneficial.
I think you put your finger on it: When you see a list that includes albums you know and are high on, that really provides the incentive to listen to other albums on the same list that you don’t yet know. On the other hand, when you see albums in a list that you think are dreck, you’re more likely to just forget the rest of it.