With one or two possible late-arriving exceptions, our 2012 edition of Listmania has finally drawn to a close. Or to put it differently, since we’re approaching the end of 2013’s first month, I decided it was time to wrap this up and move on.
Our 2012 series of lists proved to be another extensive one: We published almost 50 lists with accompanying commentary. Some of these were lists that appeared at other “big platform” web sites or magazines — places with large audiences, most of which cover musical genres well beyond metal. We also published our own staff lists, of course. But the largest group of list posts came from guest writers — NCS readers, band members, and fellow bloggers. Plus, we also received many lists in the comments to THIS POST.
In this article I’m collecting links to all of the 2012 list posts that we published. But in this year’s wrap-up we’ve got an extra treat: NCS reader, commenter, and occasional guest writer Old Man Windbreaker has created a synthesis of all those lists, assigning point values based in part on how often an album appeared, in an effort to create a composite ranking of 2012’s best albums based on the lists published at NCS.
As you’ll see, this required a shitload of work, and I’m really grateful to the Old Man for this vast labor of love. His explanation of what he did, and the results, come right after my collection of links to the 2012 lists we published. Thanks again to everyone who contributed to 2012 Listmania and to everyone who made time to read what we pulled together.
Within each category, the linked posts are organized in their order of appearance:
MAGAZINES / “BIG PLATFORM” SITES
DECIBEL
Loudwire
PopMatters
Amazon.com
Stereogum
Exclaim!
MSN Entertainment (the worst)
Pitchfork
MSN Entertainment (the best)
NPR
BAND MEMBERS
Tommy Wills (RXYZYXR)
Sean Golyer (Oak Pantheon)
Johan Huldtgren (Obitus)
Fredrik Huldtgren (Canopy)
FELLOW BLOGGERS / WRITERS
Phro
Mike Yost
Church of the Riff
fireangel (Night Elves)
Happy Metal Guy
Austin Weber
Trollfiend (Also, Wolves)
Autothrall (From the Dust Returned)
Metal Bandcamp
Valley of Steel
OTHER GUEST CONTRIBUTORS
KevinP
SurgicalBrute
Tr00 Nate
Vonlughlio
byrd36
SurgicalBrute (demos)
Punman
Richard Donahue
Kazz
Fork Tongue
BreadGod
Deckard Cain
KevinP (2nd post)
Old Man Windbreaker
NCS STAFF
Andy Synn (The Great)
Andy Synn (The Good)
Andy Synn (The Disappointing)
Andy Synn (Critical Top 10)
Andy Synn (Personal Top 10)
BadWolf (exceptions to the rule)
BadWolf (no clean singing)
DGR
TheMadIsraeli (Part 1)
TheMadIsraeli (Part 2)
TheMadIsraeli (Part 3)
TheMadIsraeli (Part 4)
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And now, here’s Old Man Windbreaker’s explanation of his methodology in synthesizing all these lists, plus a summary of his results (with accompanying observations). The entire spreadsheet used to generate the summarized results is at the end of his explanation and summary, along with a link to view it in a larger format.
“Old Man Windbreaker attempts to determine the Kvltness of NCS Listmania 2012 lists:
● An album / music recording release mentioned in any list published in No Clean Singing’s Listmania 2012 gets assigned one point of Kvltness per list per mention.
○ Zelophilia’s is uncounted because it had its (only) release in 2011 December.
○ Other albums initially released in 2011 have been considered for counting because of release in a format or a region different from the initial 2011 release, during 2012.
● “Honorable mentions” of an album are each assigned half-a-point of Kvltness
○ In the case of Andy Synn’s lists, mentions of albums not in his “Critical Top 10”, “Personal Top 10” or “The Great Albums” lists, are considered honorable mentions.
○ The songs on Islander’s “Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs of the Year” were not counted because of the incompleteness of the list. They may or may not be counted later, when the list is finished.
○ The mentions of albums on NPR’s Lars Gotrich’s “top 25 metal albums of the year”, which were not in the “top 10” list, are excluded by accident.
● Any album mentions on the “Big Platform” lists published on No Clean Singing contribute Kvltness only to the Broadened View of Kvltness.
● Other album mentions on lists published by No Clean Singing contribute to the Kvlt View, as well as the Broadened View of Kvltness.
● The Kvltness Score of an album in either View is the summation of all Kvltness points assigned to it in the respective View.
● The Kvltness Score of a list/list-author is the average of the Kvltness Scores of the albums mentioned in the respective list.
○ In the case of multi-part lists, all lists by an author shall be considered a single list.
○ The Kvlt View of Kvltness for any “Big Platform” list is indeterminate.
● The lower the kvltness score, the more kvlt is one’s list.
○ A higher Kvltness Score need not be considered better.
○SurgicalBruteDeckard Cain is more Kvlt than you.
● Any errors in the calculation have been ignored after 3 revisions.
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Old Man Windbreaker provides a few shallow insights:
● There were 500 albums mentioned on the various lists.
● The lists in Andy Synn’s “A year in Review(s)” are a pain the arse to cross-reference. DGR’s Big Ass List is also a pain in the arse, but less so.
● There were 340 albums mentioned only once each in Listmania 2012, and thus, have the maximum Kvltness of either 1 or 0.5 .
● The following are the top 12 albums of 2012 recommended through No Clean Singing’s Listmania 2012 (apart from Islander, ironically), in the decreasing order of Kvltness in the Kvlt View:
○ Global Flatline by Aborted
○ A Perfect Absolution by Gorod
○ RIITIIR by Enslaved
○ Reign Supreme by Dying Fetus
○ De Vermis Mysteriis by High on Fire
○ Of Breath and Bone by Be’Lakor
○ Koloss by Meshuggah
○ Torture by Cannibal Corpse
○ Monolith of Inhumanity by Cattle Decapitation
○ Portal of I by Ne Obliviscaris
○ L’Enfant Sauvage by Gojira
○ Vanitas by Anaal Nathrakh
● The following are the top 15 albums of 2012 recommended through No Clean Singing’s Listmania 2012 (again, apart from Islander), in decreasing order of Kvltness in the Broadened View:
○ Vanquish in Vengeance by Incantation
○ Into the Lair of the Sun God by Dawnbringer
○ Epicloud by Devin Townsend Project
○ Portal of I by Ne Obliviscaris
○ RIITIIR by Enslaved
○ Torture by Cannibal Corpse
○ Monolith of Inhumanity by Cattle Decapitation
○ Book Burner by Pig Destroyer
○ All We Love We Leave Behind by Converge
○ 777: Cosmosophy by Blut aus Nord
○ Kentucky by Panopticon
○ Koloss by Meshuggah
○ Vanitas by Anaal Nathrakh
○ De Vermis Mysteriis by High on Fire
○ L’Enfant Sauvage by Gojira
● The list with the highest Kvltness Score in the Kvlt view is “Vonlughlio’s Top 25 of 2012” with a score of 3.26. The list with the highest Kvltness Score in the Broadened View is Popmatters’ “The Best Metal of 2012” with a score of 6.325 .
● The truly least Kvlt list is Amazon’s “The 100 Best Albums of 2012” with only 5 metal albums among the 100.
● The list with the least Kvltness Score in both the Kvlt View and the Broadened View is “A Top 6 List of Recommendations from Deckard Cain” with a score of 1.
● Upon considering the multi-part lists as their separate parts rather than as combined lists, the list with the least Kvltness Score in both the Kvlt View and Broadened View is KevinP’s “Stuff I Had To Find On My Own In 2012 ‘Cause Islander and His Cronies Missed It”, with a score of 0.5 .
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Below is an embedded version of the spreadsheets that Old Man Windbreaker created. To maneuver through this, you’ll need to use the up/down bar on the right and the left/right bar at the botton. There are also multiple spreadsheets here, and to see links to all of them, look at the bottom of this embedded box.
Or, you could just view a bigger version of the spreadsheets via THIS LINK.
33 Responses to “2012 LISTMANIA WRAP-UP”
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Did you all forget I wrote list too? It’s all good 🙂
It has been counted for the Kvltness though.
Totally my fuck up. When I originally posted your list, I failed to add the “Listmania 2012” category tag, and so when I reviewed the posts in that category when writing this post, it wasn’t there. I’ve now added the tag and included your post in the collection of links above.
Too bad — the Zelophilia album is freaking good.
It has been listed though, albeit with a score of 0. Technically, it’s the most kvlt of all the albums. 😛
My conclusion: questionable taste. That is all.
Whose taste is questionable?…
My own, first.
And then, since this is a synthesis of the innumerable lists out there, everyone else’s.
OK. Uh… Why do you say it’s questionable?
Venting some frustration, mostly.
Because the lists don’t include your favorites? What’s missing?
Actually, there are only two missing from the spreadsheet: Overkill and Yakuza.
Well, nobody wrote about them. One wouldn’t consider it for counting if it isn’t on anyone’s list in Listmania 2012. It did appear on autothrall’s alternative list of 100 albums, “Autothrall’s Best Metal of 2012”. But, that wasn’t published on No Clean Singing (or even on From The Dust Returned for that matter).
One had considered counting lists from other blogs – including any extended lists the authors featured here might have. But, One decided against it out of a desire for purity in the data, and laziness. Perhaps this year…
Yakuza missed out on my top 40 by about 3-5 spots. So, almost on that one.
Hmm… One seems to have somehow missed the “New Finnish to Old Songs” list by fireangel of Night Elves. Cool stuff.
One wouldn’t have counted the mentions though.
“highest Kvltness Score in the Kvlt view” not a good thing damn :/ . Anyway good analysis
Well, it shows that your tastes are the most representative of the people whose lists we posted. I wouldn’t say that’s a bad thing at all.
well the hell yeah I screamed at work reading this is well justified
Congratualtions! You’re now famous. 😀
🙂
Oh like hell he is!
He did have the advantage of posting after you, and not post the same things that you did.
The rest of us, on the other hand, have been trying ever so sneakily to pull your reputation out of the ground. }:D
All I know is I now find the results of this endeavor to be highly suspect
You will be happier next year when yours is the only year-end list we will post.
Of course, I could reconsider that decision after I sober up.
Foul!..thats a binding contract..I have witnesses
Pfft. They’re all drunk too.
Damn. That’s how to make a fuckin list.
*cough*cough* I can think of at least two more band members who provided lists 🙄
GOD DAMN IT!! Same fuck up as on Austin Weber’s list — failure to add the “Listmania 2012” category tag when I posted your list and Fredrik’s. Honestly, I have nothing against the Huldtgren family. And as proof of that, having now compared my list of links with Old Man Windbreaker’s spreadsheet, I see that I omitted several other lists, too. I’ve now added the Huldtgrens to the links in the post, and will be adding more shortly. Shit.
perhaps you need to better motivate your editors with doughnuts and promises of more doughnuts.
Knowing our editor, I think he would be better motivated by threats of kidney impalement than doughnuts. He’s too fuckin’ fat and lazy as it is.
Behold!! The Kvlt Lord!! “Stay a while and listen”
But i made it a point to personally go through all the lists that were published before mine, and then write about those albums from my personal top list, that were not mentioned earlier.