Part of our year-end Listmania series consists of re-publishing lists of the year’s best metal that appear on what I call “big platform” web sites, and today we have one from Stereogum. It was one of the web’s first blogs to offer mp3 downloads, and it has evolved into a high-traffic portal with a focus on independent and alternative music news, downloads, videos, and gossip.
Last year Stereogum published a list of The Top 40 Metal Albums of 2012. It’s not clear they’re going to do that this year [correction: they are, next week], because today they published a list of The 50 Best Albums of 2013, spanning a wide variety of music genres. What I did was siphon from that list only the metal albums I saw on it — as I define metal — along with the rankings for each of those albums. Of course, you may wish to see the entire list, but you will not see it here. Instead, you will see this subset:
02. Deafheaven – Sunbather
15. Kvelertak – Meir
17. Windhand – Soma
25. Nine Inch Nails – Hesitation Marks
35. Gorguts – Colored Sands
48. Carcass – Surgical Steel
I’m not sure I should have included the Nine Inch Nails album, or maybe, having done that, I should have also included Vampire Weekend (No. 3) and My Bloody Valentine (No. 5). Putting those questions to one side, you can think of this as Stereogum’s list of the Top 6 (or Top 5) metal albums of 2013 — at least until they actually come out with their own “metal only” list.
By the way, Kanye West’s Yeezus came in at No. 1.
Have at it.
12 Responses to “LISTMANIA CONTINUES: STEREOGUM’S 50 BEST ALBUMS OF 2013”
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Deafheaven at 2? That’s a little surprising, particularly for a non-metal list with Kanye at the top. Not surprised that Stereogum likes Deafheaven, just didn’t think it would rank that high on their catch-all list.
Also, one of Stereogum’s editors, Michael Nelson, confirmed a dedicated metal list in the comments.
“We’re doing a metal list next week, Jim (which will mark the return of the Black Market, btw).”
Thanks Sean. I made a couple of revisions to my post based on this.
Hey, I love NIN and would classify some of their stuff as metal, but the new album is sort of bland.
I just found Surgical Steel uninteresting as hell but damn near everyone has something nice to say about it. I guess I’d better give it another go.
Really solid Heartwork era Carcass, but I think theres a lot of…”Holy shit..Carcass is back and they didnt fuck it up” to go along with that album
I’ve never been a Carcass fan, but Surgical Steel will probably end up in my top 3 of the year. Just a really fun album.
#1….
GET OVER HERE WITH MY DAMN CROISSANTS
IN A FRENCH-ASS RESTAURANT!!!!
Fuck I hate Kanye…
I know I’m talking to a receptive audience, but seriously, that album is shit. I legitimately gave it a chance–I don’t normally listen to that genre of music, but given all the heaps of praise, I figured I should at least try to judge it in the context of pop music in general (and try to ignore Kanye’s generally douchey behavior). I still couldn’t help but think it’s garbage. Someone like Lady Gaga I can understand, because although it’s not my scene, I can appreciate that she can write a catchy pop song. But Kanye? I just. don’t. understand.
I saw the parody video from Seth Rogan and Franco, then thought, seriously is that the actual song?! Then I watched (some of) the Kanye video, and I thought, seriously is that the fucking song?!
I’m surprised that Windhand made to in there. They totally deserve it though. None of the rest surprise me with regards to their inclusion (I’m not gonna think to hard about their placement; catch all lists normally have a bad time with placement when there’s so much to consider).
i think Carcass and Gorguts should be much higher, but if it’s a multiple genre list i can’t complain too much