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.
To see the full list, visit this location:
http://www.stereogum.com/1845609/the-50-best-albums-of-2015/franchises/2015-in-review/
34. Horrendous – Anareta
24. Tribulation – Children of the Night
10. Deafheaven – New Bermuda
That’s it.
It’s not surprising that there are so few names. This list, after all, was designed for the eyes of Stereogum’s general readership, and so it’s going to be compiled to appeal to the site’s general demographic. I take some perverse comfort in the fact that only 6% of the list is metal.
ROLLING STONE
Last week, the venerable Rolling Stone magazine posted on their web site a list of the 50 Best Albums of 2015. 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:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/50-best-albums-of-2015-20151201
34. Marilyn Manson – The Pale Emperor
Yup, that was it.
SPIN
Last week SPIN also published a list of The 50 Best Albums of 2015. SPIN used to be a print magazine from 1985 – 2012 but now currently runs as a webzine. Last year they published a list of the year’s 20 Best Metal Albums (introduced by Kim Kelly), but again, I’m not sure that’s happening this year. So, as in the case of Rolling Stone’s list, I went through SPIN’s list and sifted out the metal names, which you can see below.
To take a gander at the full list, go here:
http://www.spin.com/featured/the-50-best-albums-of-2015/
44. Krallice – Ygg Huur
12. Deafheaven – New Bermuda
Yup, that’s it.
What an odd selection. I’m not surprised to see Deafheaven, since they’ve already proven to be darlings of sites and zines that aren’t limited to metal. But Krallice? I’m a big fan of Ygg Huur, but this has the aroma of a selection intended to prove that the editors of SPIN can get underground. Oh well, if it helps Krallice, I’m all for that.
16 Responses to “LISTMANIA 2015: METAL NAMES ON LISTS OF THE 50 BEST ALBUMS OF 2015 FROM STEREOGUM, ROLLING STONE, AND SPIN”
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Deafheaven? Gorguts put out the best METAL album this year – don’t deny it. Stop trying to be different – you’re only appealing to hipsters. Have fun with that. I thought I’d found a credible metal music site to frequent. Apparently not – laters!
HAHAH! Thanks for bringing that back Andy!!!
I’m starting to get the hang of this gag.
By the way, I wanted you to know I received your e-mail about Sunless Rise, but your e-mail host blocks messages from my domain because it seems to treat it as spam, so I’m unable to reply to you.
Well played Andy.
This will never get old.
Laters you hipster.
My favorite part is Rolling Stone didn’t even list Deafheaven this year.
I think the Stereogum list may be lacking since they will put out a Best 50 metal albums for The Black Market.
Right — that’s what I’m expecting and looking forward to. This was just what managed to make it into the global list, in whatever process occurred among all the editors and writers that produced it.
Ah so Stereogum is associated with Brooklyn Vegan .. they seem to host their fair share of black metal album streams
And BrooklynVegan owns Invisible Oranges of course.
This page lists all the properties in SpinMusic and in the parent company SpinMedia. SpinMusic also includes Buzznet, PureVolume, Vibe, and Absolute Punk.
http://www.spinmedia.com/#audience
Well.. I did not know any of this. NCS: broadening your mind, and not just in depraved ways
This was pretty predictable. whenever Ghost and Deafhaven release an album, the majority of lists will include them. And some mainstream sites will also throw in a random “underground” BM/DM album just for extra cred.
I can’t believe Harvester of Shadows isn’t on any of these lists, the votes are rigged, I tell you! Rigged!!