To the Teeth is the name of a Facebook-based metal blog that began life in May of 2016. The proprietor, Dutch writer Peter van der Ploeg, regularly posts about new extreme metal songs and full releases, and as the year goes along he adds selected music to a growing Spotify playlist. He also has a Reddit thread in which he often goes into greater depth about what appears more briefly at To the Teeth on FB.
Peter has posted his own personal 2018 Top 50 list, which you can see HERE, but he again compiled a “List of Lists”, as he has done in past years. To do that he began by assembling a population of 87 international year-end lists, which included a lot of “big platform” mainstream publications as well as lists from scurrilous metal-only outlets such as our own; those 87 also included separate staff lists from some sites (such as our own). This year, these were the lists he included in the aggregation process:
Angry Metal Guy (19x), AV Club, Bandcamp Daily, Consequence of Sound, Cvlt Nation (6x genres, 1x general), Decibel, Exclaim!, Heavy Blog is Heavy (3x personal, 1x general), Invisible Oranges (11x), LA Weekly, Last Rites (5x), Loudwire, Metal Hammer (5x), Metal Injection (6x), Metalsucks (6x), Mondo Sonoro, Never Mind the Hype, No Clean Singing (3x), Pitchfork, Popmatters, Revolver, Rolling Stone, Stereogum, The Quietus, To The Teeth (that’s me), Toilet ov Hell (3x), Treble, Vinyl Me Please.
All together, these lists included a total of 591 records. He assigned point values to the selections based on the rankings they received at their original locations. Every number #1 got 10 points, #2 rankings got 8 points, #3 got 6 points. The rest of the rankings in the top-10 got 5 points, the rest of the top-25 was assigned 3 points, and the rest got 1 point.
Through those calculations, he came up with a Top 50 “list of lists”.
With Peter’s permission I’m re-posting those 50 names from To the Teeth’s “list of lists”, as we’ve done before. To read Peter’s thoughts about the outcomes, go HERE (Facebook) or HERE (Reddit). Peter also compiled a Spotify playlist of music from all the records, except those which received only one vote — 1,871 songs totaling over 164 hours of 2018 music — and you can find that HERE.
Thanks to Peter for all this hard work.
1. Yob – Our Raw Heart
2. Slugdge – Esoteric Malacology
3. Sleep – The Sciences
4. Tribulation – Down Below
5. Voivod – The Wake
6. Thou – Magus
7. Amorphis – Queen of Time
8. Mournful Congregation – The Incubus of Karma
9. Tomb Mold – Manor of Infinite Forms
10. Horrendous – Idol
11. Ghost – Prequelle
12. Judas Priest – Firepower
13. Rivers of Nihil – Where Owls Know My Name
14. The Ocean Collective – Phanerozoic I: Paleozoic
15. Pig Destroyer – Head Cage
16. Imperial Triumphant – Vile Luxury
17. Zeal & Ardor – Stranger Fruit
18. Sumac – Love in Shadow
19. Vein – Errorzone
20. Deafheaven – Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
21. Daughters – You Won’t Get What You Want
22. Madder Mortem – Marrow
23. Khemmis – Desolation
24. Skeletonwitch – Devouring Radiant Light
25. Messa – Feast for Water
26. Alkaloid – Liquid Anatomy
27. Infernal Coil – Within a World Forgotten
28. Altars of Grief – Iris
29. High On Fire – Electric Messiah
30. Immortal – Northern Chaos Gods
31. Windhand – Eternal Return
32. Evoken – Hypnagogia
33. Agrimonia – Awaken
34. Portal – Ion
35. Chapel Of Disease – …And As We Have Seen the Storm..
36. Satan – Cruel Magic
37. Hooded Menace – Ossouarium Silhouettes Unhallowed
38. The Body – I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer
39. Visigoth – Conqueror’s Oath
40. Deceased – Ghostly White
41. Panopticon – The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness
42. Behemoth – I Loved You at Your Darkest
43. Gaerea – Unsettling Whispers
44. Turnstile – Time & Space
45. Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats – Wasteland
46. Haunt – Burst Into Flames
47. Rebel Wizard – Voluptuous Worship of Rapture and Response
48. Ihsahn – Ámr
49. Sargeist – Unbound
50. Sulphur Aeon – The Scythe of Cosmic Chaos
5 Responses to “LISTMANIA 2018: TO THE TEETH’S “LIST OF LISTS””
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#47 is the correct #1.
Also, that aggregator proves that XUL is the most poseur – unfriendly joint of 2018!
This is always an interesting list just because it confirms the patterns I think most of us become aware of as the year goes on, about which albums seem to be getting the most buzz, the most coverage, and as a result the albums most people tend to list when the year wraps up.
This list is comically predictable. Just goes to show that the vast majority of music publications essentially just rehash the same 20 albums or so over and over and over again.
No YOB is not No. 1. for 2018
Yob, again? Ugh. I have given them several listening opportunities… but I just can’t get, into, them! Half-decent list, but it’s simply a regurgitation of the trendiest, most popularly-posted releases across a multitude of sites/publications. I would never agree that this is an accumulative reflection of the “best albums of the year”. Despite this, congratulations, Peter, for the tedious, organized task.
I really don’t understand the absence of Monstrosity’s new album from so many lists. I mean, I’ll confess, it’s nothing necessarily groundbreaking, they’re not changing any sonic landscapes that haven’t already been well-established, but there are a hell of a lot of fiery riffs and impressive solos all the way through that release. But, I’m glad to see many releases on here–Slugdge, Amorphis, The Ocean, Imperial Triumphant, Khemmis, Alkaloid, Altars of Grief, Immortal, Evoken, Portal, Hooded Menace, Ihsahn, Sargeist, and Sulphur Aeon. I’m especially pleased to see Rivers of Nihil on the No. 13 spot–they have truly traversed a prosperous path of progression. I saw them live for the first time back in 2013 (Death On The Vine Fest, Cincinnati, Ohio) when they were just on the cust of releasing their first album and they were hardly known then. They were thought of as just another small-town Pennsylvania band trying to make a name for themselves.