LISTMANIA 2021: TO THE TEETH’S “LIST OF LISTS”

To the Teeth is the name of a Facebook-based metal blog that began life in May of 2016, and has expanded into a newsletter format. 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 had 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 2021 Top 25 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 97 year-end lists from 26 international critics, magazines, blogs, and other publications. Those included a lot of “big platform” mainstream publications as well as lists from metal-only outlets such as our own; those 97 also included separate staff lists from some sites (such as our own). These places were the sources of the lists that Peter included in the aggregation process:

Angry Metal Guy, Bandcamp, Banger TV, Consequence of Sound, Cursed, Cvlt Nation, Decibel, Forbes, Heavy Music HQ, Invisible Oranges, Kerrang, Last Rites, Loudwire, Metal Hammer UK, Metal Hammer DE, Metal Insider, Metal Injection, Metal Sucks, Nine Circles, No Clean Singing, PopMatters, Revolver, Rolling Stone, Stereogum, The Quietus, To The Teeth, Toilet Ov Hell, Treble and We Are the Pit

All together, these lists included a total of 656 records.

Peter assigned point values to the selections based on the rankings they received at their original locations: “I gave every number one position 10 points. Numbers two got 8 points, numbers three got 6 and the rest of the top-10 positions got 5 points. A top-25 was 3 points, and everything below 1. When two records had equal points, the amount of list mentions prevailed. When those were equal as well, the amount of number 1’s (or, subsequently number 2’s) counted.”

Through those calculations, he came up with a Top 50 “List of Lists”. And, with Peter’s permission, I’m re-posting those 50 names, as we’ve done before. To read Peter’s interesting discussion about the outcomes, go HERE (Facebook) or HERE (newsletter).

As always, thanks to Peter for all this hard work.

 

1. Archspire – Bleed the Future (119 points)

2. Mastodon – Hushed & Grim (117)

3. Iron Maiden – Senjutsu (110)

4. Gojira – Fortitude (105)

5. Converge & Chelsea Wolfe – Bloodmoon I (94)

6. Worm – Foreverglade (93)

7. Cannibal Corpse – Violence Unimagined (83)

8. Khemmis – Deceiver (83)

9. Carcass – Torn Arteries (80)

10. King Woman – Celestial Blues (79)

11. Thy Catafalque – Vadak (76)

12. Panopticon – …And Again Into The Light (74)

13. Spiritbox – Eternal Blue (70)

14. First Fragment – Gloire Éternelle (68)

15. Stormkeep – Tales of Othertime (66)

16. Mare Cognitum – Solar Paroxysm (63)

17. Rivers of Nihil – The Work (62)

18. Iotunn – Access All Worlds (62)

19. Unto Others – Strength (61)

20. Between the Buried and Me – Colors II (56)

21. Tribulation – Where the Gloom Becomes Sound (50)

22. Dream Unending – Tide Turns Eternal (49)

23. Every Time I Die – Radical (49)

24. Hooded Menace – The Tritonus Bell (47)

25. Vola – Witness (47)

26. Lamp of Murmuur – Submission and Slavery (46)

27. Fluisteraars – Gegrepen door de geest der zielsontluiking (45)

28. Green Lung – Black Harvest (45)

29. Plebeian Grandstand – Rien Ne Suffit (43)

30. The Ruins of Beverast – The Thule Grimoires (42)

31. Herzel – Le Dernier Rempart (42)

32. Empyrium – Über den Sternen (41)

33. Spectral Wound – A Diabolic Thirst (41)

34. Dormant Ordeal – The Grand Scheme of Things (41)

35. Dordeduh – Har (40)

36. Steel Bearing Hand – Slay In Hell (39)

37. Succumb – XXI (39)

38. Diablo Swing Orchestra – Swagger & Stroll Down the Rabbit Hole (39)

39. Turnstile – Glow On (39)

40. Helloween – Helloween (38

41. Boss Keloid – Family The Smiling Thrush (38)

42. Ad Nauseam – Imperative Imperceptible Impulse (38)

43. Zao – The Crimson Corridor (38)

44. Wolves in the Throne Room – Primordial Arcana (37)

45. The Silver – Ward of Roses (36)

46. Dvne – Etemen Ænka (36)

47. Skepticism – Companion (35)

48. 1914 – Where Fear and Weapons Meet (35)

49. Glassing – Twin Dream (35, ea)

50. Kauan – Ice Fleet (35)