DGR’S GRAND YEAR END ARCHIVE OF EVERYTHING HE ENJOYED IN 2020: THE YEAR THAT WAS A DECADE TOO LONG (PART 1)

 LISTMANIA 2020  No Responses »
Dec 212020
 

 

(Today we begin counting down NCS staffer DGR’s year-end list, with records “on the bubble” and then numbers 50 – 41.)

Every year I find myself making the same problem for myself. I love doing it, but kicking out these gigantic lists will take a lot out of you and in a year where there wasn’t a lot to be taken, this one truly felt like a work of passion. It took me a bit, but coming to slowly hammer away at this year-end list was something of a comfort. I got to look back at the year as a whole and kick myself in the head multiple times for outright forgetting releases. And I’m not going to lie, the yearly panic attack of ‘oh shit, did that come out in 2019?’ is always good enough to keep me awake for a few hours.

2020 proved to be an interesting year overall and it saw an absolute flood of releases once it became clear that there fucking wasn’t going to be much else going on for music. Cities around the world fucking failed their live venues and have let many close, effectively murdering any sort of live scene and a potential reason to live within those cities’ bounds. At first when we were all hopeful this would blow over in about three to four months, because we were relying on people to ‘do the right thing’ ™, we rescheduled all our shows for fall or early 2021. Boy, that was cute, wasn’t it? Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2020: NEILL JAMESON’S YEAR END EGO FEEDING BULLSHIT PT. V: BEST OF THE BEST

 LISTMANIA 2020  4 Responses »
Dec 212020
 

 

(We have reached the end of the 2020 lists prepared by Neill Jameson (Krieg, Poison Blood), and he closes with the cream of the crop, a lucky 13. We’re again very grateful to have had the chance to share these lists with you.)

And now, friends, we’ve come to the end of an unusually (for me) long list of “best of’s”. In any given year I tend to challenge people who post top 40 to see if they actually listen to any of the dreck they swear made their year a few weeks after list season is over, so I guess in twelve months I’ll report back. I stand by my initial assertion that industry types are mostly full of shit and don’t actually pay attention to what they put on these lists, save that they want to promote some (usually awful) record or try to appear important on some esoteric scale.

Which one am I? Probably the latter except I don’t have anything to hock this year. I still think people that do top 50 or more lists each year are fucking liars, though.

Here’s the best of the year: Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2020: NEILL JAMESON’S YEAR END EGO FEEDING BULLSHIT PT. IV: ALBUMS

 LISTMANIA 2020  4 Responses »
Dec 182020
 

 

(We’ve reached the penultimate Part in the 2020 year-end lists by Neill Jameson (Krieg, Poison Blood) that we’ve been fortunate to share with you. The focus of this one is Albums (10 of them). The preceding installments can be found behind these links: Part I, Part II, Part III.)

It hasn’t just been because 2020 turned into whatever you want to call it that we’ve seen a massive surge in quality, captivating music, but rather we’re at one of those rare points in time where there’s  an overflowing of talented and creative people who’ve all somehow climaxed at once. I’m sure there’s some kind of joke there but I’m sure most of you were sick of my shit two paragraphs in on Part I (if not earlier) so I’ll just get into the meat of this piece.

Probably a joke there, too. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2020: A TOP 10 LIST BY TODD MANNING

 LISTMANIA 2020  5 Responses »
Dec 172020
 

 

(We present a Top 10 year-end list for 2020 by NCS contributor Todd Manning, along with some runners-up and non-metal suggestions.)

Somewhere in a review or two in previous years, I referred to the state of the world as a slow-motion apocalypse, but in 2020, things don’t feel so slow anymore. Nevertheless, we fanatical Metal fans are constantly bombarded with the perfect soundtrack to the world outside our door, even if we don’t get to actually open that door and go outside very much.

My list last year was my weirdest one to date, but I think this year’s is even stranger. And while I said last year that 2019 wasn’t as strong as previous years, 2020’s list is full of absolute rippers. So here is my peculiar taste laid out for the world to see… Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2020: NEILL JAMESON’S YEAR END EGO FEEDING BULLSHIT PT. III: MORE DEMOS, EPS, AND SPLITS

 LISTMANIA 2020  1 Response »
Dec 162020
 

 

(We continue rolling out a series of year-end lists compiled by Neill Jameson (Krieg, Poison Blood). You can (and should) find Part I here (which was also devoted to EPs, Demos, and Splits) and Part II here (which was devoted to dungeon synth).

I don’t have very much of an eye for detail, no matter how much I bullshit about it on my resume, and because of that I constantly miss things when I do lists like this, plus the first two lists (did you read them? You should, they’re remarkable.) were pretty long and attention spans are short.

Really it’s just because I rushed through it like everything else in life, which is why my chapter in the USBM book stops around 2001. Anyway here’s more EPs, demos, and splits. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2020: WIL CIFER’S TOP 20 METAL ALBUMS OF 2020

 LISTMANIA 2020  6 Responses »
Dec 152020
 

 

(Today we present a Top 20 year-end list from long-time NCS contributor Wil Cifer.)

I am sure you have already read enough intros to lists this year where everyone commiserates about how we have made it through 2020 and things are going to be better soon. I am here to offer you no such hope. Whatever you resist persists.

If you read what I typically write you know I am consistent in extolling the virtues of leaning into the darkness, if not hinting that I may or may not worship it. My favorite albums this year supported the grim reality that wishful thinking does nothing. The lack of power metal should not be surprising. I have never wanted to hear metal that has anything to do with happiness, and this year I feel stronger about this sentiment. This is not a list of the albums I felt were coolest so I could get virtual high-fives from my peers. These albums are the best because they inspired me to listen to them the most. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2020: NEILL JAMESON’S YEAR END EGO FEEDING BULLSHIT PT. II: DUNGEON SYNTH

 LISTMANIA 2020  2 Responses »
Dec 152020
 

 

(We are grateful once again to be able to share year-end lists compiled by Neill Jameson (Krieg, Poison Blood), which this year comes in multiples parts, of which this is the second one. Part I is here.)

As foretold in the first chapter of these lists (I’m trying to get into character), this part in our 2020 journey will be solely dungeon synth releases, of which there have been 16 released just since I typed that first sentence.

This genre has become fucking overwhelming, especially with people being stuck at home, so it feels like there’s a glut of new projects clogging the drain, causing a sewage overflow of forgettable cassettes that are selling out simply because people like buying shit that’s “limited”. And the culture that’s grown up around dungeon synth? That’s another article someone will bitch about that I don’t need to write.

That’s not to say there aren’t great things being released and I know I missed a great deal of them, so this is more just a list of my favorite releases this year and very obviously limited in scope. Enjoy. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2020: NEILL JAMESON’S YEAR END EGO FEEDING BULLSHIT (PT I): EPS, DEMOS & SPLITS

 LISTMANIA 2020  3 Responses »
Dec 142020
 

 

(We are grateful once again to be able to share year-end lists compiled by Neill Jameson (Krieg, Poison Blood), which this year comes in multiples parts, of which this is the first.)

I noticed a pattern when I look back on all the year-end lists that I’ve been allowed to shit up your newsfeed with and it seems that every other year is packed with records I’m passionate about and then a year that’s kind of bleak and I struggled to pull together a list greater than ten or so. Seeing that this has been an interesting (beautifully understated) year, I’m going to break that pattern with a multi-day extravaganza broken up into parts culminating with the best from all categories because, as a self centered prick, I’ve got a lot of releases to share with the four of you who are interested, as well as commentary and all the other shit I roll into a ball to make myself feel important at this time of the year.

Today I wanted to start out with a list of EPs, demos and splits that I’ve really latched onto this year, as well as corresponding Bandcamp links to support the artists and labels wherever applicable. Sound rad? Fucking right. Let’s begin: Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2020: STEREOGUM’S LIST OF “THE 10 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2020”

 LISTMANIA 2020  7 Responses »
Dec 132020
 

 

Stereogum easily qualifies as one of the “big platform” web sites whose year-end lists of metal we perennially include in our LISTMANIA series. Of course, the site appeals to an audience of music fans much larger than devoted metalheads, but its staff includes a talented and tasteful group of metal writers who among other things are responsible for the site’s monthly “The Black Market” column, which has been a great source of discovery for extreme music for eight years running now.

It follows that Stereogum‘s annual metal list is one I especially look forward to seeing every year, and the 2020 edition appeared last Friday. It again consists of only 10 entries, collectively assembled by Ian Chainey, Aaron Lariviere, and Wyatt Marshall. As usual, it’s preceded by a long essay that offers thoughts about the year that’s about to gasp its last breath, this time written by Ian Chainey. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2020: POPMATTERS’ LIST OF “THE 20 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2020”

 LISTMANIA 2020  6 Responses »
Dec 132020
 

 

As part of our annual NCS LISTMANIA extravaganza we re-publish lists of the year’s best metal that appear on web sites which appeal to vastly larger numbers of readers than we do — not because we believe those readers or the writers have better taste in metal than our community does, but more from a morbid curiosity about what the great unpoisoned masses are being told is best for them. It’s like opening a window that affords an insight into the way the rest of the world outside our own disease-ridden nooks and crannies perceives the music that is our daily sustenance.

One of those sites is PopMatters. It has been in existence since 1999. In its own words the site “is an international magazine of cultural criticism and analysis” with a scope that “is broadly cast on all things pop culture”, including “music, television, films, books, video games, sports, theatre, the visual arts, travel, and the Internet”. PopMatters claims that it is “the largest site that bridges academic and popular writing in the world”.

As in past years, last week PopMatters published a list of “The 20 Best Metal Albums“ of the year, this time under the by-line of Spyros Stasis and Antonio Poscic. You’ll find that list below. Continue reading »

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