LISTMANIA 2015 Archives - Page 6 of 7

LISTMANIA 2015: ROLLING STONE’S 20 BEST METAL ALBUMS OF 2015

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Dec 102015

As part of our continuing effort to bring you year-end “best of” lists published by selected print zines and “big platform” web sites, today we’re re-posting Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “20 Best Metal Albums of 2015“, which has just appeared.

You may remember that not long ago we identified the lone metal album that appeared in Rolling Stone’s overall list of the 50 Best Albums of 2015. But this list is a metal-only list, and it’s obviously a much bigger collection of names. Here’s the list: Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: ABOUT.COM AND LA WEEKLY

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Dec 092015

Since we first began our annual LISTMANIA extravaganza, I’ve limited the year-end lists we re-post from other web sites to those with cross-genre coverage and very large audiences, mainly to see what people who may only dabble in metal are being told they should listen to. Flagging those year-end lists also provides a place where NCS readers can go if they’re interested in recommendations for music outside of extreme metal. I, of course, have no such interest, but I’m trying to be broad-minded at this time of year.

Today I’m re-posting lists that appeared yesterday on About.com and LA Weekly. The first qualifies as a “big platform” site. The second is something of an exception, but honestly, I was getting tired of re-posting lists from big sites that only included one or two metal albums.

ABOUT.COM

About.com is a huge web portal that covers a broad range of subjects, including home care, interior decorating, parenting, travel, money management, health care, food, careers, sports, and technology. They also have an entertainment channel, and if you burrow down into the large array of entertainment coverage you will find About.com Heavy Metal, with a staff of metal writers led by Chad Bowar. Yesterday, they published their list of 2015’s “Best Heavy Metal Albums“. It’s a ranked list of 20, preceded by a list (in alphabetical order) of 20 “Honorable Mentions”. And here are those lists: Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: METAL NAMES ON NPR MUSIC’S LIST OF 50 FAVORITE ALBUMS OF 2015

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Dec 072015

I’ll repeat what I’ve written in years past, because it remains true: NPR (formerly National Public Radio) is an American national treasure, one that has somehow survived as a non-profit national radio and on-line broadcaster (with 900 public radio station members) despite largely weaning itself from governmental support and being the target of repeated political attacks by the American right wing. According to Alexa, its online site is the 148th most popular of all U.S.-based web sites and the 568th most popular in the world.

Today NPR Music posted a list of its 50 favorite albums of 2015. It’s a cross-genre list, reflecting the broad demographic of NPR Music listeners. I’ve siphoned off the metal albums from the overall list and am presenting them after the jump.

In years past, NPR has also separately posted a list prepared by writer Lars Gotrich of the best metal albums. I’ve always looked forward to that list, but I understand (sadly) that it won’t be happening this year. So, we must make do with this: Continue reading »

EITERORM’S INFECTIONS OF 2015

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Dec 072015

EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: Our list of the year’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs is the only list I personally make for our site each year. As you know, I rely a lot on recommendations from readers in assembling the master list of candidates — which is why I’ve again invited readers to leave their recommendations in the Comments on this post. And because it’s my only list each year, I’ve never posted anyone else’s except to welcome them in that Comment section. But mainly, no one has ever asked to put their own “infectious song” list on the site as a separate post.

However, this weekend I received an e-mail of infectious songs from eiterorm, a long-time NCS reader, commenter, source of musical recommendations, and occasional guest writer, who lives in Norway. He didn’t ask that his list be posted as an article, but he put so much effort into it and it was so well-written (and the list is so good) that I thought I should share it — even though there’s a significant risk that a number of his own selections will appear on my own list when I start to roll it out within the next week. Anyway, here are eiterorm’s selections and explanations: Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: METAL NAMES ON LISTS OF THE 50 BEST ALBUMS OF 2015 FROM STEREOGUM, ROLLING STONE, AND SPIN

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Dec 072015

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. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: METAL NAMES IN THE POPMATTERS LIST OF THE 80 BEST ALBUMS OF 2015

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Dec 072015

PopMatters is a popular culture web site with broad coverage of music, film, television, books, comics, software and video games — you name it. Its articles get picked up regularly by the mainstream media, and it claims a readership of more than 1 million unique visitors per month. In other words, it fits the profile of “big platform” web sites whose lists of the year’s best metal we usually re-post here at NCS as part of our own LISTMANIA series — for the entertainment value of seeing what the great unwashed masses are being told is the year’s best metal.

Today, PopMatters published its list of “The 80 Best Albums of 2014″. In past years they’ve published a separate list of the year’s Best Metal Albums, and I assume they will this year, too. But in case they don’t, I thought I’d share the metal albums that appeared on their “80 Best” list (which crosses all genres) and identify where they appeared, by number ranking. I mean, it was painful for me to go through all 80 names and sort these out, so I’m damned well going to share my work product. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015 UPDATE

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Dec 042015

I thought I would provide a little update about our year-end LISTMANIA extravaganza — partly as a reminder to those who haven’t yet joined in the fun, and partly as a preview of what’s headed your way in the coming weeks.

First, we’ve had a hell of a response to our request for suggestions for our annual list of the year’s “Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs”. Based on the songs that have been recommended by readers to date, coupled with my own list of candidates that I haphazardly compiled as the year went on, the line-up of candidates now includes over 400 songs (!). And that doesn’t yet include all the suggestions by the rest of our staff, most of whom haven’t weighed in yet. Continue reading »

YOU’RE THE BEST AROUND, NOTHING’S EVER GONNA KEEP YOU DOWN (2015)

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Dec 022015

(As part of our annual LISTMANIA series, KevinP brings us his round-up of awards for 2015.)

Here’s my rundown on the best stuff of the year that doesn’t fit into my Top 25 Albums and EP’s of the Year column (which will be published next month).

Best Metal Country: POLAND

How many Polish albums does it take to win the “best of” honors? Apparently 8. 1 to hold the lightbulb… ok, you’re not here for the jokes. This year featured releases ranging from outstanding to solid by Outre, Lost Soul, Blaze of Perdition, Mgła, Infernal War, Manipulation, Ogotay, and Kult Mogil. Greece, who won last years award, had yet another solid year, but was edged out by the big 3 kielbasas of Outre, Lost Soul, and Blaze of Perdition, a trio that’s impossible to beat. Continue reading »

LISTMANIA 2015: READERS LISTS OF THE YEAR’S BEST METAL

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Dec 012015

We’re now beginning the final month of 2015, and you know what that means: Now begins the countdown to the end of the year and the strengthening onslaught of the annual holiday season. In the world of metal, this month we’ll also start seeing more and more lists of the year’s best albums.

Back in 2009, when this site was just a few days old, I wrote a post about year-end lists and why people bother with them. The best reason still seems to be this: Reading someone else’s list of the albums they thought were best is a good way to discover music you missed and might like.

We don’t do an “official” NCS year-end “best albums” list. However, we publish the picks of each of our regular staff writers as well as a large group of guest writers (which we’ll start doing later this month), and every year we also invite our readers to share their lists. If YOU have made your own list of the albums, EPs, or splits released in 2015 that you think are the best of what you’ve heard this year, we invite you to share it with us in the Comments section to this post. And if you haven’t made a list yet, maybe you should consider doing that. Continue reading »

KEVINP’S ALBUMS OF THE MONTH — NOVEMBER 2015

LISTMANIA 2015 9 Responses »

Nov 302015

(Here’s KevinP’s list of favorite releases during the month of November.)

Last month this column was posted on October 28th, three days before the end of the month. I had a reader and then a friend of mine on Facebook ask me how I could create my list when the month didn’t even ended yet (since there were a plethora of releases due on October 30th). So I realized maybe what I thought was common knowledge (advance promos) wasn’t as common as I thought? For instance, as I type this now, I already have four albums on my iPhone that are due in February.

One of the perks for this labor of love we do here is getting to hear albums from a few weeks to many months prior to release. Record labels and PR companies know websites/magazines need lead time to prepare stuff. As flattering as it may be for some to think so, I would not be able to hear an album on the release date (say October 30th), make an accurate assessment of it, write a column, send it off to Islander, and get it posted the same day.

And now for a few housekeeping items before we get to this month’s releases. This is the first year I’ve done a monthly column. I will still be doing a Best of 2015 list, but will have that ready in early January as to give it some separation from December’s releases. You’re the Best Around, Nothing’s Gonna Keep You Down will be ready next week (where I go over all the OTHER best stuff of the year). Continue reading »

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