A grant, huh? I get such a kick out of how metalheads, as a culture, defy categorization along other cultural lines.

Gratz guys. Just like the third Challenge was legendary if compared to the previous ones, this one will be remembered in the annals of MA.

I was probably just the statistical mistake, with an amount of data like that it will happen Keeping a thing like this together is something I'd never even try. Thanks for correcting it, I feel better now

Great job, you crazy bastards.

The King himself praises our call to duty. Shall the Queen do the same?

Congratulations to all the great and truly breathtaking reviewers out there, excellent review quality and absolutely insane amounts!

At least I was still part of the top 3 back in 2007

I only contributed 3 pieces here, but I just didn't have more time.

Sweet! I sent in higher than the average amount! It gives me great pride to know everything I've worked for in my entire life has lead to me being slightly above average.

Same here. I'm almost at twice as many reviews as the average number, kind of like most of the things I manage to achieve in life, with very few exceptions (example: Québec litterature class. ).

Taking the median would give you a more accurate view of the real average, with the four HUGE outliers fucking up the mean so much.

You guys are insane. It warms my ice-cold heart to see so many people put so much effort into contributing content to this website... congratulations and thanks are in order.

The number of reviews is nearly the double of the last total, isn't it? So if you keep at it, shall we have 1000 reviews next time?

Excellent effort, there. I only wrote two reviews...I planned on writing many, many more, but the inspiration never sparked. Maybe next time (is that what I said last time?).

Excellent work and congratulations to all, especially my fellow 4 horsemen of the review challenge apocalypse. Perhaps on the next challenge Noktorn and Caspian will join the fray and we'll be able to send the cumulative score over a thousand reviews.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to top 93 next time, especially given the recent developments in my family's situation, but I am going to try to proliferate more rarities to try and at least try to help keep the cumulative score moving upward. I may have to start rummaging the underground black and death metal scenes for material as unfortunately Dio has not put out enough material for me to rely on my 16 year love affair with his discography for me to rely on it next time.

Any way, congrats once again. I am hopeful that this amazing accomplishment will inspire more like Ozzy, Deathrider and Perplexed to join in.

I'm satisfied with my 4. Next challenge just means I'll have to double it

That's another cool thought to, that no matter how many virgins we might review, running out of them doesn't seem possible!

When you have 300+ bands entering the database daily, then yeah, it's hard to deplete.

21 and 6th place? i'm damn happy. that was a ton of fun, and while i'm almost out of virgins, i'm looking forward to competing next time. Great job to everyone who participated, especially the top four. I can't quite get my head around being able to do that much in a week. i'm in awe, and several of those were quite lengthy.

the DeathRider (yeah, i took my name from Omen, and what?) returns to bask in all the glory that is 2nd place in this prize-less and epic challenge of steele. commendations go to the other top competitors in this epic competition, and all of you who contributed - small or big - to this fantastic idea and excellent feature of a wonderful site. ive already added more length and substance to one of my reviews, which i hope to have at the high standard of Ozzy, Hells et al one day.

cheers to the mods for the third or so time, who really had their work cut out for them here, and sacrified their own efforts to read and approve our efforts. (Napero et al).

a thoroughly enjoyable experience that saw a lot of review-worthy artists and releases have their pages updated increasing to the truly 'encyclopaedia -shness' of the site. hats off to the victor, with his high standard of reviews being far worthy of glory than I.

This one I didn't prepare either. Mostly I tackled albums I've listened to a lot, making the reviews not that unfamiliar, still got me to write though. Compared to the last challenge, I put aside releases a few weeks beforehand.



I tallied the statistics once, when they weren't anything compared to what they are now. And I wouldn't want to do it again. Could make you see double.

Sean, great job on not only the stats but the glue of these challenges and adding motivation and enthusiasm to everyone of them too.



You're jumping the gun. The next challenge is to make it to 666 first. Seriously, the number is beyond impressive at this point for a week's time.

It's the first time in the MA Reviews Challenge history the site owners themselves post in the dedicated thread. I guess we've really become an institution, now.

We'll all meet again for the next edition, which should take place in November 2009. With probably a slight alteration to the rules when it comes to singles, but this will be discussed in the proper time and place.

Big thanks again to everyone! Hoping this will have opened new reviewing horizons to some.

I take it there's no way to change this? cause if so i'm not gonna be able to do more than one or two token reviews, most likely.

There had been discussions by the past about the best moment to hold these challenges. May and November came out as the best choice (i.e. convenient to most people here). I'm afraid it will remain the same, even if of course nothing is set in marble.
It's never possible to content everyone. This time Noktorn and caspian for instance were unable to participate. In May 2008 I was the one unhappy with the date, as odd as it may sound. Sorry if next time it's you... but things can change in 6 months, can't they?

In the challenge previous to this one, I learned how to write reviews. In between challenges, I wrote a few, but not many. 8 in one week, for me, is a huge boost. The simple fact I did 4 in one day just makes me happy. Now I feel much more comfortable and confident with writing reviews. I'm going to keep killing virgins until the next challenge...

Killing virgins mustn't be uncommon for an "Epicurean Gynaecologist", huh?

Aye, it's all in a day's work!

We now have a new stat - number of unique albums reviewed. The Challenge is responsible for around 10% of that number!

so any preliminary thoughts regarding a genre mini challenge AOY?

Congradulations, guys. I was disappointed that the dates didn't work out for me, but I'd be very happy to take part next time. I don't think I could pull off an obscene amount of reviews like hells_unicorn or what have you, but I think I could pound out at least 1 a day. When do you think the next challenge will be?