Welcome, welcome everybody! I know we all have lots of fun with the Album of the Year poll that I've been running since 2016, so it stands to reason that it would be twice the fun to do it twice, no? So with that in mind, I present to you all:

THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA METALLUM MID YEAR OFF TOPIC POLL

Now before we even get started, I want to make some things clear right off the bat. The first is that the rules will be loosened for the mid year poll (since I also plan to make this a recurring thing). I'll explain the changes as we go, but the general idea is that this will be much more relaxed, much more informal, and I'll be less of a dickhead during the runup. The second big change will be that you get to choose the theme! Since I'm not a forum mod I can't add the poll to this thread myself, but whenever one of them returns my calls (pls respond bb) you'll have one of two choices. Next year the plan is obviously to do a Best of the Decade poll, but the decade isn't over yet obviously, so think of this as a test run for how this'll pan out with a much broader scope. However, I'm not sure which category I want to do, so once again I'll let you guys decide. The Mid Year Poll will be for either:

Best of X Decade: This one is simple and self explanatory. I'm not sure if I'm leaning towards doing best of the 80s or 90s, since both were extremely fertile times for metal creatively. I'm leaning towards 80s currently but let me know in the replies here if you'd prefer 90s instead should this win.

Best of X Genre: I model these polls off the ones lastdodobird used to to what feels like a lifetime ago. His most popular were these, best of x genre polls. I'm leaning towards just doing simply "Heavy" metal since it's the original that most things were based off of, but I'm also cool with the idea of making it best Death or Black metal as well since both of those genres are extremely versatile. If this wins, the general rule was that any band with said genre listed in their genre field on their page was eligible across the board as long as you used your best judgment. Like, if we decide to do "best death metal", don't be a turd and pick one of Opeth's prog rock albums, ya know? I don't know every single album and can't split hairs to death so just use good judgment and don't be a doofus if we choose this one. If you want this category and would prefer a specific genre, let me know and I'll take you into account when deciding.

And now, on to the rules, which are mostly the same but there will be some changes as you'll see.

All you need to do is:

Select your top ten:
This is very easy, all you need to do is choose your top ten albums of the year.

PM your top ten, in order, to me, BastardHead:
It's that simple, just make a top ten and send it to me, I'll take care of all the number crunching nonsense!

What happens next is that I will assign each position a point value, grand prix style, so that first place votes are seen as more valuable than second place, and so on. The point values are as follows:

1 = 25 points
2 = 18 points
3 = 15 points
4 = 12 points
5 = 10 points
6 = 8 points
7 = 6 points
8 = 4 points
9 = 2 points
10 = 1 point

That may seem confusing and semi random for people who don't follow F1, but the idea of the point system being set up the way it is is that consistency is valued over a lucky win. So an album with twenty third place votes will fare better than one with ten first place votes. Regardless, we want you to put some good thought into this. Every vote counts! The idea is to get a collective snapshot of what we, as MA forumgoers, see to be the best albums of whatever this category winds up being. So give it a lot of thought and let your voice be heard!

As with all things, there are a few guidelines we ask you to follow, but they're all quite simple, common sense rules.

1) METAL ONLY!: This is for the METAL Archives, so it would be really friggin' weird if a bunch of non-metal clogged up the final chart. I don't care how great the new Jess and the Ancient Ones album is, metal only. This will be measured by whether or not a band is on the archives. I don't claim to know every band, but I'll crosscheck ones I don't know against the database here, and if they don't have a page, your whole ballot goes in the internetical trash. This is very simple. The only exception is for bands who are on the archives but released a non-metal album, simply because I'm not about to split hairs and listen to every single album myself to make sure they all qualify. So to make it easy: An album like Opeth's soft stuff is eligible, but Kvelertak is not.

2) Make sure you vote for ten albums: This rule is stricken for the mid year poll. It should be very easy to come up with 10 when we're talking about such broad categories anyway but if you don't want to then hey, don't sweat it! It'll make it harder for me to tally up the total amount of ballots (because usually I'm a lazy ass and just divide the point total by 101 to get this answer) but this is the low stress summer poll. If for some reason you can't think of ten, don't worry about it too hard.

3) Put your list in order: I'm assigning point values, it's important that they're in order. If you just give me something alphabetically with no determined ordering, I'll either just discard the entire ballot or change every vote to something stupid out of spite. In the event of a tie, the album with more higher placed votes counts, so an album with ten votes all for fourth place will rank above one with a hundred and twenty votes only for tenth place, so please, order them!

4) New, original material only: Usually this rule is to eliminate live albums and rereleases and whatnot, but here? Nah whatever, I don't care. If the best of whatever category happens to be a live album or a demo compilation or something, go nuts. Every release listed on MA is eligible, no matter the format.

5) Only albums actually released in [current year]: Obviously this rule is not in effect since we're not confined to a single year this time.

6) One ballot per user: Again, should go without saying, but don't try to vote multiple times to inflate the numbers. I will notice and I'll just wipe your whole vote if you decide to be a numbskull.

7) Your account must have been registered before this thread was created: This shouldn't apply to pretty much all of you, but it's just to prevent duplicate sockpuppet accounts trying to game the system. Don't do that.

8) Don't be a dick: We're running on the honor system here, and I obviously can't police the intentions of everybody who votes, but please don't be a troll who votes in a bunch of crap you've never heard of for yuks. Nor should you vote in things you actually think are terrible as some weird form of protest. Nor should you vote the same album ten times. Nor should you vote for something your own band released. We're trusting you to take this seriously enough to have fun with this but not act like an idiot, just use common sense and don't waste our time.

The one other big change is that, if you want to posts your lists in here ahead of time, go wild. I try to curb that during the main year-end poll in December to discourage vote gaming and stuff like that, but with the categories being so broad this time I see no harm in doing so to remind people of great stuff they may have forgotten about. I'll keep the actual running totals secret while the ballots are rolling in still in order for the final reveal to have some essence of ceremony, but the idea is for this to be informal and fun, so I'm not gonna be a dickhead about it during June. Posts your lists if you want to, but please remember to PM it to me if you want it to count in the final tally. There will obviously be a new thread when the results are posted where you can share and discuss there as well, but if you want to do it here too, go ahead, I don't care this time.



The initial poll to decide the category will be open until June 11th, 2019, MA time (so Eastern, or GMT -05:00), this will allow it to run through the weekend and Monday, closing at the strike of midnight going into Tuesday. Once the poll is closed, the category will be decided and then ballots can be sent in until Midnight, July 1st. I know people always get confused as to when this actually means, but know that as soon as July starts, the polls are closed. This gives us a little under three weeks (which should be plenty of time since we aren't waiting for any late-year releases this time) to vote. The final results should hopefully be posted sometime on the 1st, though I have a real job and shit so it may take until the 2nd, but I've done a good job of always getting the results out on time in the past so I feel confident in being able to do it again this time.

Have fun and happy voting! VOTE FOR THE CATEGORY

So, uhh...where's the poll? :V

WHENEVER A FORUM MOD RETURNS MY CALLS

Calm the fuck down!

True story, I asked Derigin like an hour ago and his official answer was "Once I'm done watching Star Trek"

I was introducing dystopia4 to The Best of Both Worlds! Nothing wrong with that!

Anyway, I suppose we should try to keep it on topic, eh?

I'm not going to run a second poll, but just out of curiosity:

If decade wins, which decade should the poll be for? I'm definitely leaning 80s though a good argument could be made for 90s as well.

If genre wins, trad/heavy/what-have-you seems like the obvious one to start with, but there's probably more material to vote for with death or black metal so I'm kinda up in the air on this one.

I feel like the '90s will throw up some more interesting choices than the '80s, honestly.

Great episodes and well worth keeping Mike waiting.

voted "x genre", of course with black metal in mind. but as of now, "x decade" seems to prevail, which I feel may be a bit problematic for a poll like this. the thing is a whole decade encompasses literally several SHITTONS of albums across all the different genres.

if we settle on an "x decade" poll, I'd strongly suggest to pick the 90's instead of the 80's, just because it was the decade in which the different genres, especially black and death metal, were actually really codified, or at least essentially diversified compared to all the prototypical stuff in the 80's. one might also argue that the 90's were kind of metal's heyday, maybe not in terms of artistic quality, innovation or whatever, but in terms of commercial success for sure, with lots of great stuff released in that decade.

if, in an ideal world, which I'm sure guys you guys would start sabotaging asap, I for once could eat the cake and have it, I'd definitely pick 90's black metal for a poll.

a decade is too big a stretch of time imo. Best of a 5 year period is the limit. Best of a scene or a (post)classic period of a scene would be cool too for future polls.

I almost feel like 'best albums of the 80s/90s' lists have been done to death, and I feel like people would benefit more from either a 00s or 10s (even though of course, it's an unfinished decade) poll. I'd even prefer a 70s list to the proposed ones, despite the scope of the 70s being much smaller.

Just my two cents.

Either way, however the poll goes, I'll still gladly participate.

By genre seems fine, and I don't get why anyone would be unfamiliar with "Best of Both Worlds", but that's coming from the guy who still hasn't seen The Godfather.

I would prefer genres over decades. A poll about thrash metal would be interesting to start with as it's right in the middle of melodic and extreme metal. If the vote tends to go towards a decade, I would rather choose 2001 to 2010 over the nineties or eighties because they have already been discussed over and over again.

best of the 90s imqho tbqph

Agreed.

It might be interesting to do a poll for the best of the 80s, excluding the big four, Sabbath/Ozzy/Dio, Motorhead, Priest, and Maiden. Skim those off the top, since they're the obvious favorites, to make it interesting.

Honestly the main reason I was leaning 80s because is it's such an obvious and popular period. I figured basically everybody would be able to do that one with very little exclusion. Honestly I'm kinda relieved that I'm seeing pushback to that idea, because I totally agree that 90s or 00s would be more interesting simply because it wouldn't just be Priest, Maiden, and Slayer predictably crowding the top.

That's why you should bar those bands from the lists, if only to encourage variety. Like, "Yes, yes, we KNOW Iron Maiden is rad. No shit. Now pick something else!"

I do think that a decade is too long a time period, and maybe boiling it down to one year will lead to obvious winners. Obviously there won't be another poll on it but perhaps do a best of 90 - 94 or 95 - 99? I dunno.

I also think barring certain bands is fairly ridiculous - what if I think None So Vile is one of the best metal albums of the '90s? Well, too many people say it is so it doesn't count, time to pick something I know is worse just because. If you want to limit the amount of obvious picks gravitating to the top, limit each ballot to one album per band. I know you can use a similar argument against that to the one I just made, but to that I say that this way, no album in the given time period is being outright excluded from lists, whereas excluding bands altogether does.

Of course this is assuming 'best of x decade' wins, and it's a bit close so this might all be irrelevant.

While it'd perhaps cheapen the list a little (as it wouldn't be a TRUE ranking of EVERYTHING), I'm okay with barring certain popular acts. Do we really need to fucking hear about how Seventh Son of a Seventh Son is a great album again? I don't think so.

Then again, what's a popularity contest (and let's be honest, that's all this is) without the most popular subjects? ... kind of a farce.

It'd definitely be a subjective modifier, and I doubt everyone would accept the meaning under the same definition, but maybe a 'favorite underground album of the decade/genre' type poll would be best? Asking people to list their most underappreciated albums. Maybe you could ban albums with 20+ reviews on the site or something, although that obviously wouldn't catch everything, and it'd certainly catch some things that WOULD fit in the criteria.

Tough to say how this should go. More ideas can only help though.

There is no way in hell I'm going to bar popular acts from the voting process. The whole point of this is to be low stress and informal compared to the main poll where I'm more strict on rules. If y'all's idea of looser restrictions sounds like "narrower categories, limits on albums per band, and/or total exclusion of bands that are 'too popular' by some arbitrary metric" then I'm terrified to know what the hell is strict and exclusionary for you.

My idea of laid back is a spine broken over an extended knee and set in a recliner to bleed out.

But seriously, do whatever you want with it. I guess I was mistakenly under the illusion that the poll needed tweaks, rather than just a "yeah let's get to it!" attitude. My apologies.

It's more just "which decade/genre should we do depending on what wins" is all I'm looking for, and I've seen enough people say the 80s and trad metal both would be too predictable, which I'm completely in agreement with. So unless people start making really good arguments in favor of those I think it's most likely it'll be 90s/00s or death/black metal for the actual theme once the broader category is set (this started as a squash match in favor of decade but it looks like genre is really catching up).

As if my 2 cents mattered - Do best of the 90s, and keep it to just death and black. Or any genre with those words in it. It would be interesting to see what people regard as the best albums of genres still in their infancy, for the most part.

- If decade wins, I support the idea to skip the '80s and do the '90s or the '00 version. It would be much more interesting and less predictable.

- If genre wins, I'd go with some basic genre at first, like black or death metal. However, this whole scheme is not really clear to me. For example, can be "brutal death metal" or "technical death metal" included in the "death metal" poll? What about the mixed genre bands, like the tons of "black/death metal" acts. Those bands can be presented in both of the future "black metal" and "death metal" poll also, which seems a flaw to me in this idea.
What about the "funeral doom" genre? I reckon it as a standalone, unique genre, which should have its own poll, but still, it's "doom metal" after all. So can it be counted within the range of the "doom poll" or not?
From my point of view, I'd strictly apply some rule that only "pure genre" shit could count. No avant-garde/progressive/experimental/vaporwave/ultratechnical death metal should count in the "death metal" poll. Only pure death. I do not know whether it could be a feasable option or not... But I'm sure I'd make different polls for the "pure" and the mixed genres.

I went with genre because I think it'll be easier to compare albums within a genre than a decade. As for which genre, I think I'd be good with just about any.

But then you're gonna miss the "a decade is 1981-1990, there's no year zero" vs "the 80s are 1980-1989" debate.

I would definitely recommend against death or black metal. It's kinda boring. Those subgenres dominate nearly every metal forum.

What? Would it really be a matter of debate?

Judging by the yearly polls here, I'd expect that the major black metal fans would choose a slew of different obscure albums, while Joe Shmoes concerning the genre like myself would all pick the same early Darkthrones, Emperors and even 1st wave stuff, leading to a final tally that's an ultra-generic "black metal for beginners" list.

Then by all means, let's do an ultra nuanced "Best of 90s Stoner/Doom" poll, so only the 8 people that give a shit participate, and we end up with a list of 8 different stoner/doom albums that only they give a shit about.

Just noticed this post and honestly I think that would be pretty self-regulating. For everyone who votes for something outlandish there'll be ten people voting for Morbid Angel and Deicide and the like.

The way it was done in the past, and the way I'd do it as well, is that as long as the word is in the genre field here, it counts within common sense. Say we do death metal, if the word "death" is in a given band's genre field then it's eligible as long as you're not being intentionally obtuse. Opeth is the most obvious band this could cause a problem with off the top of my head, since their first eight or nine albums are very clearly recognizable as some form of progressive death metal, only for them to completely drop the pretense of being metal and focusing entirely on the prog rock element of their sound in recent years. So common sense would dictate that nobody is going to pick Sorceress unless they're being an ass, but what am I supposed to do for every single band on the Archives? I can police Opeth because I'm familiar with them, I don't know shit about any other random band who might've had a similar career trajectory. In a situation like this I'd just trust you guys to not be idiots, because the only way to truly prevent that would be to do your other idea and exclude everything with any other words in the genre field, which would immediately eliminate Atheist, Asphyx, Cryptospy, Suffocation, Vader, and fucking Death from a death metal poll, which is another idea that I'm gonna put a hard fuckin' pass on.

Yeah this could raise some issues with Behemoth showing up on both a death and black metal poll or people getting in arguments about whether Blind Guardian's first few albums should count on a power metal poll because speed metal is distinct enough to be a separate genre, but I think these problems are hypothetical and overblown and much less likely to be an issue than adding arbitrary limits that would once again cut out dozens of popular and clearly eligible bands from such a poll purely because so many people have a fetishistic lust for rules upon rules here.

BH: "We're going to do a low-stress poll with less restrictions and broader categories for fun!"

The rest of MA: "Actually we should do a poll with more arbitrary rules because I don't want people to say Iron Maiden is the best!"




If anybody seriously tries to tell me that 1990 is part of the 80s then I'll just delete their fuckin' account.

Okay, maybe it was an overthinking from my side, I admit. One more question, since it was not mentioned in the previous comments. Can one band be included more than one time from one user? Lets say we make a power metal poll. What if hardcore Rhapsody (of Fire) fans start sending you lists only consisting of Rhapsody albums? Could it be acceptable?

If you think those are the best of said genre then sure, go nuts! I mapped out a potential 90s ballot for myself yesterday just so I'd have an idea of what I might vote for if decade wins and I've got two Blind Guardian albums in my top ten and I certainly wouldn't want to cut either of them out, lol.

I think doing a best of genre list would be relatively dull, focusing merely on one type of metal and nothing else (plus, you have the inevitable nitpicking about which bands belong in which genre); instead, I personally vote that we do a best of the 90's list instead, as it will give us a good variety of genres to consider, and that decade, since it's more recent, hasn't been as overly combed-over as the 80's, but is still stronger overall than the 2000's, as it still partly constitutes what I consider to be The Golden Age Of Metal (shameless self-plug), with the individual peak years of old-school death metal, 2nd wave black, even some late-era thrash classics to boot, as well as plenty of other big genres/records coming out that we'd have a pretty great final list once it's finished.

I've voted for Best of X Genre, mostly because I think it gives people a chance to focus in on a particular type of metal, rather than some people picking 10 albums of a certain genre from a certain decade. Even if the above scenario happens that Liquid_Braino mentioned, at least you can post up all the results like in the End of Year poll, that way we can get quite a lot of recommendations. For some it could give a lot more listening material for the future.

We're never going to get a definitive best of genre list, but at least it's slightly less arbitrary and will get everyone on the same page better. Naturally, there probably won't be any surprises about the top 3.

1. No user may cast votes for two different bands starting with the same letter of the alphabet.
2. If two users rank the same album exactly the same, they must play a game of online chess and the loser's vote will be reduced by one point.
3. If an album voted for in a genre poll has released another album in a different genre, that vote's points are halved.
4. Votes cast between 4:30 and 5am count double.
5. Votes cast for two different bands from the same country may only be cast by a user from a different country.
6. Votes for bands with more than four members count only if it's below 40C in Cairo or Casablanca.
7. Albums longer than 70 minutes cannot be voted for in writing but must be submitted via WhatsApp voice message to a grandparent, grand aunt or grand uncle of BastardHead.
8. You do not talk about fight club.
9. No Homers.

Can we do a Star Trek poll?