Xytras71 wrote:
Quote:
However, the goal of the list is to present the five finest tracks a band has, not ones most commonly associated with them.
Lol, this is such a weird thing to say! And who decides what the top 5 tracks are? You?...obviously, its you list after all so you go by your own taste. However if you ask ten different people to make a similar list, most likely you'll get ten different versions of it. So who's right? The answer is simple...everyone and no one! Everyone go by their own taste, that's it! Period! And maybe a noob who doesn't know any better, will take your list at a face value but once he digs deeper into discography he may (or may not) realize that you lied to him "Geez, I can't believe that guy didn't pick any songs from Celtic Frost debut which blows Monotheist out of water". And no, I am not trying to discredit you or anything just making a point across that all those lists on RYM are very subjective as they should be. Nothing makes me laugh harder than those silly lists titles like "Best of the Best ever songs" or "Must hear 500 songs before you die". I mean...I didn't go deep into this specific list but c'mon...Manowar gotta have better songs than "Call for Arms" and "Warriors of the World...", which are both fine and all but I'd have 5 totally different songs on my list...not to mention a fact that some bands on a list I can't even call Metal with a straight face. RYM always been known to be very trendy and not a real reflection of a state of a genre...any genre.
No, it's not me who decides. The
numbers do. I only collect the data and present it. While I did make certain arbitrary decisions in the process, I was generally consistent in my choices. The list is therefore not a product of my thinking, nor does it reflect my personal taste. While I do feel passionate about a lot of music, I don't really feel the need to share my favourites with others publicly, definitely not in the context of this resource I'm sharing.
I'm sure everyone can agree taste is subjective (in which case it's important not to immediately forget this simple fact), but more people opting for certain tracks as highlights of a specific discography trumps a single individual's choice, no matter how much respect they may enjoy.
Regarding Celtic Frost's specific case, I'd be perfectly fine if Morbid Tales were their only full-length album (despite the album's enormous influence, I can, somehow, live without To Mega Therion), but if the top 3 highest rated songs all come from Monotheist, the list will reflect that. Nothing you can do but acknowledge that outside your insular group of friends people may have different perspectives as to what metal is, and what metal is good. I think it's not a reason to get defensive even though in our community(/-ies) we much enjoy playing the role of the outcast and the self-righteous pariah; it's fine that different opinions and feelings exist, and if you hang out any given band's community you will quickly discover people consider completely different songs and albums to be among the best.
'Trendy' is a metal buzzword, kinda like 'poser' and many others, but everyone has their trends. If Metallum had its own track rating system that enjoyed wide usage, I would consider using it over RYM's. All we have is album reviews, which are subject to tendentiousness and even abuse, and fewer and fewer people are writing said reviews as we are getting older and the genre is falling out of fashion. It's not killing anyone if Limp Bizkit have their popular songs represented on the list, and you can listen to them to decide if you dislike them as much as you did in your early teens.
MetlaNZ wrote:
Rename your list dude coz it sure as fuck ain't 666 Major Metal Bands. Maybe change it to 666 Bands That Made Music? Or 666 Bands Of Which Some Are Metal?
As for the 5 songs per band, what's the point if they only represent one album of a band and not their evolution and history? Celtic Frost is the perfect example again for this because if Into The Pandemonium isn't acknowledged then you're ignoring one of the most vital, forward thinking and influential metal albums made. Inner Sanctum, Babylon Fell and Rex Irae (Requiem) are wicked tracks. It's a key piece in the evolution of the genre.
Scream Bloody Gore and Leprosy basically defined and set the standard for Death Metal, both should be represented along with Human, Symbolic and perhaps even The Sound Of Perseverance just to show Deaths evolution and ongoing influence.
Dark Angel The Death of Innocence, Never to Rise Again, The Promise of Agony, Pain's Invention, Madness, The New Priesthood, An Ancient Inherited Shame...the list could go on but Dark Angel had more than one great and influential album I can assure you. Real thrash fans know this to be true...unless they think thrash ended in '86...there are a few of those around.
There are sooo many bands with the same issues of misrepresentation on the list but from what I've read from your OP and replies it would be pointless to carry on addressing them. This discussion and the list itself will go knowhere if all you're going to refer back to is your shitty RYM popularity contest and what some random Muppet has written on Wiki.
I wasn't going to bother but here goes. Those idiots that are only listening to Traveler are either the ones who discovered TLWSF on that album or they are the idiots who came later and were told by the previous idiots that it was their best album and all of these idiots couldn't be bothered listening to the rest of their stellar catalog coz they're fuckin idiots.
Well, one part of the title that is bound to be obsolete soon is the '666' bit. I have several dozen of new additions coming up, none of which I think were suggested in this particular thread alongside the superficial nitpicking? Ironically, the only addition from this thread would be you bringing up Black Flag in another context, and now I have to add them to give us an exhaustive list of essential, noteworthy and critically acclaimed metal.
You can point out the lack of representativeness all you want, but representativeness is not the goal of the list. The original 2021 list of 200 or so bands did try to list songs from as many different albums of a band as possible, so my thought process was to establish five albums first, if that many major releases existed, and then cherry pick the highest rated songs from each. Since then, the top 5s have been gradually revisited in light of the fact that some albums do happen to have more than one song considered to be a highlight of a band's discography, though RYM rating trends may exacerbate the effect greatly in some cases.
The wiki documents a different matter entirely, that of Black Flag's My War second side giving birth to an entire genre of metal music. The wiki is not the only place where you will find this knowledge, and the wiki only acknowledges the fact. If you still see Black Flag as a hardcore punk band, or whatever, and nothing else, then it's your own individual limitation. Wikipedia's requirement of citing credible sources carries more weight than what you or any other personal or group of friends may have believed at any given point of your maturation process (let's be honest; lots of us got into this as kids or teenagers).
Regarding specific cases... You cite five Death albums to choose songs from, but ITP has The Philosopher, which is quintessential Death. One of the other five will now have to go. Then consider Symbolic having both Crystal Mountain and the title track. Within the representativeness idea you are unwilling to let go, would you not want to include both of these songs? Would your Slayer top 5 following the same logic not have certain two songs from Reign in Blood even in light of their otherwise strong discography filled with big hits? This is the point I'm making.
Slough Feg just seems like a band that not enough people listen to to give them the fairest treatment possible. I'm not a listener, so I'm excluded from the group of people who could be rating their tracks meticulously (you can however go on RYM and chime in with your five cents).
MetlaNZ wrote:
I've just spotted that there are no songs from Kill 'Em All.
That's a wrap, over and out, see ya later.
It's a fun and important album, but does it have a place in Tallica's top 5? The competition is INCREDIBLY stiff considering the three albums that came afterwards. Also notice the absence of s/t tracks like Enter Sandman and the two ballads among the competitors. I'd say Metallica is one of the cases where RYM users show sound judgment and taste.
Who says thrash died in 86? Rust in Peace came out in 90 after all... You can say all genres of metal largely 'died', i.e. grew less relevant with its aging audience, but nothing's stopping anyone who cares from keeping the interest alive. The fact that the popularity gap between metal and idk, Drake? Sam Smith? has increased doesn't spell out anything fatal for any interested party.
And that's what I think makes my list valuable. It's imperfect because of the limitations in being able to gather quality data and there's just no way to measure the quality of music, but I think numbers representing the choices of passionate music fans is a welcome alternative to elected critics speaking on our behalf about what is good/metal/good metal/etc. And those curious can always use it to make new discoveries and observations.
edit:
also, in this thread Kill 'Em All is listed as Metallum's 46th most beloved of the 80s. 46th!