Hey y'all, long time no post. I always sleepily emerge from my cave whenever poll season is afoot, and right now is no exception. Next month is the voting period for the mid-year poll. However, we have a new question to answer that we haven't had to deal with in a while: WHAT WILL WE ACTUALLY VOTE ON?

We've been going back and voting by decade for the last few years, but we've run out of usable decades after clearing the 80s. So it's time we hop back to genres, the land where we started the mid years anyway. Back in 2020, y'all voted on your top black metal albums, which I chose myself because it seemed like it had the most variety and would generate the most discussion (the first pre-poll was simply decade v genre and I was gonna just pick something in whichever category won). But now, you guys get to pick! The options are:

Best Death Metal
Best Doom/Stoner/Sludge Metal
Best Folk/Viking/Pagan Metal
Best Grind
Best Groove Metal
Best Heavy/Trad Metal
Best Metal/Deathcore
Best Power/Speed Metal
Best Prog Metal
Best Thrash Metal

These ten are chosen and grouped this way for one* reason, that's how they're grouped in the "browse by genre" page on the main site. Did you know that page exists? It was much more useful pre-2005ish when there were way less bands, but it exists! This keeps them grouped in a way consistent with the site. Yeah, it's odd in spots (Like wtf do we do with grindcore? Some leave the door open for dumbassery like Scream Bloody Gore being eligible in a prog poll or Crowbar, My Dying Bride, Candlemass, and High on Fire all technically being eligible for the same genre. How many votes are we really gonna get for a metalcore poll? Can you even name more than ten super kick ass groove metal albums? (did you know we have more groove metal bands than gothic metal? it's true!)), but this stays consistent and clean enough to not really be a problem. Agent Orange was eligible in the black metal poll and nobody voted for it, y'all're pretty good at policing yourselves.

* - The lone exception is power and speed being grouped together despite being separate on the genre page, simply because there's such a huge amount of overlap in bands and fanbases.

Y'all got two weeks to vote. You can cast two votes because why not, and I'll allow votes to be changed up until the deadline because I do the same during the poll itself. Use this thread to lobby for your choice and get ready for next month!

Death metal is my first pick for sure. It's my all time favorite subgenre, and while we can expect some big names to make the top 10 (Death is the elephant in the room here), I'm very interested in seeing what subgenres of death metal will be the most represented, and what albums, outside of the late 80's and 90's will get the most votes. It's also kind of a logical continuation since we already did black metal, and they are kind of like brother genres, and very popular here on MA.

I also cast my second vote for Doom/Stoner/Sludge Metal as there is soooooo much great music in there, and outside of obvious picks like the first four Black Sabbath records, there is just so much room for all sorts of things like Acid Bath, Mastodon, Isis and everything in-between.

Third pick would have probably been thrash metal. There is so much great thrash metal, and even if we can expect Reign in Blood and Master of Puppets to rank high, there's just so much room for albums like Darkness Descent or Spectrum of Death and other hard hitting, killer records like these. However, I fear that it would share a little too many of the same records as our top 10 from the 80's that we just did last year. So that's why I didn't pick thrash in my top 2. Most of the best thrash was released in the 80's.

If heavy/trad or speed/power win, I wouldn't mind either. There is a lot of great stuff in both, and it would be enjoyable for most people here, even folks like me who gravitate less towards these genres. I still know enough to make a decent top 10 in either category.

As for viking/folk/pagan, I get the appeal, but there is just so much overlap between these three and black metal, and I'm fairly certain that a lot of albums that made the top 20 for BM in 2020, would also end up in the top 10 here, because of bands being labelled black folk, pagan black or viking black and whatnot. And I mean... could we really blame people for including this? So yeah, it would be nice to do these at some point, but maybe in a few years, once we've gone through death, heavy/trad, power/speed, thrash, prog and whatnot.

My votes went to death metal first and trad/heavy metal second, because those are the two genres I listen the most nowadays. But I would love to see a ranking of the speed/power metal bands, lots of awesome stuff to listen to.

This is fuckin ridiculous. Only 2 votes for so many genres is a bloody joke. We should be allowed 3 votes.

My first vote was for Best Death Metal as it makes sense to follow a Best Black Metal forum vote with one for the other sub-genre most popular here. My second vote went to Best Doom/Stoner/Sludge Metal. If I was allowed a 3rd vote, I would have chosen Best Thrash Metal.

i feel like why even bother voting - it's gonna be death metal by a landslide

personally i wouldn't group power and speed metal - stratovarius vs hellripper?
i'd rather group power metal with heavy/trad, given the overlap around uspm

I'm gonna go against the grain and vote for grind.

Doom/Stoner/Sludge and Heavy/Trad. Because I got the most to contribute to them.

You've inspired me to change my vote from Death and Thrash to Groove and Metalcore.
If I had a 3rd vote it would be for Best Nu-Metal...hang on, where the fuck is Best Nu-Metal?

Would be really cool to see what a thrash poll would look like, but I suspect I'll discover more interesting stuff I don't already know about in a death metal poll. So death and thrash it is.

Voted for Death and Heavy...easily my two faves in ALL the Metal. Have to say I like the structure given by Bastardhead on genres as it eliminates all the guessing work, so if a band’s page says it’s a genre X, it’s a fair game to vote for X if a said genre X wins the poll regardless how one may feel about it. I mean, we’ve had some controversy during an unofficial Doom poll just a month ago, specifically Cirith Ungol vs Manilla Road... but with a structure on a genre page it’s clear, Cirith Ungol is in fact Doom but Manilla is Not. Easy, peasy!

Doom/Stoner/Sludge sounds the most interesting to me but Death Metal is going to win this, and will be fun as well.

Death metal seems like a no brainer but it's almost a little boring to do for me since I've already got that top 10 pretty settled. Something else would inspire a bit more researching so I don't mind if it loses.

Went Grind for second vote.

I like to stand up for the little guy, so I voted prog.

Death will win, and the results are predictable: Death, CC, and Nocturnus.

I guess the topic title was a bit confusing since I initially thought it was about making a list of the best death metal (or whatever other genre) albums of the current year, but it seems like a list of the best country trip hop (or whatever other genre) albums ever. It might be interesting to see how many people are familiar with the former (current year), but anyway, it’s mainly death metal and thrash for me. Although power metal seems interesting since I occasionally discover a true gem (the most recent one being Avantasia’s ‘Ghostlights’ from 2016).

Good man. Alas, Death metal will win. I'd have preferred Doom for something a bit more unexpected so I voted that too.

I agree that the demographics of the forum lean towards making death metal the obvious next winner (I voted for it myself) but there is one memory I'd like to refresh: The most popular polls also routinely end up being kinda underwhelming when the voting is over because basically anybody with knowledge of the culture here can fairly accurately predict like 8 or 9 of the top ten. The BM poll wound up with like four bands in the top ten, the 80s poll had the narrowest field in eons, three Iron Maiden and two Metallica albums in the top 10, and the top 20 utterly blew away the field by a margin obvious enough for a dummy like me to notice. I think we all did what I did and spent a month thinking of all the coolest overlooked gems that we could share before ultimately deciding that No Place for Disgrace is amazing but isn't really better than Powerslave or Don't Break the Oath. A death metal poll here would very likely go the same way with the top spots already being virtual guarantees for Altars, LHP, NSV, two or three Death albums, et cetera.

Please don't take this as me trying to dissuade y'all! I would still love to do it, because I've always discovered cool shit through these polls and death metal is my favorite genre anyway, but if y'all want drama and surprises I'd recommend trustfalling into your third choice.

It would make any prospective death metal poll less predictable and more rewarding for gem miners if it were a poll by decade instead of just big tent DEATH METAL. Would help extend the lifespan of mid-year DM polls, too.

This forum has been like 70% death metal discussion for the past few years, don't y'all ever wanna switch it up? It's going to be just another boring circle jerk about the same five bands everyone is familiar with.

I initially voted for thrash and power metal, but seeing that neither has a chance of winning, I removed my power metal vote and switched it to traditional heavy metal.

I cast my votes for doom/stoner/sludge because doom is my favorite subgenre by far, and heavy/trad because why not. Turns out those are the second and third most popular choices so far haha.

Death metal is certain to win, but I'd be very happy if there's a surprise doom/stoner/sludge upset. It's just that I lurk in these forums so much that, as others have pointed out, I can reasonably predict 70% of what the Top 10 Best Death Metal will look like according to MA.

I gotta go with my two favorites from the list with Death Metal and Doom/Stoner/Sludge Metal.

Top 10 (or 20) will definitely have albums by Morbid Angel, Death, Cannibal Corpse, Cryptopsy and maybe some Suffocation, Immolation, Bolt Thrower and whatnot, but I don't really mind. One of the points of these polls is to see what the regulars of MA like the most. So it's interresting to see how these end up ranking compared to one another. Another point of these polls is to look throught the top 20, top 30, top 40 to discover some other stuff you might have missed and maybe discover some classic you missed, some cult classic, or some up and coming band that's been getting more and more traction over recent years.

Plus, these polls are also about talking about these albums and digging deeper into the scene, culture and history of the genre.

So yeah, personnally, I don't mind that we can predict some of the top albums. It doesn't take away from the fun of it. Besides, and I already mentionned this in my first post, it's also quite easy to predict some of the top doom metal albums, with Black Sabbath and Candlemass being assured high ranking spots, and thrash would have the same with Slayer and Metallica (plus, the thrash poll would most likely share way too many records with the 80's poll we just did last year, hence why I think we should wait to do thrash in a few years).

The most fun part of these is following the discussions before and after. Even if death metal is not my favourite genre, reading discussions from actual fans of the music is very useful and interesting if I ever want to take a deep dive myself. I did that with the results of the black metal poll.

I gave a sympathy vote for folk/pagan/viking metal. There're probably even fewer popular albums among those than death metal, so the poll might not be so interesting.

I actually think that folk/pagan/viking would be interresting to do at some point, but since black metal was the last genre poll that we did, and because there will most definitely be a lot of overlap between the results of the bm poll and a folk/pagan/viking poll, with bands like Bathory, Ulver, Enslaved, I think it would be more interresting to do at a later point.

Death metal will be the popular choice, but I would rather go with the Sludge/Doom genre just out of curiosity. I feel we had various topics on best death metal done one way or the other.

Putting in for Doom and Folk/Viking/Pagan to spice things up.

A separate poll for funeral doom would be good in my book, if there are enough people here into it. Mixing trad and funeral doom in the same bucket never seems to work particularly well because there isn't a huge overlap in the listenership, from what I've gathered. Could be a cool way to generate more curiosity about funeral doom.

I think a doom poll would surely spice things up around here. Death and Black are so de rigeur for this board, it's almost boring.

The Doom poll would cover such a wide swathe that would make for an interesting top 30 albums, not to mention the discussion therein.

Funeral Doom might be a bit overlooked but in this sorta tentative thread I made early this year, Esoteric and Ahab did feature prominently;
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=141600

I voted Grind and Prog, because I'm the most interested in seeing how those polls would turn out. Will Napalm Death and Dream Theater even make it on those lists?

The boarders opinions are only slightly different than the reviewers opinions. This site aggregates MA review scores so it gives you a pretty give overview of what any potential poll would look like: https://www.furia.com/em/releases-style.html

Our opinions also closely match those of RYM: https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/al ... th%2dmetal. Though I will never understand why this board doesn't constantly talk about Inanna. RYM is right that they should be in the mix for the best death metal off all time, and they've hardly been mentioned here outside of their recent album.

Fuck my ass, if death metal wins.

Spoilers: My list'll just be a bunch of My Dying Bride and Draconian albums, with The Slow Death thrown in there for some variety.

Of course, they would. DT in particular would reappear over and over...



Is this directed at BH cause DM is winning

I think I'd be in an even worse position than you, the only death metal I listen to is Amorphis, with a smattering of Amon Amarth. Thiough at least I think I can muster up a top 10 from just those two bands, which is more tthan I can say for a LOT of other sub-genres.

I'm a trad and power metal guy, so that's where my votes went, LOL.

Ah well, death metal's year will be this year, our turn will come eventually.

Sure is fun watching those little sideways skyscrapers grow. Shame we don't have some skin in the game to make it even more exciting. Love supporting the underdogs.
Go Groove and Metalcore you little fuckin beauties! You can fuckin do it!

I do listen to a smattering of death metal stuff here and there, but I have no idea what a top 10 would look like as it's really not my genre, probably my least listened out of the major metal genres (OK, definitely more than metalcore and grind, and a bit more than folk metal I guess). It would probably look like a normie list with some Death and Bolt Thrower and whatever's on the more melodic side of things. Probably throw some death/doom in as well since I do listen to more of that than pure DM.

While I voted for trad and power because of course I did, doom would be an interesting one as I'm not really sure what we'd see make the top 10 besides Black Sabbath, doom has a lot of diverse categories like stoner doom, death/doom, trad/epic doom, that female-fronted occult doom craze that started in the late 2000s, drone doom, funeral doom, Sabbath clones...curious to see what happens with that although this year will likely be death.

Does "Orama" by On Thorns I Lay have enough death metal(-influence) in its music to vote for the album in the death metal poll?

I'd also like to vote for a few early death/doom metal albums - like "Transcendence into the Peripheral".
(In doom metal poll, I'd vote for a few doom/death metal albums - like "Rain Without End")

I wish I was also more into melodic death metal from the 90s, but at least I'll vote for "In the Forest of the Dreaming Death" by Unanimated.

I would assume the rules would be that if the band has "death metal" in the genre descriptor, any album they put out is acceptable for the contest. I think it would be too much of a headache for BH otherwise.

I voted for thrash because I like the genre. Lots of cool 90's stuff. I went prog for my second choice, since it would be cool to see a list for that.

Jophelerx, thanks, but it was more about the “self-policy” question, i.e. "Are there people here who like those albums and who would vote for the albums in the death metal poll?"

I think most people would self-police themselves into voting for albums that are certified death metal classics (the "classic" status was awarded to sooooo many DM albums indiscriminately) without going into bands whose DM credentials are somewhat obscured by things like Doom or Black metal.

Portal is more death metal in this instance than On Thorns I Lay while diSEMBOWELMENT who have that one classic album that towers over both Death and Doom would be eligible for both polls. It should be on band by band basis (or even, album by album).