The Top 10 Metal of 2010 - The Critique

This year’s Top 10 has been an attempt from me to present a more intellectually involved yet no less passionate Top 10 list. With tips from editors and colleagues to take my time, I’ve mulled over scores of potential selections. But I also believe that it requires critique to give a full picture of my process of evaluation. I’ll be asking myself a series of questions (based on what others have asked) and I’ll try to answer them as honestly as I can.

Where’s the new Enslaved? The new Tryptikon? Ihsahn? You just hate black metal, don’t you!

What a boatload of tripe! I adore black metal. I own about 400 CDs/LPs and I would say about 5-10% are of the black metal genre alone – that’s at least 40 CDs worth. I would also have to retort that Agalloch and Martriden are black metal derived bands.

I do have a copy of the Enslaved record and heard the new Tryptikon – but for me, top records are all about what can cut above all the releases I’ve heard over the year. I have a stack of records that I’ve played once or twice – they’re quite good, but in the Darwinian struggle for my single CD slot, the Top 10 placegetters are not only the most musically gifted releases but the albums that have held my attention the longest. At the end of the day, #1 is probably the best album in terms of cost vs. benefit and length vs. “awesomeness.”

There were a lot of power metal, prog and melodic death releases that didn’t make the cut either. If it makes you feel any better the new records from Kamelot, Vanden Plas and Dimmu Borgir all rated the same in my book.

So what, just because you don’t own the physical recording means you don’t rate it?

On the contrary; most of the records listed were downloaded from an iPool, sent to me as a promo or via an official industry content distribution system.  The Grand Magus and the Ocean records are examples of this. All the others were purchased at some point (some were heard over iPool prior to purchase.) I have many more purchased records that didn’t make the cut either. I’m looking at about 10 of them as I write this.

I also don’t believe in taking something for free and criticizing it. It’s like getting a free Christmas dinner you aren’t even entitled to and complaining the turkey was too dry, the gravy was not thick enough, etc. etc. I believe a band deserves at least that much respect.

Some of the albums that aren’t #1 sound like the greatest records ever. What’s the deal?

Like I said before – some albums are absolutely astounding. But like with the Orphaned Land record, some records are just too “massive” to be enjoyed passively or frequently. I find with these records, if you have them on in the background, you miss the point of them. They’re like long and dense films – you can’t watch them every day – you have to set aside time for them.

So it's more of me communicating that they are excellently crafted records rather than records you want to play over and over again. If they are both - like the Grand Magus record - then they get higher positions.

But to be fair, it’s probably a bit contradictory to have them on the list if their lives will be spent mostly on the shelf or on the hard drive unplayed, isn’t it?

My rejoinder is that we may only read classic novels like War and Peace or Moby Dick once, possibly twice in our entire lives. With albums, we can play them many times over and usually do, even if they don't get much time in our preferred music player compared to other records.

I just looked at your Last.fm. Dark Tranquillity, Blind Guardian and Helloween are all amongst your Top 10 artists. Bias! Heresy! Perfidy! Etc.

I suppose this is undeniable – I do have a rather unique passion and liking for these bands. But to their credit, their records were all excellent this year. They genuinely stepped up their game, in my opinion. In previous years I’ve given Top 10 positions to these bands when they didn’t warrant it, but this time I feel that I’ve given them the praise they deserve. Adding unworthy bands into their unoccupied slots would just cheapen the integrity of the list – I personally couldn’t be compelled to do such a thing.

It may be a case of releasing a B album after a C or D album but I’d like to think not. Gambling with the Devil was a launching point but not an equal to 7 Sinners but was by no means terrible. Likewise with A Twist in the Myth and Fiction. I'd be hard pressed to call anything that DT or BG have released as "crap." (No qualms about taking Helloween's mid-period to task and berating it, though!)

Reviewers are also holding up Gamma Ray’s To the Metal as superior to Helloween’s record but I feel that’s premature – To the Metal sounded like more of the same (to me) while Helloween showed some depth and growth. Gamma Ray usually write a classic album worth of material over about 3 or 4 records packed with filler and I think To the Metal is no exception. Kai Hansen needs to find his Sascha Gerstner, to be quite honest.

I must admit, some of my albums don’t appear frequently on other lists and they are the glaring exceptions. I’ve seen Helloween and Blind Guardian pop up on a few European lists but Dark Tranquillity has routinely been overlooked. But then again, they almost always are! (The last time I saw them on a top 10 list was for Damage Done in 2002.)

I read your blog over at MetalAsFuck! You predicted your own #1!

It's not exactly clairvoyance.

I also feel now that the piece I wrote was unnecessarily arrogant and pithy...I genuinely like metal music but the tone of the piece seemed like I was taking the piss.

I was accused by some whether I was just a hipster in disguise (I am not, thank you very much!) berating metal because it was a "cool" thing to do among other such nonsense.

Getting some tips from my editor Leticia, I decided to take a measured approach to my Top 10 instead of blurting out substandard copy for the sake of it. Hence I wrote it over almost over two weeks, allowing for time to pass so I could tweak and edit. I feel its far better than previous lists I've ever written.

I count 11 discs in your so called Top 10!

Well done, you deserve a medal. I’ll send it to Jesus, c/- the Pentagon.

But seriously, Heliocentric and Anthropocentric is a double concept album – I feel it was just a cash-grab on the part of the label (and/or the band) to release them independently. Anthropocentric features leitmotifs from Heliocentric and both are about the history of religion, philosophy and astronomy as a criticism of Christian theology. Even the artwork is similar. Their MySpace quite clearly states it’s a “separately released double album.”

I suspect the label will see the error in their actions and combine them properly in a retail-price (i.e., not a limited ed. or deluxe price) box set or some manner of flashy receptacle (and there is a 4xLP set going...for €60!)

For example, Ayreon’s The Universal Migrator double album was also released separately only to be combined for sale later with extra liner notes and art, etc. at a retail price. The initial separation is excusable since those two albums were musically different. It isn’t the case this time.

Your Top 10 list doesn’t even resemble mine! Where’s your objectivity!?

I define objectivity as a journalistic endeavor that attempts to balance itself by using as many sources and opinions as possible to pursue the fact of the matter reported on.

This is a personal top 10 list and I rely on only one source – me. If you don’t like it, then tough!

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The Top 10 Metal of 2010
#1: Grand Magus - Hammer of the North
#2: Kylesa - Spiral Shadow
#3: Blind Guardian - At the Edge of Time
#4: Agalloch - Marrow of the Spirit
#5: Helloween - 7 Sinners
#6: Dark Tranquillity - We are the Void
#7: Martriden - Encounter the Monolith
#8: The Ocean - Heliocentric & Anthropocentric
#9: Soilwork - The Panic Broadcast
#10: Orphaned Land - The Neverending Way of ORWarriOR
The Honorable Mentions