A list of my favourite drummers in rough order (not precise) along with the songs that made me love them. I added the albums too

1.Slayer - Reign In Blood

2.Fleshgod Apocalypse - Agony

3.Nile - Annihilation Of The Wicked

4.Mastodon - Blood Mountain

5.Meshuggah - Destroy Erase Improve

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I've been listening to Metal since 2005 and it has become my biggest passion in life.

Rarely a day goes by where I don't listen to it in one form or another. The bands I listened to in my teens inspired me to pick up the guitar (and later drums) and start making music of my own.

So here are the albums that have stood out and made the largest impact on me. To be as transparent as possible, I've labelled albums as 'nostalgia bias' where my memories of the album give it an advantage over others.

(Score is an average of each album's song ratings, full list located here. There are a ton of albums that I've rated 9/10 in the 'TBR' tab that may never make it to this list, be sure to check those out.)

If you discovered any new albums or like the same sort of metal, be sure to give this list a thumbs-up and leave a comment so more people can find these amazing bands!

My other lists:
Top 25 EPs (ordered & rated)
Top 200 Overlooked Albums (with genres)
Top 200 Overrated Albums (trigger warning)
So I Heard You Like Wintersun... (Time II find new bands)

Genre-Specific:
Top 50 Black Metal Albums
Top 50 Melodic Death Metal Albums
Top 45 Thrash Metal Albums
Top 40 Power Metal Albums
Top 30 Doom Metal Albums
Top 30 Heavy Metal Albums

1.Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral

2.Opeth - Blackwater Park

3.Metallica - Master Of Puppets

4.Edge Of Sanity - Crimson

5.Opeth - Still Life

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In no real particular order. These albums are all great.

1.Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

2.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

3.Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin III

4.Sir Lord Baltimore - Kingdom Come

5.Deep Purple - In Rock

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All my favorite albums (rated 9 or 10), in cronological order.

1.Iotunn - Access All Worlds

2.Soen - Imperial

3.Draconian - Under A Godless Veil

4.Soen - Lotus

5.Chapel Of Disease - ...And As We Have Seen The Storm, We Have Embraced The Eye

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Unfinished as I still have to catch up on more recent years. Also all of the places on the list are of course subject to change as I discover more music from each year.

My taste is very much centred around the power of the riff. That means most of the albums on this list are thrash, death, heavy, black, or some offshoot of those genres.

1.After The Burial - Dig Deep

2.Behemoth - The Satanist

3.Carcass - Surgical Steel

4.Cattle Decapitation - Monolith Of Inhumanity

5.Fleshgod Apocalypse - Agony

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In early 2018, I started my long and perilous (and awesome) journey of discovering doom metal. This is my doom noob's room of gloom aka a list of those doom albums, that I've come to love during my explorations into the genre. Will add new albums regularly. *weeps in solitude*

1.Candlemass - Epicus Doomicus Metallicus

2.Solitude Aeturnus - Into The Depths Of Sorrow

3.Anathema - The Silent Enigma

4.Warning - Watching From A Distance

5.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

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Note: these are only for the traditional style of metal borne out of the period of late 60s - late 80s. Modern bands are permitted but they need to be playing in that style.

Recommendations are welcome. I'll listen and if I like it, I'll add it.

1.Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin

2.Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

3.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

4.Deep Purple - In Rock

5.Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin III

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best album of each year from 1970 onwards

1.Wayfarer - American Gothic

2.Grima - Frostbitten

3.Beast In Black - Dark Connection

4.Havukruunu - Uinuos Syömein Sota

5.Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind

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Doom metal happens to be my favourite musical genre specifically death doom. An attempt to all albums I have listened to and rated. In no particular order.

1.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

2.Anathema - Serenades

3.Anathema - The Silent Enigma

4.Anathema - Alternative 4

5.Paradise Lost - Gothic

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While the order in each decade is purely personal preference, there are several rules for a song qualifying for the list. First off, the band has to be notable. I'm not going to define what that means, but I'm sure you'd agree all the bands in the list are notable. There are plenty of riffs from obscure bands I'd rather put, but I know my love for Tarby doesn't make him the greatest riff maker of the 21st century. Second, each artist can only appear once in a decade, this is to prevent the best riff makers from hogging the list and adding some variety, showing how metal has changed over time. Decades are measured by when the song was recorded, not released, and when it's unclear the beginning of recording is used. This is mainly because a lot of definitive early metal songs were released in 1970, but recorded in 1969. Third, the song itself has to be notable. Here are things that can qualify as being notable: the song was release as a single, has music video made for it, was released as a single, was the title track for an album (note that Crawl through Knives meets this criteria because it was the original title for Come Clarity, and there is no way in hell Come Clarity is getting best riff of the decade ), is included on a greatest hits compilation album, was nominated for a Grammy or musical award of similar caliber, was included as a track in a notable film or video game, was covered by a notable band, or has a Wikipedia page for some miscellaneous reason. Finally, the song needs to be metal. Misirlou gets the pass despite predating metal as it was probably the single most influential song on the development of metal, and while many of the other songs in the other songs are better classified as hard rock, I can find a source listing them as heavy metal.

1.

2.King Crimson - In The Court Of The Crimson King

3.Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

4.Iron Butterfly - In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

5.Deep Purple - In Rock

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1.AC/DC - Back In Black

2.Metallica - Ride The Lightning

3.Black Sabbath - Master Of Reality

4.Dio - Holy Diver

5.Judas Priest - Defenders Of The Faith

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one album from each group (in alphabetical order)

1.Agalloch - Ashes Against The Grain

2.Be'lakor - Stone's Reach

3.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

4.Burzum - Filosofem

5.Dissection - Storm Of The Light's Bane

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1.Agalloch - The Mantle

2.Iron Maiden - Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son

3.Opeth - Ghost Reveries

4.Metallica - Ride The Lightning

5.Megadeth - Rust In Peace

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My personal rankings of all of Black Sabbath's studio albums. I've included Heaven and Hell's 'The Devil You Know' in this list, because in my opinion it is a Sabbath album.

1.Black Sabbath - Heaven And Hell

2.Black Sabbath - Paranoid

3.Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

4.Black Sabbath - Mob Rules

5.Black Sabbath - Master Of Reality

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1.Death - Symbolic

2.Slayer - Reign In Blood

3.Pantera - Vulgar Display Of Power

4.Carcass - Heartwork

5.Overkill - The Years Of Decay

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