Here’s what I don’t understand about all these lists: why they make people so very angry. When we set out to make our 21 Best Albums of the 21st Century (So Far) list earlier this year, we pretty much knew from the outset that it would be unsatisfactory. For one thing, there were only going to be 21 albums on the list, which meant a lot of great records were going to get left off; for another thing, we made the decision early on to allow bands to have multiple albums on the list if that was the way the voting turned out, and that meant that even more artists who deserved recognition weren’t going to get it; and finally, there was the very issue of how you even go about compiling such a list – we thought it was exciting to solicit the opinions of a lot of prominent musicians and industry insiders (as opposed to just the MS staff), but that approach obviously had its pros and cons, too. I’m not apologizing for or disowning our list – I’m just pointing out what should be obvious, which is that it was meant to be a fun conversation starter, which, from our end at least, is exactly what it was. And who really gives a shit which albums did or did not end up on that list? You know which albums you love and which ones you hate, so you shouldn’t need MetalSucks, or any other media outlet, to validate your opinion. I think Albert Mudrian is a great writer and is way more knowledgeable about metal than I am, but my ego isn’t so frail that I need him to agree with my every assessment of every band and every album.

Which brings me to what this blog post is actually about: Decibel’s 100 Greatest Metal Albums of the Decade special, which you can order here. It’s considerably more comprehensive that our list was, but I imagine most intelligent metal fans will also find it just as infuriating, and just as fun.

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