Alright, folks, it’s my turn to do the Top 50 list. I’ve been contemplating to do it for a few months already, maybe even half a year, but every time some excuse popped up in my head, like “wait, I’m still a newcomer here, no one will care about it” or “I have two reviews to write and few projects to think out for my job” or something else, you know how it goes. Then I signed up for hosting a roulette here on DTF, and it helped me to finally stop procrastinating. I’ve looked through all the albums I have either on CDs or on my computer and composed the final list with my 50 favourite albums on it. And so it started; every evening after work I grabbed a cup of tea or coffee, sat in front of my PC with headphones on, put one album from the list in a player and scribbled some notes about it while listening. A great experience, that one was.
What can you expect from this list? Well, some of you might have noticed what bands I mostly like during the year I’ve been posting on DTF, but overall I’m leaning to progressive metal (no shit!), power metal and, I dunno, progressive rock? Some records are just difficult to fit in limits of a certain genre. I’m sure I saw almost all of bands on my list being mentioned and talked about on DTF, but some albums may be more obscure than the others.
Originally I wanted to include only one album per artist, but as I started to make this list, I decided this approach would be, um, untruthful? I found out I love some bands a lot more than others, so leaving out great albums because of this restriction seems a bit dishonest. Overall, I ended with
37 different bands on the list; and at least one band has three albums present here.
I didn’t have any particular way to pick the albums for this list and to rank them. It is all mostly based on the feelings I get when I listen to them, and on the influence they had on my life. I tried to avoid putting the most recent albums on my list; and I failed spectacularly. In fact, I quickly made this diagram showing the albums’ release dates distribution over the decades, to draw your interest, and, well, just for fun:
As you can see, the albums made in 2000 — 2009 period dominate the list, but not entirely; the records from 80s and 90s put up a good fight, and I’m actually surprised about how many albums from 2010 onwards are on my list. Is it a good or a bad thing? You decide.
The write-ups will be a bit short for the first updates, around 400 words overall, but then they will grow on and on, reaching two thousand words for top five. I hope I’ve managed to find a nice balance here, and if I didn’t, well, too bad, because everything is already written.
Actually, this will help me to keep the updates’ pace steady. I will be posting one update per post and I’m aiming for one or two updates per day depending on my work schedule, so I hope no one gets bored or something like that.
And let’s get down to business. Here’s the way albums will be presented:
Album’s PlacementAlbum’s NameBand’s NameGenre Year of the release < Wall of text, basically consists of 1) intro 2) info about the band 3) thoughts about the album 4) closing text >
< Favourite tracks: usually includes up to 30-35 minutes of music >
< There can be a bit of text too where I’m rambling about whatever I want >
[this structure doesn’t apply to top ten]
The last point I really want to address: I encourage and will participate in all the discussion about the albums I’m posting here and also about my writing style. Why do you like the album I wrote about? Why do you dislike or even hate it? What tracks are your favourite ones? What do you agree and disagree with in my write-ups? What are your personal experiences and thoughts about the albums I’m writing about? Every thought is welcome, and everything that will spark the discussion is appreciated. I can’t wait to see and hear your thoughts, but sadly, you will actually have to wait a few hours for my thoughts, because that’s when the first update kicks in.
I know I said it's an evil thing to start a Top 50 thread without the actual update or honourable mentions, but, well, only a few hours of wait and we'll be there. I hope you guys will find something new and interesting to listen and discuss here.