KaiKaspareK's Kremling Kreator

     Two weeks in a row!  Last week we took on the RateYourMusic metal charts for 1980, this week we're doing 1981!  I should add that when making the chart, there was the option of having "Genre," "Influence," or "Either." I did the 1980 with only "Genre." I re-did the 1980 chart with "Either," mainly to see if AC/DC's Back In Black would show up, it did not.  But for the sake of consistency, we're going to stick with "Genre" going forward.  So with that, let's get to it with 1981..... 1. Iron Maiden- Killers      I mean, yeah.  Goes without saying.  It's funny how this album gets all the top marks for 1981, yet everyone (including the band themselves) seem to think of it as subpar, or that it being the top means 1981 wasn't a great year for metal.  I mean, 1981 was  a step down from 1980, but that certainly doesn't mean everything was subpar.  And it certainly doesn't mean this was a mediocre ...

I'm a frequent visitor of RYM, as I'm sure any music obssessive is.  Granted it's not as fun as it used to be (i.e. the metal fans got overrun by the new wave hipsters and Kendrick Lamar fans), but it is a fun mental exercise to get a sample of taste.       One feature of the site is the "chart."  This function essentially allows you to look at a year and determine users favorite albums of such, even of genre.  So I decided to look at the top 10 highest rated albums of the year and give my two cents and whether or not I think they should make a top 10, and whether they would make mine!  I'm not gonna do the 70s because while metal was born in the 70s, there wasn't enough of anything to make a top 3 at times, never mind a top 10.  So let's start at a nice, easy agreeable point like the year 1980. 1. Black Sabbath- Heaven & Hell 30 Years ago people hated this fuckin thing, and anything to do with Black Sabbath that didn't involve one John Michae...

      Hot take videos/articles are all the rage these days, so why not pinch my loaf in the punchbowl?  Here are six hot takes I have regarding metal of today and past events (probably more than likely past events). 1. Stop calling it 'NWOBHM.' When Bruce Dickinson fleetingly referred to the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement as "NWOBHM" in shorthand on the Classic Albums documentary on  The Number Of the Beast , it was so supposed to be just that, fleeting.  As in, not supposed to be shorthand common term.  Also, nothing like calling something that's 40, going in 50 years old new wave ay?  Here is where I feel we need to take a cue from black metal and start calling it the second wave of heavy metal.  Because really that's what it was.  The first wave was Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Budgie.  Yes there would be influential outliers that fit into neither wave (Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy, Motorhead) as there alway...

     Love them or hate them, Metallica are the most commercially successful heavy metal band in the United States (there's arguments that Iron Maiden might be a smidge bigger globally and I'll wait for some actual statistics experts to figure that one out).  They have sold the most records out of any metal band.  You can trash talk them 7 ways til Sunday (as I am want to do) but you can't argue numbers.  That's tapered off in recent years but I think that has more to do with people just not buying records anymore/fan fatigue/let's face it, they ran out of creativity a long time ago.      There was a particular review on Metal-archives.com that, to this day might still be their most famous review.  It's the review of Master Of Puppets from writer Ultraboris where he grades the album a goose egg, and furthermore calling it "the album that killed heavy metal."  We aren't going to be discussing that review, but there is a quote from th...