Starting next Monday, December 19, and continuing through Friday, December 23, Invisible Oranges will publish its list of the top 50 albums of 2011. We’re featuring 10 albums per day, starting at 50 and counting down to 1.
Our methodology for determining this list was as follows:
All Invisible Oranges contributors and editorial staff (20 people in total) were polled and allowed to cast a ballot. Each voter was given 210 points to divvy up between 20 albums. The hitch: no album could receive more than 20 points or fewer than 1 point. The easiest way to do this was for the voter to allocate 20 points to his or her No. 1 album, while his or her No. 20 album got 1 point (counting down or up from those poles, in one-point increments). Voters choosing to include fewer than 20 albums had their total points allowance diminished commensurately.
When all votes were cast, we added up the total points for each album. The No. 1 album (which will be revealed next Friday) received the most total points; the No. 50 album (which will be revealed next Monday) received the 50th most total points. In all, 229 albums received votes.
In this way, we hoped to achieve something of a democratic system for determining the top albums of 2011. No one person’s taste influenced this list more than that of any other person—it was the result of a collaboration; the sum of our listening habits, personalities and preferences.
Our only parameters were that the albums be somehow characterized as “heavy metal”: EPs as well as LPs were eligible; demos and cassette-only releases were fine, too. We defined 2011 loosely, too: the work didn’t need an official 2011 release date to be eligible—as long as 2011 was the year during which the album made its impact. (We also allowed for consideration albums such as Kvelertak and Opus Eponymous—both of which were released and widely celebrated in 2010 but were released in the United States in 2011.)
Those were the rules we played by. For now, we’re offering a look at what just missed the list: albums 75 to 51. Why start at 75? Well, every one of the 25 albums listed here received at least 20 points: enough to qualify for a single first-place vote, and thus, enough to warrant a mention. But also because, in my opinion anyway, the upper reaches of these lists are often much more interesting than the winners’ circles. Please let us know your favorites of 2011, too, and let us know what we missed. With that, we commence the countdown (and the ensuing arguments)!
75. Crooked Necks – Alright Is Exactly What It Isn’t
74. Ravencult – Morbid Blood
73. Drugs of Faith – Corroded
72. Dornenreich – Flammentriebe
71. Fen – Epoch
70. Russian Circles – Empros
69. Black Tusk – Set the Dial
68. Raspberry Bulbs – Nature Tries Again
67. In Solitude – The World, The Flesh, The Devil
66. Giant Squid – Cenotes
65. Encoffination – O’Hell, Shine In Thy Whited Sepulchres
64. All Pigs Must Die – God Is War
63. Rotten Sound – Cursed
62. Glorior Belli – The Great Southern Darkness
61. Earth – Angels of Darkness Demons of Light part 1
60. Subrosa – No Help for the Mighty Ones
59. KEN Mode – Venerable
58. Antediluvian – Through the Cervix Of Hawwah
57. Wolvhammer – The Obsidian Plains
56. Acid Witch – Stoned
55. Rotted – Ad Nauseam
54. Jungle Rot – Kill On Command
53. Midnight – Satanic Royalty
52. Oranssi Pazuzu – Kosmonument
51. Rwake – Rest
Adding links to some youtube, spotify, , or even to the IO review of the album (if available) wouldn’t have hurt, IMHO. That would make the post much more interesting.
Thanks for the time you put into this, anyway.
Are you fucking serious?! Encoffination at 65? They should be at least at number 58.
I would have thought a number of those titles would have found themselves in the Top 50. That should make for a fascinating Top 50! Fun!
the only one I’d rank higher is the Earth album. I can take or leave the rest of these.
_______________ at number _______ ? They should have been number _____________ !
I second the idea of links. Some of these I haven’t heart of at all, and wouldn’t mind checking out.
No dude, number __________________ was too good for them, they totally should have been taken down to number ________________.
strange to see Rwake so far down, seeing as they’ve made the top-5 of many lists I’ve seen.
also, Wolvhammer, Rotten Sound and Midnight not even NEAR the top 50?! I wonder what 50 albums IO has heard that I must have completely missed to make THOSE albums so far down.
I think it’s more the vagaries of such a voting system than musical value judgments — Wolvhammer, Rotten Sound and Midnight (along with many others) were well represented on a number of ballots (Wolvhammer were in my own top 10), but other albums were better represented. The IO contributors who voted have a pretty wide variety of tastes (as I noted, 20 people voted and 229 albums received votes). All that said, I hope there are MANY albums in the top 50 that you missed. Where’s the fun in reading about music you’ve already heard?
“Where’s the fun in reading about music you’ve already heard?”
Seconded.
The “fun” in reading about music you’ve already heard is that you get to compare/contrast the writer’s opinions with your own. It’s like an exchange of ideas, even if you don’t post comments.
@julitros, @Cliff Evans: Agreed, agreed. YouTube song samples have been added. Enjoy!
Really would of thought In Solitude, Earth & Subrosa would of been higher than that. Oh well.
I didn’t hear any new heavy metal records this year better than In Solitude and Portrait’s new one. It may be true that “metal is back,” or we may all think that’s yellow journalism and advertising, but either way new heavy metal bands still seem to be looking in from the margins.
Problem with both of those bands is while they weren’t really noticed by most when they came out, both of their first LPs are FAR superior albums. In the case of Portrait it’s mostly due to the change in vocalist.
I’ve started a Spotify playlist of this list. Of course, it’s only like half of the bands, but it’s a start and I will update it as the rest of the 50 drop.
http://open.spotify.com/user/theblacklaser/playlist/66QBaAEWoLyCN8Bli8EXmY
Thanks, Joe! This is excellent!
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/12/14/143699630/the-20-unhappiest-people-you-meet-in-the-comments-sections-of-year-end-lists
^^^ LOL — amazing. Thank you so much for sharing this. I will surely be referring to it several times per day next week.
Also, big BIG LOL@ “Are you fucking serious?! Encoffination at 65? They should be at least at number 58″
After the list is all out, I’d be interested in seeing it correlated into record label groupings. (i.e. how many albums ‘placed’ from each label; perhaps also you could correlate the albums score into the label groupings as well to see which labels (if any) had the most impact.)
We had some loose internal conversation about this, actually, although it was more anecdotal than statistical. I’m not sure the results would be terribly surprising or enlightening, but when the list has been published in full, maybe we can run a few secondary polls based on the votes already cast (best-represented labels, regions, genres, etc.). Although my threshold for data entry may have already been crossed.
Also, APMD *clearly* came in too low at 64.
I’m so glad someone on staff besides me loved on Jungle rot and Glorior Belli.
I’m with ya… I especially enjoyed Glorior Belli.
This list makes me feel like a chump — I haven’t heard about 80% of these bands. Thanks for the links; will check them out. My record buying dropped commensurately with my income this year, and it was hard enough keeping up with my longtime favourites, all of whom seemed to put out a new album (or two!) this year.
I think a list of the 1,000 best records of the 2011 would have been more poignant.
Are you guys gonna do another Reader’s Choice Awards like last year? I gather it was a ridiculous pain in the ass to put together, but I thought it was a lot of fun. More than that, it’s fascinating to see what pops up in other readers’ lists, and it makes for a great “shopping list” of what next to explore.
Sadly no. We got a late start on this, and the Readers Choice poll was just too complicated to pull off in time. I’d like to bring it back next year. That said, I have little doubt that readers will remind us what we missed in the comments, from which you might extrapolate the same information.
And some list-thus-far commentary: definitely interesting to see what’s getting votes.
-I was set to love the new Antediluvian after Watcher’s Reign kicked so much ass, but I thought the execution (or lack of) sunk the ship. Waaaaay too washed out production, making for a depressingly wimpy, painfully boring album.
-Tried hard to like Subrosa, but ultimately couldn’t even make it through the album. Black Tusk earned a hearty “meh.” Wolvhammer gets a slightly more enthusiastic “meh.”
-I was reluctant to bother with Jungle Rot for obvious reasons, but Cosmo’s enthusiasm rubbed off on me. So… they basically discovered Hatebreed, for better and worse. Not the Bolt Thrower fix I was hoping for, but it won’t tarnish their legacy any more than all their previous albums have.
-APMD really rubbed me the wrong way live — instant time-warp to the early ’00s Boston hardcore scene seeing Kevin Baker (of Hope Conspiracy) fronting a new band, and those aren’t exactly fond memories. But strangely, in the several months since seeing them, the album has gradually gotten better. Weird how that works.
-Ravencult, Rwake, Glorior Belli, Midnight, Rotten Sound, and In Solitude are all totally ruling hard.
Still need to hear the rest!
Those Antidiluvian and Encoffination albums are about the most boring things ever.
I just wanted to say that I’m really glad you mentioned Rotten Sound as being “well represented” in your staff lists because so far I have yet to see “Cursed” on literally any annual best-of lists, and, since it was by-far my favorite metal/grind record of 2011 you can imagine how butthurt that makes me!
Great list guys, can’t wait for the rest or it!
I’m glad someone acknowledged the Earth record. Everyone seems to have forgotten about it.
Earth and Oranssi pazuzu ranks on top for me.
I guess being in the top 10 in June doesn’t get you into the top 75 in December
http://www.invisibleoranges.com/2011/06/were-halfway-through-2011/