What We're Doing

We are letting you, the readers, decide what the Best Metal Album Of All Time is, by taking 64 albums and arranging them in a single-elimination bracket (American sports fans will recognize this as similar to how the NCAA Basketball Championship is decided). The list of 64 albums is shown below.

How It Works

Each "match" (pitting two albums against each other) will have a period of four days where reader can submit their votes. From the main page of the site, you'll see what matches are in progress and you'll be able to vote from there. You'll also be able to see the entire match schedule, and the results in progress. Each four days a new set of matches will be enabled for you to vote on. Currently the schedule runs until April 4, at which time the overall winner will have been voted on. Depending on the popularity of the tournament, I might extend or contract the voting periods to keep things moving along.

When Will This Happen?

The competition will kick off with the first three matches on Monday, January 4. After that, every four days will feature a new set of three matches to vote on. You can see the entire schedule in bracket format here.

The List of 64

The almost-official list of albums for the tournament were derived from my Internet Top Ten voting results, as well as taking into account many very helpful and thought-provoking suggestions from readers (thanks!). At first I allowed up to three albums per band, but later reduced that to two, as that allowed more bands a chance to compete. I also attempted to cover as many genres of metal as possible. Inevitably, not everyone's favorite band or album can be featured -- there are at least 20 bands not on the list that could make a credible argument, but there simply wasn't room. I will continue to entertain last-minute suggestions, but the list below is pretty close to complete.

Without further ado, here's the list of albums that will probably be featured: