Culture: The 100 Greatest Metal Albums Of All Time - Why Is The Rolling Stone So Conservative?

 

(Drivebycuriosity) - The "Rolling Stone" declared "The 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time" (rollingstone). The magazine is the Vatican in the world of popular music. So the article got my attention. It´s a disappointment. First, the list is pretty outdated. No album from the recent 20 years made it in their top twenty! The youngest album there is "Ænima" by Tool from 1996 on place 18. There is just one album from this century in the first 40: 'Toxicity" by System of a Down from 2001 on place 27. Did Heavy Metal disappear or did "The Rolling Stone" get it wrong?

The few recognized heavy metal milestones of the 21th century all got placed on the backseats. The celebrated "Sunbather" album by black metal band Deafheaven (2013  pitchfork) made it on place 94;  "From Mars to Sirius" by the up and coming French band Gojira  (2005) landed in place 97. The extremely dark & heavy drown album "Monoliths & Dimensions'"  by Sunn O))) (2009) got just place 98;  and "Oceanic" by Isis (2002) deserves better than place 72.

To make it worse, some great & very heavy albums were just ignored, including "The Beyond" by Cult of Luna, "Out of a Center Which Is Neither Dead nor Alive" by Minsk  and "Australasia" by  Pelican. Instead they put stadium rocker Van Halen`s '"Women and Children First' (1980) on place 36 (you can listen to it here  youtube). That`s ridiculous.  The album is neither "heavy" nor is it "metal" (as defined by Black Sabbath, who are celebrated as inventors of Heavy Metal). Van Halen delivered just good old hard rock. The same with "Pyromania" by Def Leppard (1983, place 52) - which Wikipedia defined as "radio-friendly glam rock and hard rock" (wikipedia ) "Holy Diver" by Dio (1983 place 16) and "British Steel" by Judas Priest (1980) on place 3.

There is nothing wrong with solid Rock 'n' Roll & "radio-friendly glam rock and hard rock", but those albums certainly  don`t belong on "greatest metal albums," especially when many landmarks were neglected. I don´t deny the head banging qualities of these albums, but they are also delivered by the Ramones , The Clash and many other Punk bands.

It looks like that the "Rolling Stone" magazine doesn`t like Heavy Metal and does not understand it.

PS For illustration I chose an album cover by Black Sabbath.