Welcome, welcome everybody! I know we all have lots of fun with the Album of the Year poll that has been running since 2016, so it stands to reason that it would be twice the fun to do it twice, no? So with that in mind, I present to you all:

THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA METALLUM MID YEAR OFF TOPIC POLL

Now before we even get started, I want to make one thing clear right off the bat. That's that the rules are loosened for the mid year poll. I'll explain the changes as we go, but the general idea is that this will be much more relaxed, much more informal, and I'll be less of a dickhead during the runup.

THE CATEGORY IS "ALBUMS OF 1980-1989"
There was no pre-poll this year because lets face it, we all knew this was the final frontier, right? This is the golden age of classic metal and it's not even up for debate. The NWOBHM took shit by storm, trad metal produced like a billion classics, thrash was born and matured and thrived to its fullest before the 90s came along and killed it, that hyper-specific niche of speed metal that I personally adore was tearing out legendary releases left and right, power metal took form in both the EUPM and USPM forms that MA loves to bicker about, truly extreme stuff that would come to define the 90s underground like death band black metal took root and some of the most iconic and historically significant albums of those genres were released, metal as a whole had genuine mainstream relevance for the first (and only) time ever, this is just IT. You think about "When was metal a thing?", you think the 1980s. And now you guys are gonna decide what the best release is during this time of endless best releases. This is going to be brutal and heartbreaking, but that means the winners here are the truest cream of the creamiest crop. We're going to have to kneecap likely dozens of favorites just to get down to ten, and I foresee this being a particularly agonizing curation for most of us, but that's exactly why we picked it, no?

You should all know the rules by now, but as a refresher, all you need to do is:

Select your top ten:
This is very easy, all you need to do is choose your top ten albums of the decade.

PM your top ten, in order, to me, BastardHead:
It's that simple, just make a top ten and send it to me, I'll take care of all the number crunching nonsense!

What happens next is that I will assign each position a point value, grand prix style, so that first place votes are seen as more valuable than second place, and so on. The point values are as follows:

1 = 25 points
2 = 18 points
3 = 15 points
4 = 12 points
5 = 10 points
6 = 8 points
7 = 6 points
8 = 4 points
9 = 2 points
10 = 1 point

That may seem confusing and semi random for people who don't follow F1, but the idea of the point system being set up the way it is is that consistency is valued over a lucky win. So an album with twenty third place votes will fare better than one with ten first place votes. Regardless, we want you to put some good thought into this. Every vote counts! The idea is to get a collective snapshot of what we, as MA forumgoers, see to be the best albums of the decade. So give it a lot of thought and let your voice be heard!

As with all things, there are a few guidelines we ask you to follow, but they're all quite simple, common sense rules.

1) METAL ONLY!: This is obvious, but just know that the only way I'll truly be judging this is by whether or not the band has a page on MA. If they do, they're eligible. This is a metal site so it's only logical to keep it this way, it's just so people don't go trying to sneak in Porcupine Tree or whatever. However if the album itself isn't metal, I don't care as long as it's listed on the site.

2) Make sure you vote for ten albums: This rule is stricken for the mid year poll. It should be very easy to come up with 10 when we're talking about such a broad window of time anyway but if you don't want to then hey, don't sweat it! It'll make it harder for me to tally up the total amount of ballots (because usually I'm a lazy ass and just divide the point total by 101 to get this answer) but this is the low stress summer poll. If for some reason you can't think of ten, don't worry about it too hard. The vote to possibly expand the ballot wound up deciding to keep the maximum at 10 by a few percentage points away from being the dictionary definition of a "landslide victory", so if you really want to do 20 or something, you've gotta bite the bullet and trim it down. If you just think the 80s sucked because Euronymous wasn't around to tell you what to think yet, just go ahead and vote for six or something. And if you REALLY REALLY want to vote for a top 30, go ahead. I won't count anything past the top ten but I'm sure your #17 pick won't have its feelings hurt.

3) Put your list in order: I'm assigning point values, it's important that they're in order. If you just give me something alphabetically with no determined ordering, I'll either just discard the entire ballot or change every vote to something stupid out of spite.

4) New, original material only: Usually this rule is to eliminate live albums and rereleases and whatnot, but here? Nah whatever, I don't care. If the best album happens to be a live album or a demo compilation or something, go nuts. Every release listed on MA is eligible, no matter the format.

5) Only albums actually released from 1980-1989: Again this should be obvious but it needs to be said anyway. And yes the decade ends in 1989 for the same reason 1980 isn't part of the 70s, miss me with that bullshit.

6) One ballot per user: Again, should go without saying, but don't try to vote multiple times to inflate the numbers. I will notice and I'll just wipe your whole vote if you decide to be a numbskull.

7) Your account must have been registered before this thread was created: This shouldn't apply to pretty much all of you, but it's just to prevent duplicate sockpuppet accounts trying to game the system. Don't do that.

8) Don't be a dick: We're running on the honor system here, and I obviously can't police the intentions of everybody who votes, but please don't be a troll who votes in a bunch of crap you've never heard of for yuks. Nor should you vote in things you actually think are terrible as some weird form of protest. Nor should you vote the same album ten times. Nor should you vote for something your own band released. We're trusting you to take this seriously enough to have fun with this but not act like an idiot, just use common sense and don't waste our time.

Like the decade poll last year, if you could please include the year of release for each of your votes that would be a huge help for us. I'm not gonna disqualify you if you don't, it's easy to look it up myself, but you'd be helping us out a lot if you did.

If you want to posts your lists in here ahead of time, go wild. I used to be a jacakass about this but it's been made clear that I'm the only person who actually cares, so we don't do that anymore. I'll keep the actual running totals secret while the ballots are rolling in still in order for the final reveal to have some essence of ceremony, but the idea is for this to be informal and fun, I'm not gonna be a dickhead about it during June. Posts your lists if you want to, but please remember to PM it to me if you want it to count in the final tally. There will obviously be a new thread when the results are posted where you can share and discuss there as well, but if you want to do it here too, go ahead, I don't mind anymore.

This year, the OPTIONAL SIDE VOTE IS:

NOTHING!
I've mentioned a few times that I've been considering cutting the side categories, and not many people seemed to miss 'em, so eh. We usually barely break 50% participation and the results usually wind up pretty redundant (the Band of the Decade category we did a while back wound up mirroring the top 20 or so on the main list pretty closely anyway, for example). NS and I both agreed that we just don't even want to bother with it anymore, so fuck it, just worry about your top ten and don't fuss about anything else!


The polls will be open until Midnight, July 1st, MA TIME (EST, or GMT -5:00), OR ALTERNATIVELY IF IT MAKES MORE SENSE TO YOU THIS WAY, 11:59, JUNE 30TH. I know people always get confused as to when this actually means, but know that as soon as July starts, the polls are closed. This gives us the entire month of June to vote. The final results should hopefully be posted sometime on the 1st, though I have a real job and shit so it may take until the 2nd, but I've done a good job of always getting the results out (mostly) on time in the past so I feel confident in being able to do it again this time.

Have fun and happy voting!

This is gonna be damn near impossible.

Oh, is that time of year already!?! Damn!!

Jesus Christ, where do I even start.

I know where I would start:
Sabbat - History of a time to come
Sabbat- Dreamweaver (reflection of our yesterdays)

A strong decade for metal.

THIS Is going to be the hardest one of all time.

I know about 4-5 off the top of my head already, but then the more I think, the more good options there fucking are.

Cool!!! Not gonna have any issues cramming my list with thrash metal this time around but given how much good shit of all sorts released in the 80s I think it might just end up a little more varied.

10 only, you son of a bitch.

List submitted. I have been preparing and refining this list since the 90s poll last year.

I basically identified every 80s album in my collection, shortlisted 25, continuously reviewed my collection, and periodically revisited my shortlist.

From there I was able to whittle down to 10.

This was easier for me than most because I personally find 90s metal to be more impactful to me on a personal level. No doubt that the 25 shortlisted here are classics, I just always lean 90s.

The shortlist:



Other 80s albums in my collection, some were considered for shortlisting, some were not:

Lol.

probably a hot take, but it’s gonna be tough to narrow this one down

This is gonna take a while for me to place my vote, because there's a countless amount of classic 80s metal albums that I wanna put it. Gonna need to think through a lot of them...

The final list is going to have hundreds of titles in it. There's so many releases that are pure quality. 1986 alone has probably 6 or 7 releases that could top the list.

1. Metallica - Master of Puppets
2. King Diamond - "Them"
3. Flotsam and Jetsam - Doomsday for the Deceiver
4. Helloween - Walls of Jericho
5. Annihilator - Alice in Hell
6. Slayer - Reign in Blood
7. Exodus - Bonded by Blood
8. Sepultura - Beneath the Remains
9. Helstar - Nosferatu
10. Crimson Glory - Transcendence

Those I did not send to BastardHead because:
i) I self-imposed a one-per-band rule
ii) they did not make it today

but mostly because

iii) I did not want to hurt their feelings:



---- all of the above would probably gonna win over any of the following life-defining masterpieces:


--- "should I cut these? But I don't want to hurt their feelings. And it took me so long to write. And it's such a cool list of albums, just look at them all together!"

Yeah, the more I think about this one the more difficult it seems even to decide where to start. When I think ‘80s metal, I think of Maiden in their heyday, I think Ronnie James Dio, Motorhead, Slayer, Priest, Mercyful Fate, etc. But then you’ve also gotta consider stuff like Morbid Angel’s debut, the first handful of Bathory records, Celtic Frost, stuff like old Bolt Thrower and the early releases of other formative death metal bands, and even the first grumblings of second wave black metal.

I got scared a little when I saw there was no pre-poll thread during the month of May. I always look forward to these polls as they are a good occasion to revisit albums and to discover stuff I might have missed, but also to discuss these albums with others.

I've just started working on my list. I know it won't be easy to chose only 10, but hey, it's part of the game!

Enjoy the poll everyone, and thanks for all of this again BastardHead!

Also shit, if we allow ourselves to consider Rush, since they’re on the Archives and therefore perfectly eligible, then that makes it all the harder. Moving Pictures could very well be album of the whole decade, even though it’s emphatically not metal.

Awesome, thanks BH. Got a rough idea of my list, although picking those last few spots will be tough. It's gonna be really interesting to see the final list, because there's so many strong albums.

I just realized that I can't really vote for Dreams of Eschaton / Mark of the Beast for this poll.
As tempting as it is to stuff 8 Manilla Road releases in my top 10 that isn't going to happen so not really a loss but would def make my aoty list for 1981 itself.

In Alien Guy voice: I'm not saying it's going to be Master of Puppets, but it's going to be Master of Puppets.

At the risk of influencing votes (because I have an inflated sense of self importance and my predictions have always landed in at least the top two or three), I really have no idea what to expect for this one. There are SO MANY Best Album Evers within this timeframe that it could go in like a dozen different ways. Metallica has a really good shot with both Ride and Puppets being iconic entryways for a huge amount of people along with just being great on their own, Maiden has seven stunners in a row and all of them could take the crown with no controversy (I'd wager NOTB, Powerslave, and SSOASS have the best chances though), Priest could also easily take it with either British Steel or Screaming for Vengeance (personally I think Defenders of the Faith is their best 80s album but I think the wider popularity of those other two will carry them over it), Reign in Blood also has that perfect confluence of influence, staying power, visibility, and quality that could take it to the top, the black metal contingent of the site alone could catapult Bathory to an easy win since pickings are kinda otherwise slim for that genre (plus those albums are incredible on their own), similar story with the few death metal releases at the end of the decade (Death, Morbid Angel, and Bolt Thrower would all fare extremely well even if there weren't less options in their realm), the ones who are more "in the know" could take the less mainstream but still iconic kings to the top like Mercyful Fate and Manilla Road, et cetera ad infinitum.

Money on the table though, I'm placing a split bet on Powerslave and Reign in Blood, with a side bet on Altars of Madness. I think in the earlier eras of the site the winner would've been Altars without a second thought because it was basically required that you worship it if you didn't want to be bullied into oblivion, but with the userbase being so much larger nowadays I think it'll finish in the top five without issue but I think Maiden or Slayer's wider appeal and status as entryways into metal as a whole and more extreme variants respectively will ultimately put them at the pole.

With these polls, sometimes it's easy to predict the outcome, but I'm not sure what will happen with this one. If you made this poll outside of Metal-Archives, basically anywhere with a community that is more into the mainstream, Master of Puppets would be the easy pick for first place, and Ride the Lightning would also most likely end up in the top 3, alongside Powerslave, and I think Piece of Mind and Reign in Blood would probably complete the top 5.

However, Metal-Archives being a bit more on the extreme side of metal, it's not as obvious that Master of Puppets will win that easily. I'm expecting Slayer and Death to fare extremely well in this, although Slayer might suffer from vote splitting more as they had 4 highly appreciated releases in the 80's, while Death only had 2.

Somehow, I'm also expecting Iron Maiden to suffer from vote splitting, although they will most definitely fare very well in the poll regardless, and Powerslave seems to be very very popular around here, so who knows.

However, with recent trends on MA, and the polls bringing in more and more people every year, I think that the classic albums will probably still crowd the top spots, and I think Master of Puppets will win it all. I'm not sure of it, but if I had to call one, I think it would be it. We could still get a surprise and the extreme metal community might rally behind a Slayer album, or the heavy metal community could get Powerslave to take the 1st place.

So yeah, just for the sake of making a prediction:
1st place : Master of Puppets
2nd place : Reign in Blood
3rd place : Powerslave

As for me, I'm a big fan of extreme metal, so my votes will definitely include a lot of them. I'm hoping that Realm of Chaos, Altars of Madness, Scream Bloody Gore, Leprosy, Blood Fire Death and Symphonies of Sickness will do go in this poll. Altars and Leprosy might make the top 10. I'm not sure about Blood Fire Death though. As for Realm of Chaos and Symphonies of Sickness, I don't expect them to lend in the top 10, but they will most definitely make mine

My short list, after just thinking about it this morning goes like this :

Unbelievable that you'd keep the "must be 10" rule for top yearly polls but not the full decade ones. Anyone who submits a list with fewer than 10 should be banned tbh

rough draft so far:

Motörhead - Ace of Spades (1980)
Metallica - Ride the Lightning (1984)
Mercyful Fate - Don't Break the Oath (1984)
Iron Maiden - Somewhere in Time (1986)
Slayer - Reign in Blood (1986)
Fates Warning - Awaken the Guardian (1986)
Voivod - Killing Technology (1987)
Toxik - World Circus (1987)
Rage - Perfect Man (1988)
Vio-Lence - Eternal Nightmare (1988)
Slayer - South of Heaven (1988)
Bathory - Blood Fire Death (1988)
Sodom - Agent Orange (1989)
Coroner - No More Color (1989)
Paradox - Heresy (1989)

will be interesting to see how that narrows down to the top 10.

The saddest part about this specific poll will be to see some albums in a Rando corner to the point where one will scratch his/her head as in "NO WAY! HOW'S THAT EVEN POSSIBLE!" no doubt due to a fact that 80s classics by far outweigh by sheer numbers the classics of all other decades combine. I mean, it will be sad but not at all shocking to see albums like "Kill'em All" or "Fatal Portrait" not making a main poll at all.

Also personally I am really curious to see how Anthrax will stack up vs "Those other Thrash bands that didn't make Big4", namely Exodus, Overkill and Testament...hopefully we can all put those discussions to rest for good on who should have or have not deserved it more, haha

I wonder how Destruction might get positions...

This is probably my least listened to decade for metal....

Which means my top 10 will be filled with the most obvious classics anyways.

And I've got my list sorted. All the usual suspects are there. Because of course they are.

These are fun. The 80s is the classic era of heavy metal. Most of my favourite music is from the 90s and 00s, but the 80s has the bulk of my "traditional metal" favourites.

I don't have a list now, but I suspect it will have some Maiden, Black Sabbath, Dio, Slayer, Metallica... On the more extreme side of things we have the golden age of Bathory's black metal period.

Kill em All will absolutely make the main poll (I assume you mean top 100). There's no way it doesn't. Might not be in the top 10, but I will be shocked if it doesn't. Fatal Portrait? Not so sure about that one. At the very least it will be much much lower than Abigail (as it frankly should be, Fatal Portrait is solid but aside from Halloween and The Lake I can't remember a lick of it).




Yeah, I don't think its gonna be MOP either. It might be, but it won't be with the wide margin Rust In Peace has. Even though he hasn't been an influence here in quite sometime, this place will always have the spectre of Ultraboris and purist thrash sensibilities. Not to mention that Ride The Lightning has an equal amount of fans (me being one of them). It's not a case like Megadeth where say Rust In Peace/Peace Sells has a clear winner, if for no other reason different decade.

I more or less agree with your choices of Reign, Powerslave or Altars Of Madness being the possible winner, along with Ride The Lightning, and I'll throw out a dark horse: Heaven & Hell. That album has exponentially increased in popularity over the years, to the point where today it feels as popular if not moreso than Paranoid.

YESSSS finally. My list is gonna be basic as fuck lol.

From the least basic At The Gates user title. Great juxtaposition.

The Candle and Dressed in White are incredibly memorable masterpieces. Dressed in White might feature the best Denner intro solo ever and that's saying much.

FP = 10/10

What an incredibly challenging decade to narrow down to 10 albums.

Black Sabbath - Heaven and Hell
Riot - Thundersteel
Iron Maiden - Killers
Megadeth - Peace Sells... But Who's Buying?
Manowar - Into Glory Ride
Fates Warning - Awaken the Guardian
Queensryche - The Warning
Crimson Glory - Crimson Glory
Coroner - Punishment for Decadence
Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance

These are my choices. In my opinion, this is a good mixture of obvious classics and deep cuts. I didn't want to include any band twice either.

1. Savatage - Gutter Ballet
2. Anthrax - Among the Living
3. Iron Maiden - Somewhere In Time
4. Loudness - Disillusion
5. Ария - Мания Bеличия
6. Metallica - ...and Justice for All
7. Sabbrabells - Sabbrabells
8. Gargoyle - 禊
9. Anthem - Hunting Time
10. Black Sabbath - Heaven and Hell

I don't want to sound like a pessimistic asshole but let's be real it's gonna be Metallica, so why even bother..

There's a good chance I'll include this album in my top 10, so I'm glad it's not going to be in the rando's corner.

It's difficult to distill it down to ten, but these five would absolutely make my list, without question:

Sabbath - Heaven and Hell
Fates Warning - Awaken the Guardian
Overkill - Years Of Decay
Maiden - Somewhere In Time
Mercyful Fate - Melissa