Metal Academy Awards - get your ratings in by the end of January
Daniel and I have been discussing the idea of having annual Metal Academy Awards. We realise that we don't have a big audience (yet), but we'd like to keep introducing new things and providing ways to potentially draw in more metal fans to the site.
So to start the ball rolling, at the completion of January, whichever 2020 releases have the highest ratings with at least 3 votes for each of the clans will be the Metal Academy Release of the Year for that clan. We'll do the same thing for covers.
This gives everyone close to a month to get their final ratings in. I reckon if we all band together we can have a good crack at having at least 3 ratings for all the 2020 album covers.
To give you some idea, if I was to call the winners today, the results would be as follows...
RELEASES
FALLEN: Neptunian Maximalism - Éons
GATEWAY: Deftones - Ohms
GUARDIANS: Brothers of Metal - Emblas Saga
HORDE: Ulcerate - Stare Into Death and Be Still
INFINITE: Protest the Hero - Palimpsest
NORTH: Paysage d'Hiver - Im Wald
PIT: Testament - Titans of Creation
REVOLUTION: Dynazty - The Dark Delight
SPHERE: Code Orange - Underneath
COVERS
FALLEN: Atramentus - Stygian
GATEWAY: Katatonia - City Burials
GUARDIANS: Powerwolf - Best of the Blessed
HORDE: Inferi - Of Sunless Realms
INFINITE: Pain of Salvation - Panther
NORTH: Aara - En Ergô Einai
PIT: Macbeth - Gedankenwächter
REVOLUTION: Amaranthe - Manifest
SPHERE: Psychosexual - Torch the Faith
I think you've got Dynazty's "The Dark Delight" mis-tagged Ben. That's a purely heavy metal record according to RYM.
The album had both Heavy Metal and Trance Metal as it's primary genres when I added it to the site. Now the Trance Metal genre has been voted out.
I normally don't change genres on albums that have ratings, letting them go to the Hall instead.
Can we make the exception here? We can't really have a release winning The Revolution Album Of The Year when it's credentials for the clan are questionable.
Can we make the exception here? We can't really have a release winning The Revolution Album Of The Year when it's credentials for the clan are questionable.
Exception made, as the voting is strongly against Trance Metal on RYM now. If anyone has an issue with that, let me know.
Code Orange's Underneath is also disqualified from The Revolution since it's already in The Sphere. All we have left is Gulch's Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress and Sunami's self-titled release, but most likely Gulch's album (one of very few metalcore releases that doesn't appeal to me) would win...
I see what you mean. I guess it's very possible that an album could pick up two awards. Who knows, perhaps voting in the next few days will change things up anyway.
I don’t see why Code Orange couldn’t win two clan awards to be honest. And wouldn’t The Revolution be the more logical place for them if you had to choose one?
Anyway... you still have the chance to change these results by submitting more ratings Andi.
I was also thinking that we could have a few additional awards on top of the clan-specific one:
1. Metal Academy Overall Release Of The Year
2. Metal Academy Debut Of The Year
3. Metal Academy Comeback Of The Year (for artist's releasing their first record in more than five years)
4. I'm also toying with each clan voting on a clan-specific song of the year. We could set up a short list based on the most popular songs from the top-rated releases for everyone to vote on. It wouldn't require as much investment of time as listening to full releases obviously.
What does everyone think of these suggestions?
I've noticed our monthly feature release for The Sphere (Uniform's "Shame" album) is making good ground on Code Orange's "Underneath" for the industrial metal crown. I'd imagine we'll likely get another rating or two before the end of the month which could see it taking the biscuits. It'll be interesting to see what eventuates there.
I'm extending the award cut off to Friday this week (so they will be announced on Friday). Get your release and cover ratings in for 2020!