Metal Academy Charts Chat
I thought I would start this thread for general chatter about the Metal Academy charts. I don't know if this will be of interest to anyone else, but it's the sort of shit that I get to thinking about sometimes!
I thought it might be interesting to track the charts over time to try to gauge how The Academy is developing. To this end I have made archiving lists for the Top 100 with a minimum of 15 votes and the Top 50 with a minimum of 20 votes as of 1st January 2025 and hope to use these for comparison with future charts to track any changes and trends.
Links to the lists:
Metal Academy Charts Top 50 With 20+ Ratings 01/01/25
Metal Academy Charts Top 100 with 15+ Ratings 01/01/25
The top 100 chart as an even spread of clan representatives for 6 of the 9 clans although the Gateway and Revolution on 2 each and the Sphere with a lone representative are lagging, quite expectedly I suppose. The others rank as:
Horde & Pit - 20 each
Guardians - 19
Infinite - 18
North - 17
Fallen - 15
(This adds up to more than 100 due to dual-tagged releases)
There are a total of 173 releases with 15+ ratings. 21 releases scored a higher site rating than clan rating.
There is a larger gap, percentage-wise on the Top 50 chart. The Gateway still has 2 representatives and the Sphere one, but The Revolution has no representation at all.
The others rank as:
Infinite - 15
Pit - 13
Guardians - 11
North - 10
Horde - 8
Fallen - 6
So a big drop-off for the Horde between 15 and 20 ratings.
There are 63 releases with 20+ votes.
Immolation's "Close to a World Below" has just made it onto the 20+ ratings chart and is now sitting at #1 showing what fantastic taste the Metal Academy members have!
Blind Guardian's "Imaginations From the Other Side" has also debuted on the 20+ chart at #8, Deftones' "White Pony" has come in at #27 and Ulver's "Bergtatt" at #29.
There are now 77 releases on the 20+ chart.
Some of my favorite releases with 20+ ratings:
Neurosis - Through Silver in Blood (#13)
Atheist - Unquestionable Presence (#30)
Godflesh - Streetcleaner (#46)
Atheist - Piece of Time (#58)
Only 77 albums so far have a 20+, so I changed the address to minimize it to 19 to see what I could add with my rating. I only got one to get there, but Iron Maiden's Piece of Mind debuts at #38.
Bringing up 18 to 19, I rated Crack the Skye and Sunbather. So if anyone wants to add one of these two and hasn't, here's your opportunity to see them debut in the 20+.
It would appear that I’ve rated every one of the releases with over twenty ratings which is perhaps more of an indication that I really should get a life more than anything else.
It would appear that I’ve rated every one of the releases with over twenty ratings which is perhaps more of an indication that I really should get a life more than anything else.
Do any of us really have lives?
Not being Lynchian here, we're music nerds.
The 20+ votes chart now has 105 entries, a 36% increase since June.
The Top 20 at the beginning of 2026 is:
1. [1] Judas Priest - "Painkiller"
2. [3] Candlemass - "Nightfall"
3. [2] Candlemass - "Epicus Doomicus Metallicus"
4. [-] Immolation - "Close to a World Below"
5. [4]Metallica - "Master of Puppets"
6. [6] Metallica - "Ride the Lightning"
7. [7] Slayer - "Reign in Blood"
8. [8] Black Sabbath - "Master of Reality"
9. [-] Blind Guardian - "Imaginations From the Other Side"
10. [5] Iron Maiden - "Powerslave"
11. [9] Death - "Symbolic"
12. [10] Neurosis - "Through Silver in Blood"
13. [11] Darkthrone - "A Blaze in the Northern Sky"
14. [12] Iron Maiden - "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son"
15. [18] Acid Bath - "When the Kite String Pops"
16. [14] Black Sabbath - "Paranoid"
17. [16] Cryptopsy - "None So Vile"
18. [17] Bathory - "Hammerheart"
19. [19] Slayer - "Seasons in the Abyss"
20. [-] Rainbow - "Rising"
Leaving the top 20 were:
Bathory - "Under the Sign of the Black Mark" [from #13 to #22]
Burzum - "Filosofem" [from #15 to #21]
Alice in Chains - "Dirt" [from #20 to #23]
While I don't AGREE with the #1, I acknowledge that it certainly deserves to be there. It might as well be "the" metal album.
I do need to get around to reviewing and rating the rest of the Death discography, although I say that to myself everytime I look at one of these lists.
I do need to get around to reviewing and rating the rest of the Death discography, although I say that to myself everytime I look at one of these lists.
Out of curiosity, how many of them have you heard? And if all of them, how long has it been since you last went back on them?
I do need to get around to reviewing and rating the rest of the Death discography, although I say that to myself everytime I look at one of these lists.
Out of curiosity, how many of them have you heard? And if all of them, how long has it been since you last went back on them?
All of them (have them all on CD) but must be 12 months since I last listened to any one of them.