Ben's Forum Replies

The following bands have been added to Metal Academy from the 24th of December, 2020 to the 3rd of January, 2021.

1. Gatekeeper (GUARDIANS)

2. Megaton Sword (GUARDIANS) - requested by Xephyr

3. Lèpoka (GUARDIANS, NORTH) - requested by Xephyr

4. Lightbringer Of Sweden, The (GUARDIANS) - requested by Xephyr

5. Untamed Land (NORTH)

6. Vilkacis (NORTH)

7. Sleepwalkers (NORTH, INFINITE)

8. Trna (NORTH, INFINITE)

9. Sainte Marie des Loups (NORTH)

10. Altar of Perversion (NORTH)

11. Yhdarl (NORTH, FALLEN)

12. Demonomancy (NORTH, HORDE)

13. Autarcie (NORTH)

14. Mutilation Rites (NORTH, HORDE)

15. Human Serpent (NORTH)

16. Outre (NORTH)

17. Singularity (NORTH, HORDE) - requested by Xephyr

18. Oubliette (NORTH) - requested by Xephyr

19. Oxygen Destroyer (PIT, HORDE)

20. Dali Thundering Concept, The (REVOLUTION, INFINITE)

21. Palm Reader (REVOLUTION, INFINITE)

22. Mental Cruelty (REVOLUTION, HORDE)

23. Ragana (FALLEN, INFINITE)

24. Thou / Ragana (FALLEN)

25. Grave Upheaval (FALLEN, HORDE)

26. Company of Serpents (FALLEN) - requested by Sonny92

27. LLNN (FALLEN, INFINITE)

28. Ancestors (FALLEN)

29. Agrimonia (FALLEN, INFINITE)

30. Sinistro (FALLEN, INFINITE)

31. Necromancers, The (FALLEN)

32. Ataraxy (FALLEN, HORDE)

33. Sunnata (FALLEN)

34. Malthusian (HORDE)

35. Parius (HORDE, INFINITE)

36. Hissing (HORDE)

37. Setsuko (HORDE)

38. Garroted (HORDE)

39. Torture Rack (HORDE)

40. Abysmal Torment (HORDE)

41. Irreversible Mechanism (HORDE, INFINITE)

42. Xenoblight (HORDE)

43. Replicant (HORDE)

44. Cosmic Atrophy (HORDE)

45. Our Place of Worship Is Silence (HORDE)

46. Skyglow (HORDE, INFINITE)

47. Algorithm, The (INFINITE)

48. Kontinuum (INFINITE)

49. Lucid Planet (INFINITE) - requested by Xephyr

50. Pyramid Theorem (INFINITE) - requested by Xephyr

51. Blue Stahli (SPHERE) - requested by Xephyr

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.

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.

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.

Absolutely Sonny! I grew up reading Stephen King and fantasy series like Dragonlance (as a kid), Wheel of Time and eventually Game of Thrones, but have later in life turned to more science fiction. As it so happens, I'm collecting and reading the SF Masterworks series, having read quite a few Wells, Dick and Vonnegut to date.

I think a lot of fans of metal will be into genre stories (fantasy, horror and fantasy), hence the themes and artwork.

There's a double entry for Venom Prison when you search in Bands)

Thanks. Sorted that out.

The following bands have been added to Metal Academy from the 21st to the 23rd of December, 2020.

1. Noose Rot (FALLEN, HORDE)

2. Innumerable Forms (FALLEN, HORDE)

3. Morne (FALLEN, INFINITE)

4. Hamferð (FALLEN)

5. Crawl (FALLEN)

6. Boss Keloid (FALLEN)

7. Altars of Grief (FALLEN, NORTH)

8. Conan (FALLEN)

9. In Twilight's Embrace (HORDE, NORTH)

10. Exlimitir (HORDE, INFINITE)

11. Taphos (HORDE)

12. Knelt Rote (HORDE, NORTH)

13. Closet Witch (HORDE, REVOLUTION, NORTH)

14. Golgothan Remains (HORDE)

15. Embrace of Thorns (HORDE, NORTH)

16. Corpsessed (HORDE)

17. Zealotry (HORDE)

18. Voidhanger (HORDE, NORTH)

19. Ritual Necromancy (HORDE)

20. Extremity (HORDE)

21. Æpoch (HORDE, INFINITE)

22. Fractal Gates (HORDE)

23. Solar Temple (NORTH)

24. Cosmic Church (NORTH)

25. ION (NORTH)

26. Mahr (NORTH)

27. Spite (NORTH)

28. Crawl / Leviathan (NORTH)

29. Nahtrunar (NORTH)

30. Sorcier des glaces (NORTH)

31. Moenen of Xezbeth (NORTH)

32. Iskandr (NORTH)

33. Cantique lépreux (NORTH)

34. Mare (NORTH)

35. Baise ma hache (NORTH)

36. Antlers (NORTH)

37. Alrakis (NORTH)

38. Wallachia (NORTH, GUARDIANS) - requested by MacabreEternal

39. Funeral Storm (NORTH)

40. Whipstriker (PIT, GUARDIANS)

41. Rapture (PIT)

42. Jesus Piece (REVOLUTION)

43. Light the Torch (REVOLUTION)

44. Dee Snider (GUARDIANS)

45. Fabio Lione / Alessandro Conti (GUARDIANS)

46. Sacred Gate (GUARDIANS) - requested by Sonny92

Thanks guys! I appreciate your appreciation.

Here's to another 25,000!

I already do. I listen to game soundtracks all the time. In fact, my most played release of 2020 according to Spotify was the Borderlands 3 soundtrack. So good!

The following bands have been added to Metal Academy from the 15th to the 20th of December, 2020.

1. Coilguns (REVOLUTION, FALLEN, INFINITE)

2. xServitudex (REVOLUTION)

3. Greyhaven (REVOLUTION)

4. Jazmin Bean (GATEWAY)

5. Massive Retaliation (NORTH, HORDE)

6. Hajduk (NORTH)

7. Wulkanaz (NORTH)

8. møl (NORTH)

9. Ungfell (NORTH)

10. Slægt (NORTH, GUARDIANS)

11. Totenmesse (NORTH)

12. Black Mass of Absu (NORTH, FALLEN)

13. Mork (NORTH)

14. Spectral Wound (NORTH)

15. Acathexis (NORTH)

16. Shylmagoghnar (NORTH, HORDE)

17. Guðveiki (NORTH, HORDE)

18. Put (NORTH)

19. Délétère (NORTH)

20. Sylvaine (NORTH, INFINITE)

21. Paara (NORTH)

22. Death Fortress (NORTH)

23. Haggus (HORDE)

24. Bandit (HORDE)

25. HIRS (HORDE, FALLEN)

26. P.L.F. (HORDE)

27. Gotsu Totsu Kotsu (HORDE)

28. Galvanizer (HORDE)

29. Mortuous (HORDE)

30. Teleport (HORDE, PIT)

31. Anachronism (HORDE)

32. Merciless Death (PIT) - requested by Sonny92

33. Ugory (FALLEN)

34. Hangman's Chair (FALLEN)

35. Whitehorse (FALLEN)

36. Whitehorse & The Body (FALLEN)

37. Spaceslug (FALLEN)

38. Conjurer (FALLEN, INFINITE)

39. Erdve (FALLEN)

40. CHRCH (FALLEN)

41. Night Verses (INFINITE)

42. VOLA (INFINITE)

43. Michael Romeo (INFINITE, GUARDIANS)

44. Psychonaut (INFINITE)

45. Ostura (INFINITE, GUARDIANS)

46. Wytch Hazel (GUARDIANS)

I'm in a bit of a doom metal phase too. I tend to go back to favourites rather than looking for something fresh. The holidays is a great time to check out some new stuff.

The following bands have been added to Metal Academy from the 11th to the 14th of December, 2020.

1. Adrift (FALLEN, INFINITE, REVOLUTION)

2. Oozing Wound (FALLEN, PIT)

3. Marijannah (FALLEN)

4. Nocny Kochanek (GUARDIANS)

5. Orion's Reign (GUARDIANS)

6. Isolated Mind, An (NORTH)

7. Blue Hummingbird on the Left (NORTH)

8. Vessel of Iniquity (NORTH)

9. Nyogthaeblisz (NORTH)

10. Deveneror (NORTH)

11. Neckbeard Deathcamp (NORTH, REVOLUTION)

12. Respire (NORTH)

13. Owls Woods Graves (NORTH)

14. Imha Tarikat (NORTH)

15. Hope Drone (NORTH, INFINITE)

16. King Apathy (NORTH, INFINITE)

17. Totaled (NORTH)

18. Weregoat (NORTH)

19. Wristmeetrazor (REVOLUTION)

20. Sanction (REVOLUTION)

21. Varials (REVOLUTION)

22. Of Mice & Men (REVOLUTION, GATEWAY)

23. Bad Omens (REVOLUTION, GATEWAY)

24. Issues (REVOLUTION, GATEWAY, INFINITE)

25. Infant Annihilator (REVOLUTION, HORDE)

26. King 810 (GATEWAY)

27. Puppy (GATEWAY)

28. I Prevail (GATEWAY)

29. Mark Morton (GATEWAY)

30. Festerday (HORDE)

31. Rendered Helpless (HORDE)

32. Uneven Structure (INFINITE)

33. Wear Your Wounds (INFINITE)

I'm not sure I'd want it any other way! What would we talk about?! 

Slumber - Rapture from Fallout (2004)

Ahab - Below the Sun from The Call of the Wretched Sea (2006)

Moonspell - Nocturna from Darkness and Hope (2001)

Leviathan - Wicked Fields of Calm from Scar Sighted (2015)

Lunar Aurora -  Glück from Andacht (2007)

Windir - The Blacksmith and the Troll of Lundamyri from Arntor (1999)

I disagree that Viking Metal started as just Viking-themed black metal. Viking Metal, as performed by Bathory, has zero black metal in it. Viking-themed black metal (Enslaved) is just black metal, just as viking themed death metal (Amon Amarth) is just death metal.

What makes things even more messed up is that Bathory's Viking Metal was HEAVILY inspired by Manowar (even if Quorthon denied it), which is just labelled Heavy Metal. If you listen to Blood on Ice, the first non-black metal album recorded by Bathory, there are sections lifted straight from Manowar.

When I was designing the clan system, I ran an analysis for every metal genre to see what percentage of albums were connected to other genres. The result of this analysis was what really guided me towards making the clans the way they are. For example, a relatively high percentage of Grindcore albums also had a Death Metal genre, but very few other genres came to the surface (how many Grindcore Power Metal albums have you heard?). It therefore made sense that Grindcore and Death Metal go together.

When it comes to Folk Metal, around 20% of them of them also have a Black Metal genre. About 15% of them have a Viking Metal genre.

Perhaps more tellingly though, around 40% of Viking Metal releases also have a Black Metal genre. Given 40% of Viking Metal releases also have a Folk Metal genre, there's little doubt that from a stats point of view, the three genres are strongly linked. So even if we did decide to split off Viking and Folk Metal from Black Metal, a high percentage of their releases would end up in both clans anyway.

For me, this really just highlights a flaw in the actual genre description. If you're going to call something Folk Metal, then any release that has an element of Folk in it will be lumped into it, rather than releases that actually have a similar sound. This results in vastly different sounding albums being categorised the same. Primordial and Mägo de Oz aren't really going for the same audience.

Your solution might fix the Black Metal playlist Daniel, but I think if you imagine a world where you're making a playlist for the new Viking Metal / Folk Metal clan, you'd find that the inconsistency would have just transitioned across.

I'd still love to sit down and try to formulate an entirely new metal genre list. It would be difficult, but very rewarding.

The following bands have been added to Metal Academy from the 4th to the 10th of December, 2020.

1. Ningen Isu (GUARDIANS, FALLEN)

2. Sanhedrin (GUARDIANS)

3. Iron Griffin (GUARDIANS)

4. Midnight Priest (GUARDIANS)

5. Inclination (REVOLUTION)

6. Kublai Khan TX (REVOLUTION, PIT)

7. Seizures (REVOLUTION)

8. Judiciary (REVOLUTION, PIT)

9. Amygdala (REVOLUTION)

10. Minors (REVOLUTION)

11. Enterprise Earth (REVOLUTION, HORDE)

12. High Command (PIT)

13. Herod (FALLEN, INFINITE)

14. Rorcal (FALLEN, INFINITE, NORTH)

15. (Dolch) (FALLEN)

16. Primitive Man / Hell (FALLEN)

17. Helms Alee (FALLEN, INFINITE)

18. A Novelist (HORDE, INFINITE)

19. Frozen Soul (HORDE)

20. Pig's Blood (HORDE, NORTH)

21. Iapetus (HORDE, INFINITE)

22. Organectomy (HORDE)

23. Death Worship (NORTH)

24. Minenwerfer (NORTH)

25. Geheimnisvoll (NORTH)

26. Kvelgeyst (NORTH)

27. NEDXXX (NORTH, INFINITE)

28. Mephorash (NORTH)

29. Woe (NORTH)

30. Ultar (NORTH)

31. Ashes (NORTH)

32. Cloak (NORTH)

33. Vimur (NORTH)

34. Sermon (INFINITE)

Unlike about 90% of metal fans (it seems) I'm not really keen on fantasy art, although I do love good sci-fi artwork, so probably The Infinite would be one. Natural landscapes are also a big favourite, especially mountains, snow, forests and water, so The North obviously. The melancholic aspect of a lot of The Fallen artwork also has much appeal, so I would make that my third. Also any clan that has Mariusz Lewandowski artwork!

I do love Mariusz's work (A LOT), but I think he needs to find a new colour palette at some point. It's all starting to look a bit samey.

You might notice that whenever I'm adding new releases, I always try to end up with a quality cover for each clan. Ideally that cover will be representative of the clan overall as well.

The Guardians is always super easy, as about 75% of their album covers are fantasy.

The Revolution is the most difficult as the covers for its genres often don't follow any sort of representing themes. All the Deathcore albums have Horde-like imagery, but the Metalcore ones defy any sort of common theme.

I spend the most time trying to find a great cover for a Fallen release, as that's the first thing people see when they log in.

Yes, I spend way too much time thinking about this stuff. 

I agree with you Tymell. The Guardians definitely have the most consistently awesome covers, but The Horde and The North are totally my bag.

The following bands have been added to Metal Academy from the 2nd to the 3rd of December, 2020.

1. Dimhav (GUARDIANS, INFINITE)

2. Neck of the Woods (INFINITE, HORDE, REVOLUTION)

3. Fleshworld (INFINITE, FALLEN)

4. Déluge (INFINITE, NORTH)

5. Spiritbox (INFINITE, REVOLUTION, GATEWAY)

6. Naeramarth (INFINITE) - requested by illusionist

7. High Priestess (FALLEN)

8. Saturno (FALLEN, NORTH) - requested by Sonny92

9. Nero or the Fall of Rome (FALLEN, NORTH) - requested by Sonny92

10. Xoth (HORDE, NORTH, PIT)

11. Outre Tombe (HORDE) - requested by MacabreEternal

12. Ebony Pendant (NORTH)

13. Stormkeep (NORTH)

The following bands have been added to Metal Academy from the 26th of November to the 1st of December, 2020.

1. Cremator (PIT) - requested by Daniel

2. Rampage (PIT) - requested by Daniel

3. Massive Appendage (PIT) - requested by Daniel

4. Enforced (PIT)

5. Surra (PIT)

6. Screamer (GUARDIANS)

7. Mirror (GUARDIANS)

8. Hello Kitty Suicide Club (HORDE)

9. Phobophilic (HORDE)

10. Ossuary (HORDE)

11. Vomit Forth (HORDE)

12. Omegavortex (HORDE, NORTH)

13. Carnal Tomb (HORDE)

14. Disamara (NORTH) - requested by Sonny92

15. Wagner Ödegård (NORTH)

16. Këkht Aräkh (NORTH)

17. Truchło strzygi (NORTH)

18. Lichmagick (NORTH)

19. Ayr (NORTH) - requested by Sonny92

20. Czort (NORTH) - requested by Sonny92

21. Eternal Valley (NORTH) - requested by MacabreEternal

22. Ifing (NORTH) - requested by MacabreEternal

23. Sulphuric Night (NORTH)

24. Old Corpse Road (NORTH) - requested by Sonny92

25. The Infernal Sea (NORTH) - requested by Sonny92

26. Faustcoven (NORTH, FALLEN) - requested by Sonny92

27. Barren Altar (NORTH, FALLEN) - requested by Sonny92

28. Leechfeast (FALLEN) - requested by Sonny92

29. Green Druid (FALLEN) - requested by Sonny92

30. Alms (FALLEN) - requested by Sonny92

31. Ursa (FALLEN) - requested by Sonny92

32. Body Void (FALLEN)

33. Never Ending Game (REVOLUTION)

34. Thornhill (REVOLUTION, INFINITE)

35. Dead Kiwis (REVOLUTION)

36. Mortality Rate (REVOLUTION)

37. Ray Alder (INFINITE)

38. E-L-R (INFINITE)

I very much enjoyed this one Daniel. I already knew that the Solitude Aeturnus, Draconian and Evoken tracks are amazing (I selected them for that reason), but the Cult of Luna track is just as incredible! I've not checked out the Julie Christmas collaboration album, but I sure will now. Monolord was pretty enjoyable too.

Probably the only tracks that didn't float my boat were Robots Of The Ancient World (have we heard enough bands with this Sabbath-cloning sound?) and Neptunian Maximalism (which just isn't my thing). Still, I'm happy to know what these bands are about now.

Good stuff!

I'm afraid I generally ignore splits. There's the odd occasion where one of my favourite bands is involved in a split (such as Ruins of Beverast), but so often I find that the material ends up being released separately anyway. One of the things I love about metal is that bands create "albums" rather than just "songs". Split releases generally ruin that album length theme and consistency, just as cover tracks so often do.

I'm probably missing out on some great tracks by not really partaking, so maybe it's time I got over my bias.

OK, now I feel bad about all the things I said about you! 

Um... you're welcome!

Like I was wrong about you being a supportive brother?

I've just been salty ever since you openly mocked my love of Summoning on the Metal Academy podcast.

Yeah, I always try to go into listening to something with an unbiased ear. If you go in assuming you're going to hate something, you generally will.

Also, I've found (throughout life really), that Daniel can often be wrong. 

I've now completed the latest run of site improvements. I believe I've implemented all but one suggestion (MacabreEternal's suggestion to add a navigation toolbar at the bottom), which I'll revisit at some point.

I hope you all enjoy the changes and feel like a genuine part of this community. We'll continue to modify the site based on member feedback while we attempt to craft a highly functional metal-focused community website that encourages all types of metal fans and opinions.

I've implemented both of Sonny's suggestions, adding a descriptor for the member selector while making it searchable.

So it's now really easy to see what any particular site member rated the albums on any given list.

I give your rating system a 4. 

Mine would be something like...

5 - A perfect (or as close as you can get to perfect) release. One of the very best!

4 - A really great release, and one that I'll go back to time and time again.

3 - A decent release. Very listenable, but either inconsistent or fails to stand out from the crowd.

2 - A pretty bad release. I'll rarely if ever listen to it again.

1 - A terrible release that's basically unlistenable.

This request has been upheld by the Hall and has therefore been added to The Infinite.

Ben, please add Cremator (Australia), Rampage (Australia) & Massive Appendage (Australia).

You've always wanted a massive appendage.

The following bands have been added to Metal Academy from the 21st to the 25th of November, 2020.

1. Ebonivory (INFINITE)

2. Ghostemane (SPHERE, REVOLUTION)

3. Psychosexual (SPHERE, GATEWAY)

4. Miasmatic Necrosis (HORDE)

5. Kruelty (HORDE, REVOLUTION)

6. Putrescent Seepage (HORDE)

7. Induced (HORDE)

8. Goratory (HORDE)

9. Purtenance (HORDE, FALLEN)

10. Terminal Nation (HORDE)

11. Ecclesia (FALLEN) - requested by Tymell

12. Towards Atlantis Lights (FALLEN) - requested by Sonny92

13. Deathbell (FALLEN) - requested by Sonny92

14. Angel of Damnation (FALLEN) - requested by Sonny92

15. Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard / Slomatics (FALLEN) - requested by Sonny92

16. The Suns Journey Through the Night (NORTH)

17. Somme (NORTH)

18. Karnilapakte (NORTH)

19. Blaze of Sorrow (NORTH)

20. Baader-Meinhof (NORTH)

21. Batushka (Bartłomiej Krysiuk) (NORTH)

22. Psychonaut 4 (NORTH)

23. Belore (NORTH)

24. Old Nick (NORTH)

25. Darkenhöld (NORTH)

26. Ages (NORTH)

27. Black Veil Brides (REVOLUTION, GUARDIANS)

28. Fever 333 (GATEWAY)

Actually, I've just discovered that two other releases have unbeatable Yes leads. I will push through those changes tomorrow and close them off.

I'm very excited about one of them, as it goes against every other metal site on the internet.

The issue of there not being much activity in the Hall has been lessened by me now having the ability to close off a request earlier when there is an unbeatable lead. I've just closed off both of the Vektor requests and added both of them to The Infinite.

There are a few other releases that are close to being unbeatable. No, I won't tell you what they are. I don't want to sway people's voting by them knowing what the general consensus is. I actually feel this is the number one reason why RYM is often wrong. People feel like they can't state their opinion when it's different to everyone else. Anonymity  and no visibility of other's choices means people can safely give their own (real) opinions.

Hey Ben, could you possibly take a look at the "Apply other person's ratings" button whenever you click into a list? I think that a descriptor or heading would make it much more clear as to what it actually does. Even though I was able to figure it out on my own, it looks out of place since its use isn't immediately apparent. I originally assumed that it was used for Clan Challenges to filter the list of albums to only show the ones the person had completed, but if it's going to be at the top of every list then I think some direction is important. 

The list creation is really nice by the way, the ability to search either artist name or album name without having to change a bunch of search options is way more convenient. Showing the full release information with the reviews/ratings on all the lists is a great call too in my opinion. 

Yes, Daniel had the same question, so it's obviously something I need to make clearer. Will get something added.

I'm all for encouraging people to vote on requests, but I can't say I understand why you're asking people to vote here when they can (and should) just go straight to the Hall of vote there.

So if you don't agree with both requested changes Tymell, your answer should be no.

I generally encourage people to make one change request at a time (the most likely change to go through). The more changes you're requesting at once, the less chance you have of the whole thing going through.

I don't see how I can make the system allow for a yes and a no vote at the same time.

The above suggested categories have been added to the My List section and the relevant filters are available on the Public Lists page.

Please have a play around and let me know what you think!

Would it also be possible to sort by most recently made, so that you could view any newer lists first?

Yeah, I reckon so. So default to most likes, but allow for order of creation.

The following bands have been added to Metal Academy from the 14th to the 20th of November, 2020.

1. Hyperion (GUARDIANS) - requested by Tymell

2. Adamantis (GUARDIANS) - requested by Tymell

3. Precambrian (NORTH)

4. Onirik (NORTH) - requested by Sonny92

5. Ceremonial Bloodbath (NORTH, HORDE)

6. Swarming (NORTH, HORDE)

7. Mora Prokaza (NORTH, INFINITE)

8. Botanist (NORTH, INFINITE)

9. Yoth Iria (NORTH)

10. Schizophrenia (PIT, HORDE)

11. Within Destruction (REVOLUTION, HORDE)

12. In Hearts Wake (REVOLUTION, GATEWAY)

13. Melted Bodies (INFINITE, GATEWAY)

14. Kaunis Kuolematon (FALLEN, HORDE) - requested by Tymell

15. Aphonic Threnody (FALLEN) - requested by Sonny92

16. Kryptograf (FALLEN)

17. Vacant Eyes (FALLEN) - requested by Tymell

18. Bloodsoaked Necrovoid (FALLEN, HORDE)

19. Edenic Past (HORDE)

20. The Last Reign (HORDE) - requested by Tymell

21. Bastard Priest (HORDE)

22. Unurnment (HORDE)

23. Countless Skies (HORDE) - requested by Tymell

An excellent idea. I'll attempt to do just that.

Hi Ben. I'm sorry for being thick, but I'm still not getting it. When you say you select, clan, genre and year do you mean via a function that has yet to be added or do we need to state all those things in the list title? I have begun another list but have not been asked to select any of those categories anywhere.

Sorry if I haven't been clear, but this is a design discussion. I haven't added the categories or filters yet. I just wanted to gather some feedback from the community before I go down that path. There could be a better way to configure things that I haven't thought of.

Has anyone tried using this yet? Keen to know what people think. Could it work better? Is it worth keeping the Select Year filter?

Hi Ben, I am a little unsure what you mean. Do you intend to have different sections within the list section to differentiate years, genres etc or do you mean to have a list section within each separate clan? The latter may help tidy things up for clan-specific lists leaving the main lists section for more generalised listings, such as "Greatest Albums of the 1990's" or other less genre-specific lists.

LIST CREATION IN MY LISTS

I'm suggesting that when you're creating a new list, you have to select the Genre, Clan and Year that it relates too. If the list covers multiple of any of those categories, then you select All or Multiple. So every list will have All, Multiple or a specific value for each of those categories.

VIEWING LISTS IN PUBLIC LISTS

I would add User, Genre, Clan and Year filters on the Public Lists page. You would therefore be able to find any lists that (for example) include ONLY black metal albums from 2020, or perhaps any Revolution specific list that covers any date range, or any Doom Metal specific lists for 2018 created by Sonny92 (which would no doubt be pretty awesome).

Make sense? If anyone thinks the system could be different / better, please speak up. I want to get this as close to right as possible before we plough ahead and start making stacks of lists.