top 5

[The Ozzman]

Dodens: You consider Awaken the Guardian power metal?

 

[pattlehed]

Opinions are what i'm after, not what you think everyone else thinks is the best

doing great, i'm getting lots of great info thanks guys

 

[waif]

Dodens: You consider Awaken the Guardian power metal?

I was actually in the process of quoting that myself. I've always heard it referred to as progressive metal, though I never really heard it as all that progressive and always thought of it more as progressive traditional metal. I don't hear much power metal on there.

Whatever. Great album.

 

[skeptik]

Power Metal is a laughably ambiguous term.

 

[waif]

That's true.
*Considers resurrecting the "Define Metal" thread*
*Realizes what a bad idea that would be*

But that album falls outside of everything I consider power metal to be, aside from the vocals.

 

[skeptik]

Well then what you consider to be Power Metal is stupid. It's 80s, American Power Metal, aka the real Power Metal, not the fucking gay shit coming out of Europe since the early/mid 90s that usurped the term. Back then, Power Metal actually had, well, POWER.

 

[waif]

Hm.
I've always associated American Power Metal with Iced Earth and thrash metal rather than a more traditional metal sound like on AtG.

 

[rms]

since when was crystal logic the best manilla road?

OPEN THE GATES DAMNIT.

 

[Einherjar86]

European power metal is getting its balls back honestly, after bands like Sonata Arctica and Stratovarius lost them in their giant flowery vaginas.

Bands like Sabaton and Kiuas are really upping the ante.

 

[rms]

Iron Savior and Stormwarrior maybe, but it's really all to boring for me these days..

 

[Einherjar86]

Yeah, it's a select few.

 

[FerretallicA]

Assuming "essential" doesn't necessarily mean what I consider "best", I've put what I would recommend for educating someone new to the genre as well as some "non-essential" albums I consider amongst the best in their field.

Thrash
Essential:
Metallica - ...And Justice For All
Megadeth - Rust In Peace
Slayer - Seasons In The Abyss
Iced Earth - Burnt Offerings
Metal Church - The Dark
Recommend:
Dark Angel - Time Does Not Heal
Aspid - Extravasation
Dew Scented - Inwards
Iced Earth - Horror Show
Saber Tiger - F.U.S.E.

Power
Essential:
Blind Guardian - Imaginations From The Other Side
Dragonforce - Valley of the Damned
Angra - Holy Land
Manowar - Kings Of Metal
Helloween - Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 2*
Recommend:
Machine Men - Scars & Wounds
Kamelot - The Black Halo
Twilightning - Plague-House Puppet Show
Dragonforce - Valley of the Damned
Sha(a)man - Reason

Prog
Essential:
Dream Theater - Images And Words
Porcupine Tree - In Absentia
Fates Warning - Perfect Symmetry
Symphony X - The Damnation Game
Shadow Gallery - Carved In Stone
Recommend:
Adagio - Underworld
A.R.K. - Burn The Sun
Theory In Practice - Colonizing The Sun
Friar Rush - Alaude Sonare Suavis
Lemur Voice - Divided
...plus of course the entire Dream Theater discography

Death
Essential:
Cryptopsy - None So Vile
Cannibal Corpse - The Bleeding
Morbid Angel - Covenant
Deicide - Deicide
Bolt Thrower - Realm of Chaos
Recommend:
Behemoth - Demigod
Psycroptic - Scepter of the Ancients
Agiel - Dark Pantheons Again Will Reign
Brain Drill - The Parasites
Nile - The Black Seeds of Vengeance

Melodic Death
Essential:
In Flames - The Jester Race
Dark Tranquillity - The Gallery
Children of Bodom - Hatebreeder
Amorphis - Elegy
At The Gates - Terminal Spirit Disease
Recommend:
Dark Tranquillity - Damage Done
Withering Surface - Walking on Phantom Ice
Darkane - Rusted Angel
Blinded Colony - Bedtime Prayers
And Oceans - Cypher

Black
Essential:
Cradle of Filth - Midian
Dimmu Borgir - Death Cult Armageddon
Immortal - Pure Holocaust
Emperor - In The Nightside Eclipse
Recommend:
Cradle of Filth - Midian
Old Man's Child- Vermin
Catamenia - Chaosborn
Moonsorrow - V-Havitetty
Arcturus - The Sham Mirrors

Gothic
Essential:
Lacuna Coil - Lacuna Coil
Nightwish - Wishmaster
The Gathering - Mandylion
Evanescence - Fallen**
Recommended:
After Forever - Decipher
Within Temptation - Mother Earth
Magica - Lightseeker
Moon of Steel - Insignificant Details
Twelfth of Never - Things That Were

Grindcore***
Essential:
Nasum - Shift
Pig Destroyer - Prowler in the Yard
Spazz - Crush Kill Destroy
Stormtroopers Of Death - Bigger Than the Devil
Assück - Blindspot
Recommend:
ghettoblasterz - How To Be Popular
Fuck... I'm Dead - Bring On the Dead
The Berzerker - Dissimulate
Vaginal Carnage - Dildo Detention
Blood Duster - Cunt

I don't consider "gothic" to even be a genre and I really don't know enough about doom to bother commenting. It feels wrong putting a list like that together and not seeing mention of bands like Pantera and Iron Maiden so last of all:

Hard to classify (classic? traditional? cross-over? etc)
Pantera - Cowboys from Hell
Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast
Racer X - Technical Difficulties
Biomechanical - The Empires of the Worlds
Judas Priest - Demolition

* Obvious choice though I would feel as though I had wronged anyone who I recommend such heavily overrated cheese to.
** Not saying I like it at all or should even qualify as 'metal' but gothic metal is a bullshit genre anyway.
** Yes, I really do believe Australia is the capital of grindcore.

 

[Thoth-Amon]

Infernal Overkill is still missing from all of your lists. what a bunch of fags

 

[zabu of nΩd]

What I find disappointing is how few people list Dream Theater under prog.

 

[Avigrus]

Traditional
Iron Maiden - Powerslave
Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast

Thrash
Metallica - Ride The Lightning
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Metallica - Kill em All
Megadeth - Rust in Peace
Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss

Power
Iced Earth - Something Wicked this Way Comes
Iced Earth - Burnt Offerings
Iced Earth - Dark Saga
Sonata Arctica - Ecliptica
Pyramaze - Immortal

Progressive
Opeth - Still Life
Opeth - Ghost Reveries
Opeth - Blackwater Park
Alchemist - Austral Alien
Alchemist - Organasm

Death
Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness
Death - Human
Bloodbath - Nightmares Made Flesh
Suffocation - Pierced from Within
Necrophobic - Hrimthursum

Mellodic Death
Carcass - Heartwork
Amon Amarth - With Oden on our Side
Kalmah - Swampsong
Arch Enemy - Rise of the Tyrant
In Flames - Colony

Black
Emperor - In The Nightside Eclipse
Emperor - Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk
Naglfar - Harvest
Destroyer 666 - Phoenix Rising
Catamenia - Eskhata

Epic Metal
Wintersun - Wintersun
Stormlord - Mare Nostrum

No Category
Faith No More - Angel Dust

 

[tagradh]

You sure like Metallica, Iced Earth and Opeth.

 

[waif]

@OP: when you finish your list, please post it up here

 

[Vossyrus]

Gothic
Essential:
Lacuna Coil - Lacuna Coil
Nightwish - Wishmaster
The Gathering - Mandylion
Evanescence - Fallen**
Recommended:
After Forever - Decipher
Within Temptation - Mother Earth
Magica - Lightseeker
Moon of Steel - Insignificant Details
Twelfth of Never - Things That Were

** Not saying I like it at all or should even qualify as 'metal' but gothic metal is a bullshit genre anyway.

Gothic metal isn't a 'bullshit genre', it's just that the term is used very ambiguously and none of the bands you've mentioned are actually 'gothic.' I know those bands are widely accepted as such but really, I'm not sure what despairingly melodramatic female-fronted bands with a symphonic, pop-ish feel have anything to do with the term anyways.

 

[Einherjar86]

Gothic
Essential:
Lacuna Coil - Lacuna Coil
Nightwish - Wishmaster
The Gathering - Mandylion
Evanescence - Fallen**
Recommended:
After Forever - Decipher
Within Temptation - Mother Earth
Magica - Lightseeker
Moon of Steel - Insignificant Details
Twelfth of Never - Things That Were

Both awful lists, to be honest.

Virgin Black is where it's at for gothic metal.

 

[Bitencourt29]

I'll take a shot:

Thrash Metal

- Slayer - Reign in Blood
- Exodus - Fabulous Disaster
- Sepultura - Arise
- Kreator - Coma of Souls
- Metallica - Ride the Lightning

Death Metal

- Death - Individual Thought Patterns
- At the Gates - Slaughter of the Soul
- Carcass - Heartwork
- Bloodbath - Nightmares Made Flesh
- Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness

Black Metal

- Darkthrone - Under a Funeral Moon
- Marduk - Rom 5:12
- Burzum - Filosofem
- Immortal - Pure Holocaust
- Dimmu Borgir - Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia

Progressive

- Dream Theater - Images and Words
- Opeth - Watershed
- Symphony X - The Divine Wings of Tragedy
- Queensryche - Operation: Mindcrime
- Fates Warning - Perfect Simmetry

Power Metal

- Manowar - Kings of Metal
- Iced Earth - Something Wicked this way comes
- Blind Guardian - Nightfall in Middle Earth
- Blind Guardian - Somewhere Far Beyond
- Helloween - Walls of Jericho

Traditional Metal

- Iron Maiden - Powerslave
- Iron Maiden - Somewhere in Time
- Dio - Holy Diver
- Motörhead - Ace of Spades
- Black Sabbath - Heaven and Hell