MMA Best of the 2010s Voting Thread

Message Topic Search Topic Options Post Reply Create New Topic Printable Version Translate Topic

   MMA's Best of the Decade 2010 - 2019 Voting Thread

Welcome to MMA's public vote for the best albums of the last decade. Don't panic, we know what you're thinking: making a submission that you will be completely happy with for this is going to be a task and a half. Therefore this is not something we are rushing with. In fact, you will have until the end of June 2020 to decide on your submission. Voting is officially open from now and until then. 

Who Can Vote?

Anyone, provided that you have signed up for a free MMA forum account. 

When is the Deadline?

The last full day of voting will be June 30th, 2020. Official closure for new votes and edits will be made by an admin at some point on July 1st, 2020. Do not rely on this leeway to post your list.

Can I Change My Submission?

Yes! But only while the vote remains open. Please also edit your existing submission rather than posting a new one. 

Please do not rely on leeway time or the fact that results take time to compile and create a presentation as a guarantee that you will be able to change your list last minute. 

What's Eligible to be Voted For?

Genres: All except Non-Metal and Proto-Metal (shouldn't ever happen, but just in case). We're sorry about the firm no to Non-Metal and do acknowledge that there are many albums that are not metal out there which are very good, of interest to metal fans and not completely out of place to be included on the site, but as a metal website we would look ridiculous if, hypothetically, we ran this vote and the album that came out on top was something like Opeth's decidedly non-metallic Pale Communion or Blind Guardian's orchestral Legacy of the Dark Lands and we had to proclaim something like those as the best metal and heavy music had to offer in the last decade. That's why we disallow anything under the Non-Metal tag. 

Metal Related, on the other hand, is allowed, but please show consideration over which Metal Related releases you vote for. Not all are included in that sub-genre for equal reasons. Metal Related and Non-Metal also previously shared a sub-genre, so there might still be some lingering mistagged releases (please see Other Considerations below). Ask yourself: does that particular Metal Related release deserve to be on a metal website's best of the decade list? We're talking consideration over it's actual genre, not it's quality. 

Year: Tagged as 2010 to 2019 on Metal Music Archives.

Release Type: Full-Length, EP* or Split**

* While generally OK, EP's should only be put forth is they constitute a unique release of studio material that was new for the time period being voted on. Some EP's actually contain older songs, demos, live tracks and are in truth more like a mini compilation. 

** Splits must constitute a unique release from all involved parties and not just be tracks pulled from elsewhere. It doesn't count however if those tracks on the split were later released individually by one artist or as bonus tracks to a later release. The split must simply be unique at the time of its release while still not being a joint teaser for close to release albums. An example we use to demonstrate the kind of split that is okay is Sol by Spectral Lore and Mare Cognitum, which in fact is an eligible release for this vote.

When in doubt on either of these, it is best to consult an admin for verification. 

Special consideration: Re-recorded albums - these are a grey area. Some artists promote such a release as a full-length (allowed). Others as a compilation (disallowed). As such it's best to avoid completely re-recorded releases altogether. 

Included on MMA: You cannot vote for anything that we don't actually have included on MMA. If we should have something, but don't, it is your responsibility to alert us to that fact so we can correct it. You can:

Suggest a New Artist for Inclusion

Report the Need for an Update

Final Note, for Recording Artists: We do not allow recording artists to vote for any release that they took a part in recording themselves. 

Making Your Votes:

You may vote for anything up to 50 releases in this vote. While we are not setting an minimum, it is preferable that you do your best to get as close to the maximum as you can: you do have a whole decade's worth of releases to pick and choose from. Obviously though, try not to give points to releases that you don't actually like very much just to submit a full list. 

Please lay your submission out in the following format only - others will not be counted.

Artist – Release
Artist – Release 

And so forth, where the album you list first is your top album of the decade and will receive the most of your points. 

To be perfectly clear, this means no numbering, no Release – Artist lists, no spaces between each line (your list should be a maximum of 50 lines long, one for each album) and no commentary on your choices, at least in line (you may talk about or campaign for your choices separately to your heart's content). 

You should also use the standard forum font and colour (you're reading it now!). It should not looklike this. 

And especially important: no reverse lists even when the rest of this is taken into account: you don't want us to count your opinion in the wrong order and give the most points to your 50th ranked album instead of your 1st. 

Sticking to the requested format speeds up tallying the result considerably, so please be considerate and stick to it. Admins may edit the formatting before the tally but do not count on it!

Quoted below as an example is a portion of my personal submission for the best of 2019 vote. If your submission formatting does not look like this, you've done it wrong. Tip: On Windows open Notepad or similar, paste your list in, make sure there are no gaps between the lines, then copy and paste to the forum editor. 

 Opeth - In Cauda VenenumCult of Luna - A Dawn to Fear
Avatarium - The Fire I Long For
Arch/Matheos - Winter Ethereal
Blood Incantation - Hidden History of the Human Race
Astralium - Land of Eternal Dreams
Blazon Stone - Hymns of Triumph and Death
Waste of Space Orchestra - Syntheosis
Wilderun - Veil of Imagination

Other Considerations

MMA is a website run by a small group of volunteers who have to get most of their information about what they add from outside sources, rather than personal experience of the music. Should you encounter a release placed in a sub-genre that is eligible, tagged as 2010-2019 and has an acceptable release type, but you know that any one of these things is incorrect (it might actually be a demo or a compilation, be from 2009 or 2020 or be someone's Non-Metal release), then you must report it to us.

While we apologise for the mistake, we do rely on our user base to report these mistakes when they see them, not simply ignore them and that's extra important for these votes. A mistake on our part doesn't mean that a release is okay to include in your submission. If you're voting for it, you've heard it, and you probably know more about it than we do. And we need you to speak up. 

This is especially true if a release should actually be tagged as Non-Metal, which is not edible to be included at all. We've had previous best of year votes almost ruined by users trying to include Non-Metal releases in their submissions, including high up on their lists where the most points are given. MMA is a metal website. We are okay with Hard Rock, Hardcore Punk and Metal Related releases getting into the result for this, but we draw a firm line on completely Non-Metal stuff. Thank you for your understanding. 

How the Submissions Will be Scored

Because the list size we are asking for is larger than our usual best of year score chart, we've had to do a re-working. However the score chart follows the same principle: winners are rewarded more points than the bottom end of your list. From #1 to #50, points will be distributed as follows:

150
145
140
135
130
125
120
115
110
105
100
96
92
88
84
80
76
72
68
64
60
57
54
51
48
45
42
39
36
33
30
28
26
24
22
20
18
16
14
12
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

Special Bonus Vote: Non-Metal

We know that a lot of you here have quite the interest in the Non-metal albums made by our metal artists or related artists, which is why as a mini bonus vote, we're also asking for a short list, maximum 10 releases (same other considerations apply to release type, year, etc), scored 10 down to 1, that consists only of Non-Metal tagged releases. Again as pointed out above, Non-Metal and Metal Related did once share a sub so it is possible for there to be some mistakes regarding this, so do make sure the tag is correct either way. 

We will only post the bonus round if it gets enough votes and otherwise has no bearing on the main presentation we hope to give you in July. 

The Non-Metal bonus vote has been cancelled to allow complete focus on the main vote.

Edited by adg211288 - 01 Jul 2020 at 10:54am