ALG's top 25

[Alg]

Let's be honest here. There's going to be a lot of power metal and general proggery. It's unavoidable and any more of it and you guys could have accused me of trolling. In other news, 'proggery' is my new favorite word. I may use it instead of A Local Guy from now on...

What? Where were we? Ah, yes. The list.

No particular order, but I'll try to keep the metal near the end. That's just the way that it ended up.

 

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

This is the album that got me into Pink Floyd. All of it is awesome. I'm not sure what else I can say. If you haven't heard of it, put on a classic rock station and at least one song is bound to come up in an hour or two. And "Shine on you Crazy Diamond" is only the first 15+ minute songs to grace this list.

Personal favorites: title track, Shine on you Crazy Diamond (1-5)

 

The Eagles - Hell Freezes Over

An all around good album, though if you don't like country flavored rock you'd be better off avoiding it. Has some cool live versions of their hits, notably the acoustic version of Hotel California.

 

The Scorpions - Sting in the Tail

They've been saying that this will be their last album before retiring. It's one hell of a swan song. Listen if you like '80s hard rock, and I don't mean that glam metal crap.

Notable songs: The Good die Young (Epic enough as it is, but it also features Tarja Turunen, that just pushes it over the edge), The Best is Yet to Come (the final song on the album)

 

Jeff Beck - Live at Ronnie Scott's

Wijkipedia did not have the album cover. Instead, here's the club itself.

AAAnyway...

This is an all around great album. I would have put Blow by Blow here, but I'm pretty sure he does most of the album here, and it's a lot cooler than the original recording.

Notable: His version of The Beatles' A Day in the Life.

 

Jeff Beck - Emotion and Commotion

Look at that album cover. That, my friends, is badass.

He's on here twice. This one's his most recent studio album, part of it is backed by an orchestra and is, well, more orchestral, the other half features guest vocalists and is more bluesy/jazzy.

Notable: Lilac Wine, Nessun Dorma, Elegy for Dunkirk

 

The Beatles - Revolver

I think someone did this one already. Or was it Rubber soul? If it's Revolver, same as what the other guy said. If not, this is the Beatles blending pop and psychedelic into something that influenced generations worth of musicians. Or so I hear. It doesn't matter if it did or not, it's a cool album regardless.

Notable: Eleanor Rigby, Yellow Submarine.

 

Led Zeppelin - The Song Remains the Same

Technically this is a movie soundtrack. The movie in question happens to be recordings of Led Zeppelin with some drugtacular film sequences between them. And a violin bow getting it on with a guitar. But that's not important right now! Listen if you're any kind of Zeppelin fan.

Notable: Dazed and Confused, the jam. Also No Quarter.

 

And now we pull into the heavy side...

 

G3 - Rockin' in the Free World

G3 is a concert series created by Joe Satriani. It's three shred guitarists shredding, and if you're in to that kind of thing, it's pretty much a dream cone true. This particular disc has Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and Yngwie Malmsteen.

Notable: The second disc is what they call the G3 Jam. What it actually is should be self explanatory, but on this one it features two Jimi Hendrix songs: Voodoo Chile (slight return) and Little Wing.

 

Kamelot - The Black Halo

The sequel to Epica, continuing the Faust-inspired story that it started. This is Kamelot at their best. If you have to listen to any one album from this, it should be this one.

Personal favorites: March of Mephisto, The Black Halo, The Haunting. Y'know what? All of it.

 

Dream Theater - Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

You guys saw this coming, right? It was only a matter of time...

I'm not as big a DT fan as I used to be, but I still love this album. I was listening to it when I came up with the albums for this. It's what got me into them, it's part of what's keeping me interested. It's amazing. But if you hate bands that do ridiculously over-the-top songs, I'm surprised you stayed after the G3 one :lol:

It was this or Awake, and Maleficus did Awake in his first list.

Notable: The Glass Prison, Misunderstood, all 42 minutes of the title track.

 

Excalion - High Time

I loved their album Waterlines, and this one was just good enough to take its place on the list. Waterlines is where they found their sound, this is where they improved it.

Notable: Enter a Life, From Somewhere to Anywhere, Quicksilver

 

Symphony-X - The Odyssey

This album is everything good about... Whatever hybrid metal Symphony X is. Yeah. Nothing else I can say.

Notable: The Odyssey, King of Terrors, Accolade II

 

Fates Warning - A Pleasant Shade of Gray

This album is cool. It's a concept album, and I'm pretty sure it's just one song broken into 12 parts, but still. If you like darker stuff, and you lasted past all the other prog stuff I posted, this is for you. I'd post a notable section, but again, one song. Yeah.

 

Serenity - Words Untold and Dreams Unlived

Cover is robably NSFW. Or nightmare fuel. Hard to tell. Here's the Last.FM entry.

This was my favorite album for a while. It only isn't now because some other cool album came along. That album being their second one. More on that later.

Notable: Engraved Within, From Where the Dark is Born.

 

Serenity - Fallen Sanctuary.

Again, Last.FM because Wiki doesn't have it and the image is right there where I can't copypaste it anyway.

I tried avoiding two albums for the same artist. There were three cases where it was unavoidable. This band only has two albums. Both are on here. It's that awesome.

Notable: Derelict, Coldness Kills.

 

Metallica - Ride the Lightning

I'm not much of a Metallica fan anymore. This, for me, was their best album though. This is where Metallica took the balls-out thrash style they had been doing with Kill 'Em all and made it more awesome.

Notable: Call of Ktulu. If godlike abominations had a soundtrack, that would probably be on it. Bonus points for the Live S&M version with the SF Symphony.

 

[cabbage], you're still here? Don't you people have better things to do? Okay, here are some more.

 

Joe Satriani - Professor Satchafunkilus and the Musterion of Rock

This. Album. Is. Awesome. Often shredders just make a wall of notes. Not when Satch does it. This should be the standard by which shredders are measured.

Notable: Revelation, Andalusia. ESPECIALLY Andalusia. I posted it on the Guitarists thread, listen to it there.

 

Angra - Rebirth

Symphonic/Power metal from Brazil. USA, why don't you have as much awesome metal as the rest of the world? :cry:

Notable: Rebirth, Unholy Wars, Running Alone, Millennium Sun

 

Kamelot - Ghost Opera

Oh. Right. You're forgiven, USA.

While I did say I thought Black Halo was their best, I didn't mean to suggest that their other stuff wasn't good. Almost every Kamelot album is excellent, this one has its (many) moments of amazing.

Notable: Ghost Opera, Eden Echo, Anthem

 

Ayreon - The Human Equation

You may recognize this cover from my avatar a while back. I'd think that explains why it's on here.

A part of the Ayreon rock opera, but a part that can more or less stand alone as a concept album. If you read this far it means you probably like this kind of stuff anyway.

 

Andromeda - Extension of the Wish

Another prog-shred thing. Has its moments. Worth listening to, if only for the instrumental parts, which, as would be expected, are plentiful and awesome.

Notable: Crescendo of Thoughts, Extension of the Wish, Arch Angel

 

Wingdom - Reality

Last.Fm.

Christian metal with pretty Christian lyrics. Not recommended unless you're okay with many Jesus, God, and salvation references stuffed into a 5 minute song as possible. But hey, everyone gets at least one troll album per list, right? No? Crap. Well, this one's for you Saru!

Notable: Marionette, Where do we Go?, Lighthouse pt. 1. Pretty sure Marionette and Where do we Go? are the only ones that aren't explicitly Christian, and if they are, they're subtle about it. Lighthouse doesn't get that obvious until Part 2. Spoiler: The lighthouse is Jesus.

 

Allen/Lande - The Battle

Cheesy power metal with an awesome cover. What sets this apart is that it features Russell Allen of Sumphony-X and Jorn Lande of Ark/Masterplan/Ayreon/Avantasia/etc. on vocals. If you don't follow power metal, they're both quite good.

Notable: Where Have the Angels Gone, Come Alive

 

Dark Moor - Beyond the Sea

[hide][/hide]

Some metal, some of it's classical, but it's quite fun to listen to. Not sure what I can say. These are getting less clever and less descriptive as it goes on. Can i use "It's late" as an excuse?

Notable: Before the Duel, Vivaldi's Winter

 

And finally:

Nightwish - Dark Passion Play

And here I'm trolling the board's Tarja fans :twisted:

I would have put Once instead, but I prefer this one. It's one of a few albums that I could listen to from front to back several times without getting bored.

Notable: Poet and the Pendulum, Sahara, The Islander.

 

Well, there's my list. Dammit, that took way too long. Now I know why the system fell apart. Or, I learned that it isn't a good idea to do it in one sitting. Ah, whatever. If you made it this far, congratulations. If not, I understand. If you need me, I'll be over there, not typing for a while...

[Saru Inc]

too much death metal. gross.

[Dax]

A lot of stuff I haven't heard of. I'll check it out after I get out of my electronic mood that I'm in and into a metal one.

[Sam]

Added to the list on the sticky ;)

[Range_This11]

Fates Warning :thumbup: Have you listened to their FWX album? I know a lot of people don't like it, but I think it's great.

[Hedgehog]

Death metal :thumbdown:

 

Other than that I kinda like the rest.

[Arch_Tyrant]

Pretty good list. :thumbup:

 

I found Serenity on youtube a few years ago back when their videos had maybe a few hundred views, I had no idea they have a new album out now.

I'll definitely be checking that out, thanks. :thumbsup:

[Maleficus1055]

Too much power metal in one place for my taste, but I do enjoy a lot of what you have on here.