Top 25 Traditional Heavy Metal

Welcome!

As some of you know, we have been holding top 25 votes over on our Discord server. So far we’ve done black metal, death metal and thrash. While all the previous votes have been moderately successful, this is easily our most attended so far, with a total of 114 responses - the most of any of our votes so far. Thank you to all who voted! I would like to say a huge thank you to Mr Cryptopunk for generating all this wonderful data you are about to read. He has outdone himself, providing us with a wealth of fascinating bits of information we will no doubt argue over for months.

Without further ado, here are the results for our top 25 traditional heavy metal vote!


TOP 25 TRADITIONAL HEAVY METAL ALBUMS

 

Band Album Country Genre Year Vote Count
Manilla Road Crystal Logic United States Epic Heavy/Power Metal 1983 50
Iron Maiden Powerslave United Kingdom Heavy Metal, NWOBHM 1984 46
Jag Panzer Ample Destruction United States Heavy/Power Metal 1984 42
Mercyful Fate Don't Break the Oath Denmark Heavy Metal 1984 41
Angel Witch Angel Witch United Kingdom NWOBHM, Heavy Metal 1980 40
Satan Court in the Act United Kingdom NWOBHM, Heavy Metal 1983 39
Rainbow Rising United Kingdom Hard Rock/Heavy Metal 1976 37
Mercyful Fate Melissa Denmark Heavy Metal 1983 36
Dio Holy Diver United States Heavy Metal 1983 31
Omen Battle Cry United States Power Metal 1984 29
Cirith Ungol King of the Dead United States Heavy/Doom Metal 1984 29
King Diamond Abigail Denmark Heavy Metal 1987 26
The Lord Weird Slough Feg Traveller United States Heavy Metal 2003 26
Black Sabbath Paranoid United Kingdom Heavy / Doom Metal 1970 25
Motörhead Overkill United Kingdom Speed Metal, Heavy Metal/Hard Rock 1979 25
Judas Priest Stained Class United Kingdom Heavy Metal 1978 24
Judas Priest Painkiller United Kingdom Heavy Metal 1990 24
Iron Maiden The Number Of The Beast United Kingdom Heavy Metal, NWOBHM 1982 23
Diamond Head Lightning to the Nations United Kingdom NWOBHM (early), Hard Rock (later) 1980 22
Savatage Hall Of The Mountain King United States Heavy/Power Metal, Progressive Metal/Rock 1987 21
Black Sabbath Heaven and Hell United Kingdom Heavy / Doom Metal 1980 21
Riot V Thundersteel United States Heavy/Power/Speed Metal 1988 21
Running Wild Death or Glory Germany Heavy/Power/Speed Metal 1989 20
Metal Church Metal Church United States Heavy/Power/Thrash Metal 1984 20
Eternal Champion The Armor Of Ire United States Epic Heavy Metal 2016 19

 

TOP 25 TRADITIONAL HEAVY METAL ARTISTS

 

Band Sum of Vote Count
Iron Maiden 135
Black Sabbath 109
Judas Priest 103
Mercyful Fate 83
Manilla Road 73
Motörhead 52
Rainbow 50
Running Wild 49
King Diamond 46
Satan 44
Jag Panzer 43
Riot V 42
Angel Witch 41
Dio 39
The Lord Weird Slough Feg 38
Cirith Ungol 35
Omen 33
Saxon 29
Savatage 27
Manowar 26
Crimson Glory 24
Metal Church 23
Diamond Head 23
Brocas Helm 23
Sortilège 22

 

GENRE DISTRIBUTION

 

Genre Sum of Vote Count
Heavy Metal 534
Heavy Metal, NWOBHM 136
NWOBHM, Heavy Metal 132
Heavy/Power Metal 112
Heavy / Doom Metal 109
Heavy/Power/Speed Metal 91
Power Metal 86
Epic Heavy/Power Metal 74
Power/Speed Metal 69
Hard Rock/Heavy Metal 64
Epic Heavy Metal 59
Speed Metal, Heavy Metal/Hard Rock 52
Heavy/Doom Metal 47
Hard Rock / Heavy Metal 33
Heavy/Power Metal, Progressive Metal/Rock 27
Progressive Heavy/Power Metal 24
NWOBHM, Doom Metal 23
NWOBHM (early), Hard Rock (later) 23
Heavy/Power/Thrash Metal 23
Heavy Metal/Hard Rock 23
Speed Metal (early), Power Metal (later) 20
Thrash Metal (early), Hard Rock/Heavy/Thrash Metal (later) 19
Power/Progressive Metal (early), Progressive Metal (later) 18
NWOBHM/Black/Speed Metal 16

 

COUNTRY DISTRIBUTION CHART

 

YEARLY DISTRIBUTION CHART

 


 

We more data available to those who want it, this is essentially the cliff notes.

Well if there is ever a top 25 albums that embodies Shreddit’s trad taste, I think this is it. Manilla Road seem to me a band whom outside of lifer metal circles are relatively unknown, which makes it a mild shock to see them top the table. Not to say they are undeserving - far from it - it’s just interesting to note.

Another interesting titbit: The trad metal revival of the last decade shows in the votes. Predictably, the 80s and 70s are the top two in terms of votes. But third place is 2010s and not 90's or 00's.

As always, a massive thank you to the shredditcord team and data nerds for making this process relatively painless and for just generally being great.

ENJOY!

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