A brief history:

My CD collection was mainly originally blues-rock and prog-rock. Watched a live recording of The Mars Volta play Cotopaxi when Cedric Bixlar-Zavala dedicated the song to Mastodon.

Went to HMV, Bluewater, England and bought Blood Mountain and Crack the Skye for £3 each (No wonder they nearly went bust!). Heard 02:32 into Capillarian Crest and was hooked on metal. Went on to purchase Black Water Park and Rust In Peace. Have not looked back since.


How I started my interest in Metal:

Massive thanks to Dave for telling me about this website! It has changed my life.

1. Check the all-time top albums to see if there's anything you've heard briefly before that may be of further interest.
2. Check the different sub-genres and their all-time top albums and try a selection of albums to see if that sub-genre is for you (Realise how amazing Black Metal is!).
3. Start to use the the decade filter instead of all-time to cycle through the different decades to look for albums that might be of interest.


My collection now:

I wanted to make sure that I started at the beginning (chronologically) with my metal collection, which is why I looked at the all-time top albums first ("to pay my respects") and then worked my way through all the sub-genres by decade up to now.

I realised that in order to have at least a half decent metal collection, one should own:

1. The first 5 albums by Metallica
2. All 4 albums by Tool (Unless they ever do bring out another!)
3. Rust In Peace - Megadeth
4. All of the Opeth albums (They just don't do bad, unless you include Heritage)
5. Dope Throne - Electric Wizard
6. Through Silver in Blood - Neurosis
7. Storm of the Light's Bane - Dissection
8. Close to a World Below - Immolation
9. Any album by Dream Theater (They're either all brilliant or rubbish, depending on your point of view)
10. Best of - Black Sabbath
11. Operation: Mindcrime - Queensryche


How I rate my music:

My understanding of the ratings system is that because it is weighted, it is sensible to apply a varied balance of ratings where some albums get very low ratings relative to the high ones, even though they might still be ok.

Even if I really believed that my music collection was well above average (which it probably isn't) it would be pointless me rating everything 3 stars or more because of the way the ratings system work.

If I feel very passionate about a rating I have given (good or bad) I will follow it up with a review to add to this weighting.


My favourite Metal sub-genres in order of preference:

1. Prog Metal
2. Black Metal
3. Death Metal
4. Speed Metal
5. Thrash Metal
6. Sludge Metal
7. Alt. Metal
8. Stoner Metal

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Films

My top 10 favourite:
1: The Godfather
2: Midnight Cowboy
3: Apocalypse Now
4: Kill Bill Vol 2
5: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
6: Taxi Driver
7: Lawrence of Arabia
8: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
9: Casino
10:The Thief of Bagdad