Loudwire’s Top 50 Metal Songs

If you’ve got a knack for recognizing album art, then this is a spoiler alert. (Volcano)

Today Loudwire released its list of the Top 50 Metal Songs of the 21^st Century.  The site provides an embedded video of each song on the list, one song per band, in addition to (generally) a summary of the band’s sound and history and the album on which the song appears.  It’s this last part that’s been killing me – I’m up to three new albums downloaded this afternoon, simply because I’ve been asking myself, “how the heck did I not have that one in my collection yet?”

Of course there’s room for debate – both with respect to the rank order and to the particular song selected for each band – but overall I think it’s a solid list.  Special shout out for ranking Between the Buried and Me’s entire album “Colors” in the number 3 spot and describing it as “one album-length song, broken up into eight tracks.”  Go figure, I was actually listening to “Colors” last night and reflecting on (1) how badass it is, obviously, but also (2) how the album exists as cohesive whole and ought to be enjoyed as such, straight through, from the first to last track.  Indeed, I don’t think I’ve ever not listened to it as a single, hour-long song.  Nice to have some sort of confirmation that [not all of] my private musings are completely out of my rear.

Anyway, it merits a click-through; although if you’re at all a metal fan, I wish you and your wallet good luck on sticking to your music download budget.  On that note, I’ll leave you with the Number 8 song, my beloved Killswitch’s “The End of Heartache”:

Appropriately enough, I was just asked what I was working on that left me sitting here with a big ol’ grin on my face and typing away.  OBSESSED!