It's not about the riffs, but I remember the criteria did include influence, musical ability, popularity and acclaim...all the albums I've mentioned had all of the above.

Wolverine Blues sucks. You're on your own with that one. As for Dismember, I'd rather have two Dismember albums than one album by Dark Tranquility or Opeth, but everyone else really disagrees with me on that one.

Musical ability is not part of the criteria. Only "most skilled" lists use that.

As for everything else, all the albums on the list are important and more so than the albums you mentioned. If Severed Survival is only 45, there's no way a Dying Fetus album is getting on.

Like An Everflowing Stream could probably go above Nespithe, but no higher.

I'm aware that I'm alone on that one, lol. I don't expect anyone to agree with me, but it did change death metal in some way and single-handedly invented a sub-genre. Granted, it's not well liked one, or respected one, but it gave death metal, at least I think, a much needed groove.

Severed Survival should move up a bit too.

I just can't understand why Human and Scream Bloody Gore would be above Symbolic and Individual Thought Patterns, Sound of Perseverance, and Leprosy.

Scream Bloody Gore is essential, yes and influential, but it's just not all that good, and Leprosy is ten times more influential and skilled than SBG. That's kind of like saying Bleach is the most influential grunge album because it was Nirvana's first. Human too was the BEGINNING of the progressive Death stuff, but c'mon it doesn't hold a candle to ITP SOP, or Symbolic for any bit of the criteria. In fact, I think this is the only list I've seen where Symbolic, SOP, an ITP aren't the top slot, let alone beat by SBG and Human.

Scream Bloody Gore should be there because unlike Seven Churches, which was drenched in Satanism, it was the first album to evoke an awful feeling of death. You could almost smell the rotting corpses with that album.

You could definitely argue that Leprosy could be just as higher than the other progressive albums, but between the first two, the lists I've seen split it 50/50 (i.e. half of them rank SBG the highest, half of them rank Leprosy the highest).

But you would disagree with Symbolic or ITP taking the top spot? Because I just don't get why they wouldn't.

They aren't "deathy" enough. Plus the earlier albums are way more influential anyway. And Chuck's releases after Human were losing more and more impact anyway because they were less and less like death metal. He received a lot of criticism for that. I remember reading the Symbolic remastered liner notes and it said that album received very poor reviews at first. It wasn't until way after the fact (possibly until after Chuck died) that those later albums started getting more and more praise.

BTW, Symbolic is my favorite Death album.

It's because they are more influential albums (and in Human's case, more popular).

Like I said before, the debate over whether Leprosy or ITP is more influential is certainly debatable, but SBG and Human belong straight at the top.

Ok I get it. It's just strange because I personally would only give SBG a C, and Human a B+, everything else (I have yet to hear Spiritual Healing) is just the very best in the genre, but I guess as far as the criteria is concerned, it's appropriate.

I could have sworn I did eventually put Harmony Corruption on the list but I guess I didn't. Where do people think it should go? 20's?

Any chance of this getting on the main page? The old one is fucking painful to look at.

I could give Lew a PM. Anything look like it needs to be changed before I do?