Guitar World's Top 50 Albums of 2012
 

For a mainstream publication, this is actually a very badass list. Very diverse. Only a couple albums suck on here. That's gotta be a record:

[B]50. Overkill — The Electric Age
49. Lynyrd Skynyrd — Last of a Dyin' Breed
48. Wayne Krantz — Howie 61
47. As I Lay Dying — Awakened
46. Municipal Waste — Fatal Feast
45. Paul Gilbert — Vibrato
44. The Gaslight Anthem — Handwritten
43. Firewind — Few Against Many
42. The Contortionist — Intrinsic
41. Smashing Pumpkins — Oceania
40. John 5 — God Told Me To
39. Robert Cray Band — Nothin But Love
38. Ihsahn — Eremita
37. The Sword — Aprocryphon
36. Enslaved — RIITIIR
35. Miss May I — At Heart
34. Coheed and Cambria — The Afterman: Ascension
33. High on Fire — De Vermis Mysteriis
32. Lee Ranaldo — Between the Times and the Tides
31. The Mars Volta — Noctourniquet
30. Carlos Santana — Shape Shifter
29. Pig Destroyer — Book Burner
28. Dethklok — Dethalbum III
27. Converge — All We Love We Leave Behind
26. The Cult — Choice of Weapon
25. Alabama Shakes — Boys & Girls
24. Dinosaur Jr. — I Bet on Sky
23. Gojira — L’Enfant Sauvage
22. Kiss — Monster
21. Joe Walsh — Analog Man
20. Jeff Loomis — Plains of Oblivion
19. Joe Bonamassa — Driving Towards the Daylight
18. Between the Buried and Me — The Parallax II: Future Sequence
17. Testament — Dark Roots of Earth
16. Slash — Apocalyptic Love
15. Baroness — Yellow & Green
14. Lamb of God — Resolution
13. Deftones — Koi No Yokan
12. Aerosmith — Music From Another Dimension!
11. Steve Vai — The Story of Light
10. Green Day — ¡Uno!
09. Meshuggah — Koloss
08. Jack White — Blunderbuss
07. Gary Clark Jr. — Blak and Blu
06. Soundgarden — King Animal
05. Neil Young & Crazy Horse — Psychedelic Pill
04. ZZ Top — La Futura
03. Periphery — Periphery II
02. Rush — Clockwork Angels
01. Van Halen — A Different Kind of Truth[/B]

Good to see Kiss,Aerosmith,and Van Halen in there

They went full retard with the top 10 but i'm surprised to see Guitar World acknowledging a few of these bands.

LOL @ Aerosmith, Steve Vai and fuckin' Van Halen ranked higher than Baroness, Converge, Pig Destroyer and High On Fire.

Van Halen is pretty good but definitely not the best of the year. Not a bad list though. Most of the releases I dug are in there somewhere.

Get rid of Green Day and put in Tremonti.

Yeah, none of the albums Green Day has put out this year belong anywhere near a best-of list. The fact that I said albums, plural, is a dead giveaway.

To me the rankings don't matter as much as what is represented in the entire list. I think it is very well rounded overall and they did skip out on a lot of great albums. But that doesn't mean its a bad list by any means.

Lol at the rankings (though Rush high up is pretty fine to me by a relatively mainstream publication), but there's some decent coverage on this list. Gojira :horns:

I'd have to say the best "rock" record of the year would be Monster by Kiss,best metal album of the year would have to take me some time to think about.