knighttomourning's Almostopster: Ol’ Dirty Bastard - N☆☆★A PLeASe

by knighttomourning on Fri, Mar 29, 2024

k2m tries to get the vortex canceled

Before having heard this album, I bought a CD copy of it at a Goodwill for $1. Given that I was a fan of Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s first album, and a Wu-Tang fan in general, I figured this was well worth the asking price. I listened to it for the first time in my car while driving around Madison, Wisconsin, and I had a pang in my brain that I have only had a few times in my life: “Is this my new favorite album?

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Strawberry's Almostopster: The Beatles - The Beatles (White Album)

by StrawberryDeluxe on Sat, Mar 23, 2024

A surprise stone cold classic pick coming from strawb

Unlike most of my fellow vortexers I have more than a topster’s worth of 10’s, so this prompt could be taken from two different angles: an album that is a 10 but I wouldn’t consider to be a “favorite,” or one of my favorite 9’s. If we’re talking about “The 26th album on your topster” the first one that comes to mind is The Pretenders’s debut album, which has just missed my topster two years in a row.

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Anal Nunchuks' Almostopster: Harakiri for the Sky - III: Trauma

by Anal Nunchuks on Sun, Mar 17, 2024

Edgy vortexer, complains about album runtime constantly, then chooses a 70 minute long.

Harakiri for the Sky occupies a very special place in my heart. It was 2017, I’d just come to Canada and high school life had me unravelling at the seams, and I’d just discovered metal due to one site that cannot be named. I was heavily into melodic death metal and shaking off my metalcore past, and I found myself drawn to the Finnish unhappiness of Insomnium. Black metal, meanwhile, proved a tough nut to crack – I found most of it devoid of memorable melody, emotional connection, and poignant themes.

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Goldi's Almostopster: Circle of Dust - Disengage

by Goldi on Mon, Mar 11, 2024

This week, it's a vortex heavyweight's turn to choose an album

My first memories of music are wishing it was heavier. Before I had internet access, I spent years quietly combing through my father’s record collection looking for something, anything, that had aggression, playing CD after CD of soft rock, CCM, pop, 80s dance, disco, and for years my precious treasure vault amounted to “Godzilla” by Blue Öyster Cult and “Hammerhead” by The Offspring and the handful of songs where Christian contemporary rock artists accidentally played something with balls.

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