Betraying the Martyrs - Breathe in Life
Extremely powerful deathcore album with great guitar sound and very skilled musicians, yet enough melodic parts to make the whole thing a well-balanced experience. The frontman is considered one of the most powerful voices in the whole genre. The lyrics transmit a positive Christian message.

Antestor - The Forsaken
One of the first bands to ever make unblack metal (music that stylistically is black metal but transfers a Christian message). The drummer on this album is one of the best in black metal. The whole thing is innovative, well-written, technically on a good level and everything just fits together astonishingly well.

Awesome Mix Part 1
Various artists. Songs that can be heard in the movie Guardians of the Galaxy. Just a perfect feel good thing. My favorite track from this is Hooked on a Feeling from Blue Swede.

Beethoven Symphony #4
Quick changes between energetic and beautiful calm parts. Requires very skilled musicians. This kind of music is better heard live than from a record. Seeing and hearing an actual ensemble just makes you realize what enormous amounts of work it must be to make music on this level.

Louis Armstrong - Essentials
Collection of some of the most important songs from influential jazz musician Louis Armstrong. I love to listen to this one when snow is falling. It puts me in a Christmas mood.

In for Hotline Miami 2!

Thanks a lot, I'm in for Hotline Miami 2. Is this a GOG or Steam copy, anyway? Because in this case I prefer a Steam copy, since if I'm not wrong there's additional content on Steam in HM2 if you already own HM1 (also some stuff will unlock in Payday 2 too). So if this is a GOG copy, I won't enter.

Anyway, those are my favourite albums:

Shadow of The Colossus OST

Yeah, it's epic. It's one of the best soundtrack I ever heard, some themes are just wonderful even if you don't know what the game is.

883 Hanno ucciso l'Uomo Ragno

This is an italian group. I really loved it when I was a kid, because each song tells a story. Nothing great here, it's more a nostalgia factor, but whatever.

Red Hot Chili Peppers Californication

A lot of good stuff here. Didn't know this band before MTV. I'm not a fan of MTV, but I used to watch it when I was a kid, waiting for movie trailers :D So they costantly sent this song, and I loved it.

Tutti morimmo a stento, from Fabrizio de Andrè

Maybe one of the best italian singer/composer. Again, he told stories instead of just singing, each story is a piece of Italy with a deep mean inside it.

Unforgivable sinner by Lene Marlin

I only own this album because it was a gift, but I love basically each piece from it. I find those songs very sad, maybe I love them for this.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

At times, i am dumb (at least i purposefully choose to roleplay as such), so i want to participate! Yay!


1) Music from the Succubus Club I love it, because it is mostly a collection of songs from gothic bands (my personal favorite genre), bound together as a tribute, for fictional vampire clans, on the Vampire the Masquerade fantasy setting, from White Wolf! Must for any fan of the games, the music, the bands contributing in this compilation and not only!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVcPUUQZ2hQ&index=1&list=PL7B8C09DFF2A4418C

2) Nox Arcana: Winter's Knight Winter, snow, cold is my most beloved season, when i am not moody and i don't "celebrate" one of my most unbearable black anniversaries ever on it... So it was only natural i would put this gloomy masterpiece at least spot 2! For anyone else, this is a pretty great band, taking various themes and turning them into instrumental music, especially somewhat creepy stories and stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3TGccBPYuo&list=PL3B333CE1AEE2BB57

3) The single from Nightwish: WIsh i had an Angel Their final work with their best voice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L0FeAn3IK8

4) Turisas: Stand up and fight Those guys are awesome. Always giving off a feeling of strength, supremacy, buffing and courage. I love valor and courage, even if others inspire it to me and i am found lacking...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H8-mb9b-dc&list=PL03938B6F13DAA25B

5) Castlevania Concert: Game music is special; performed by real orchestra is something otherwordly, simply something else...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd3ua6AwdRw&list=PLC2BDEADEE30F974B

Not in but thanks for the giveaway.

It's a dumb for asking only 5 albums cause so many good musician or band out there also hard to pick which my top 5 but here's my list for what comes in mind.

Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin
Iron Maiden - Power Slave
Slayer - South of Heaven
Metallica - and Justice for All
Kreator - Horde of Chaos

Thanks for your generous giveaway +1 NOT IN :)

I already have Hotline Miami 1, but HM2 is 15-20$, are you sure?

Anyway, with digital files I stopped focusing on albums ages ago.
I can remember only a few:

- blind guardian - nightfall in middle earth (metal & fantasy FTW!)
- iron maiden - best of the beast (a great best of)
- green day - international superhits (cool but old best of)
- u2 - all that you can't leave behind (a great album)
- beatles - one (great best of)

Cool, it'll be interesting to see what all music people post. Might find some unknown gems in the mix!
I suppose I'll enter for the 1st game as it appears to have a nice Postal 1ish type of vibe.

Here are some of my favourite albums in no particular order:

* <span class="bold">AC/DC: Back in Black</span>
I am a massive AC/DC fan and pretty much love every song on every album they've put out. I own about 40-45 or so AC/DC CDs including all imports, various singles, rare and extremely rare ones nobody's ever heard of. Even though I have difficulty picking favourites amongst things I like, this album is their best selling album of all time and has always been my personal favourite and probably my most played one as well. I am a major Angus Young fan and he is my favourite lead guitarist of all time and have painstakingly transcribed a lot of their songs and a large portion of his solos which are often rather difficult to hear precicely in the mix. (Many thanks to the program Riff Station for helping me to rectify this!)

* <span class="bold">Dream Theater: Images and Words</span>
I'm a huge progressive metal fan, and Dream Theater is my favourite band of the genre. Images and Words was the first album of theirs that I ever heard and I fell in love with it. I'm a lead guitarist myself and John Petrucci's amazing guitar talent just reached out and dragged me right in. I love all of their albums, but this one is a little more special to me as it was the first one I was exposed to back in the mid 90s. <span class="bold">The Mirror/Lie</span> did it for me. Such an amazing heavy deep dark riff, awesome syncopation and complex time signature changes at the beginning, and <span class="bold">the guitar solo</span> is just stunning. This song was what got me interested in 7-string guitar which I can't put down now, and put John on my list of favourite top guitarists.

* <span class="bold">Symphony X: V: The New Mythology Suite</span>
Being a huge prog metal fan, Symphony X is one of my favourite bands. Like Dream Theater I love all of their albums and it is truly hard to pick a favourite because they're just all so amazing. This album was the first full album of theirs I heard and like a lot of progressive albums out there it is a thematic album with many masterpieces and a wide range of musical diversity. Michael Romeo is one of my favourite guitar virtuosos.

* <span class="bold">Metallica: Master of Puppets</span>
Initially I didn't care for hard fast thrash metal at all. It was all "noise" to me. That is until one day I crashed at a buddy's house after a party and woke up to this amazing tune which turned out to be "Call of Ktulu" from Metallica's Ride the Lightning album. That got me interested in actually listening to some of their stuff instead of just brushing it off as noise. He loaned me a few CDs and within a week... well... I was metallicized. I followed them closely up until the Black album and I am a fan of that era of the band. Again it's hard to pick a favourite among such great albums but Master of Puppets is arguably the one that is most played for me, and while I learned to play all of these albums on guitar, Master is the only one I can still play all the way through as I've forgotten the rest of their stuff over the years. :) This album was their first album to have quite high quality production values and rich layering of parts. Their composition skills were greatly improved over the early albums and they started experimenting much more with time signature changes, off beats, dynamics and more variety of tone.

* <span class="bold">Guns 'n' Roses: Appetite for Destruction</span>
Fell in love with the guitar on Sweet Child of Mine as it saturated the radio waves when the album came out. It was rare that a song made me want to actually buy an album but this one did. I went out and bought it not having any idea what to expect and when I came home I just sat there in the chair and listened to it through twice in a row without distraction. I was just blown away and didn't know what to think. It quickly became one of my favourite albums and they one of my favourite bands. The guitar work on this album was just amazing, with both guitars doing very different things that blended together to give a wall of sound quite different from the majority of bands out there that just have 2 guitars playing the exact same thing. This was the very first album that I learned to play all of the guitar parts on all songs start to finish on guitar. The tab book for it is tattered in pieces. Played this album to death both on the CD player and guitar. Indeed, this is an epic masterpiece and one of the best concept/thematic albums out there. This was their most comprehensive and refined work to date when it came out. I have to agree with you on that also, the title track is truly epic, perhaps enough so to define what epic is, rolling in at just over 24 minutes - a feat not achieved by very many songs by very many bands out there. A true masterpiece.

They're recording a new album right now by the way. I'm drooling with anticipation at the wait! :)

You know this one? Click

Great idea. Here are my favourite albums:

Ornatos Violeta: "O monstro precisa de amigos"
IMHO, the best album from the best Portuguese band. You may not enjoy it if you don't understand the lyrics, but I encourage you to search for them on Youtube.

Pearl Jam: "Ten"
A great start from an amazing band. I loved them until around the year 2000, where they changed a bit. I still think they are good, but no longer great.

Marilyn Manson: "Mechanical Animals"
A very polished album with very well orchestrated music. It is still Manson, but less "raw" than his previous albums.

Mansun: "Kleptomania"
I first came into contact with Manun on a large CD store. His album was up to be listened on the headphones, and I loved it. However, I had recently purchased "Use your illusion" I & II, and that turned out to be a very poor purchase. So I did not buy the Mansun album. I regretted it for years!
Mansun is quite fresh and is quite talented. Worth checking out.

Explosions in the sky: "How strange, Innocense"
For all of those who love guitars! Great post-rock album. Excelent performance. You really need to hear it to understand what an amazing soundscape these guys paint.

hmm sounds like fun, im in!

heres 5 of my favs... oh shoot, cant limit myself to 5 so heres 10 in no order... and im going to limit myself to one album per artist...

the knife: silent shout; a really great electronic album that blends catchy pop with weird thoughtful ambience.

neutral milk hotel; in the aeroplane over the sea; emotional, lyrically moving, powerful, and also whimsically charged.

st vincent: self titled; st vincent is a rock goddess from another planet, the female david bowie. Pretty much every one of her albums is fantastic.

nine inch nails: the fragile; an epic 2 disc album, with a great depth of weird electronic sound. Trent reznor's lyrics cut deep.

joanna newsom: have one on me; a huge album of brilliant freak-folk-harp ballads. Her lyrics paint wildly vivid, playful, heartwrenching pictures.

radiohead: the bends; a childhood favorite.. one of those albums cant help but sing along to.

fever ray: self titled; side project of the knife's vocalist, and another excellent line-bending pop experiment.

placebo: meds; catchy, and memorable to the last song, also makes for a hell of a live show.

pj harvey let england shake; PJ has an amazing collection of work.. could have chosen many of her albums.

tool: aenima; an album that oozes atmosphere and complicated emotion, also excellent musicianship.

Yeah I know, and they described it's sound as being "a cross between Paradise Lost and The Odyssey", my two favourite Symphony X albums. I'm psyched!

I think you mixed up an album in your picks btw, The Mirror and Lie are on Awake, not Images & Words. Also The Mirror was the first Dream Theater track I ever heard, bricks were shat and my life was forever changed.

+1 One of their best albums, "The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place" is my personal favourite :)

NOT IN (and thanks for the giveaway~!) but love the topic, so here are five of mine. The one that's my favorite depends on my mood at the time ;D

Opaline by Dishwalla -- I like EVERY SONG except the title track. Go figure~! -- listen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-mzmeyfUMQ

Fallen by Evanescence -- listen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8bDN5UIVyQ

Portrait by Dan Fogelberg, specifically disc four, Tales and Travels -- listen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pr2CtGfO38

Long Road out of Eden by The Eagles, disc one -- listen to the first song, Waiting in the Weeds, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3UEIIonYew

The Wall by Pink Floyd, specifically disc two -- listen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHof4LsfP0A

I could go on and on~!

Miles Davis -- Kind of Blue
If you only ever listen to one jazz album in your life, then this is the one I would suggest. For me, it's quintessential jazz -- what I think of when I hear the word. It's kind of safe, doesn't really experiment too much, but it feels very spontaneous and energetic. Perfect for sitting down with a good book on a nice evening.

Jean Michel Jarre -- Oxyg&egrave;ne (Oxygen)
Basically the same as above, just replace jazz with electronic music. It has some really memorable haunting melodies and for me it feels truly organic, meaning it doesn't get too repetitive (which is my biggest beef with electronic music and the reason I didn't pick one of, say, Kraftwerk's albums).

Pink Floyd -- [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHof4LsfP0A]Wall
Most people seem to prefer Dark Side of the Moon or even Animals over this album (Maybe because it's too popular? Or too passé?), but I'm free to pick whatever I like and I like this. I like that it tells a coherent "story" and it has a really good melancholy feel to it.

Rammstein -- Mutter (Mother)
I'm not a big fan of newer metal, but I like the industrial stuff that Rammstein produces quite a lot. It's playful, transgressive and sublime and I really like the evocative imagery in the lyrics and the way they play around with meanings. This album gets a bit blander in the second half and doesn't even have my favourite songs on it, but it's probably the one that's most consistent and representative of Rammstein.

АукцЫон -- Птица (Bird)
I don't listen to a whole lot of Russian music, but I like the cadence of the lead singer's voice and the mix of genre influences on this album. The lyrics have never made a lot of sense to me, but this is probably due to a culture and language barrier.

Oh, and I'm in for Hotline Miami 2

I have a huge list but here are some of my favorite albums:

- Led Zeppelin: "Led Zeppelin IV"

- Pink Floyd: "Dark Side of the Moon"

- AC/DC: "Back in Black"

- Jethro Tull: "Aqualung"

- Led Zeppelin: "Physical Graffiti"

Thanks for the giveaway.