Our year-end polls are now closed and we have some surprising results.
According to our open voting, with nearly 50,000 total votes cast, Babymetal's Metal Resistance is the album of the year, followed by Epica's The Holographic Principle and Metallica's Hardwired… To Self-Destruct. It should be noted that we noticed a lot of referrals from Babymetal message forums encouraging people to vote for the band (EDITORS NOTE: BY FANS, NOT BY THE BAND DIRECTLY), which shouldn't take away from the victory, because it was all within the rules, but it explains the favorable skew. Epica themselves shared the poll on their socials, whereas Metallica did not, leading me to believe if there was no campaigning, Metallica would've easily won followed by Amon Amarth and Gojira.
As for the best tour of the year, Slipknot, Marilyn Manson, Of Mice & Men won that.
Babymetal dominated the best music video voting this year, followed by Ghost's "Square Hammer" and Gojira's 'Silvera.' View the final poll results below.
Album of the Year results