Greetings! My name is Thomas Nadelhoffer. I am a professor of philosophy at the College of Charleston. I have been a fan of heavy metal since my teenage years during the 1980s. Back then, I was a die hard fan of punk and thrash metal--a love that hasn't dissipated. Lately, I have been on a doom metal kick (see here and here for more on the genre). Given my love for Black Sabbath (one of the most important bands in music history), that's not surprising. So, I decided to dedicate some of my downtime during the corona virus pandemic to put together a compendium of doom metal (broadly construed) from the 1960s until today. The 735+ albums that I have selected thus far are all listed in chronological order. I only selected albums that I either like or that were influential in the development of heavy metal more generally or doom metal more specifically. I also limited myself to no more than three albums from each band except Black Sabbath (because they are the founding fathers of doom), Melvins (a major influence on grunge, sludge metal, and doom metal more generally), and Electric Wizard (because they are the best contemporary purveyors of doom).
Obviously, this list betrays my biases and preferences—e.g., I think that most death metal inspired doom is horrible (no offense to fans of death metal!) while I like traditional doom, stoner rock, sludge metal, and doom mixed with thrash, punk, hardcore, etc. Obviously, I don't pretend this list is complete. If you have albums you think belong in the compendium, post your suggestions in the salient blog post. I have created a single post for each decade beginning with the 1960s (see below). This will remain a work in progress. I hope you find my COVID-19 inspired project useful. This is what happens when a professional researcher and metal nerd has too much time on his hands. On a related note, in the coming weeks and months I will start adding links to relevant entries on Wikipedia and to videos of the albums from my list that are available on YouTube. Stay tuned! Also, almost all of these albums are available on Amazon Prime’s paid music service. I don't say this to plug the service. I merely mention it because if you are already member, you should be able to find the overwhelming majority of these albums there.
p.s. I have also developed a similar chronology for thrash metal called The Compendium of Thrash. So, you might find that of interest as well.