Occupy Wall Street dominates discussion on this week’s edition of Social Blend, among other topics including the sad news of Steve Jobs passing away, and the anniversary of Nirvana‘s Nevermind.

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Joining the discussion for this episode is Jeremy Rosen from Roadrunner Records (who kindly brought along some Opeth and Dream Theater for us to play) and musician Terr Ciavarra aka Media Nox.

It’s not often I’m compelled to write about another site’s Top 10 list, but when I saw Ozzy Osbourne‘s Bark At The Moon made Yahoo’s list of Ten Worst Heavy Metal Albums of All-Time, I was flabbergasted.

Seriously, Bark At The Moon? Worst of ALL TIME? No way!

According to the intro to the Yahoo! list, which also bafflingly includes Iron Maiden‘s Fear Of The Dark, to be considered for inclusion the band has to be “somewhat famous,” stating “After all, why kick a band when it’s down, who were never up in the first place?” That means, heavy metal bands people aren’t really familiar with really wouldn’t qualify, which makes their number 6 choice, Raven‘s The Pack Is Back, an odd selection considering they were less famous than their counterparts Anvil BEFORE the Anvil! The Story Of Anvil award-winning movie was released. So, until Raven!: The Story Of Raven becomes the breakout hit at Sundance, I’d say leave the band alone in their obscurity.

I’ve often said this to fellow metalheads, but it’s pretty much true: Bruce Dickinson can make anything interesting. Not only is he the air raid siren vocalist for Iron Maiden, but he is also an accomplished solo artist, professional fencer, author (he wrote a kids’ book!), and of course, a qualified pilot.

In fact, for those who haven’t seen the Iron Maiden: Flight 666 documentary, Dickinson actually pilots Ed Force One, a customized 757 that carries the personnel and crew and gear for Iron Maiden when on tour. It’s pretty mind-blowing seeing that stuff all set up in one single plane, watching Dickinson pilot it out into the skies, land it, and then change into his stage gear to scream it out loud on top of the very gear he just flew across the world. Seeing this in action in the Sam Dunn documentary is damn impressive.

Anyway, Dickinson recently recorded a training video called Safety in the Balance for the UK Civil Aviation Authority. The premise of the clip is to discuss the precise requirements in load and balance on aeroplanes, and emphasizes the importance of the mathematical precision to ensure that aircraft, ground staff, crew, and passengers are kept safe.

Judas Priest has released a new promo image on their Facebook page highlighting their new line-up for their upcoming tour — and you can see the larger version at the bottom of this post. As previously reported here, the band announced their final tour, which they’ve titled The Farewell EPITAPH World Tour.

Following this announcement, it was revealed that guitarist K.K. Downing had formally retired from the band and will not be joining them on tour. Stepping into Downing’s shoes for the tour will be Richie Faulkner, who previously performed with Lauren Harris, daughter of Steve Harris from Iron Maiden.

Downing recently also released a formal statement on his official website regarding his retirement.

The official website for Gibson guitars has released what they perceive to be the top 50 metal songs of all time. Gibson.com’s writers and editors worked on compiling the list over several weeks, releasing 10 entries at a time, and recently released the top 10, which declared the number one metal song to be “Master of Puppets” by Metallica.

In some ways, the number one spot for Metallica is fitting, considering 2011 is the 25th anniversary of the release of their Master of Puppets album. Having said that though, metalheads are notorious for having fierce and strong opinions about what they consider to be their “top songs,” on top of their fierce and strong opinions about what bands are or are not even metal.