Roy Skelton, who is long-remembered as the voice of the Daleks in Classic Doctor Who, has passed away at the age of 79. Skelton had his first step into acting after leaving school and joining the National Association of Boys’ Club Travelling Theatre, and then eventually training at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

After a variety of parts on the BBC, Skelton became known as a voice actor, which led to his first role as the voice of the Daleks in 1967’s The Evil of the Daleks, a Classic Doctor Who adventure featuring Second Doctor Patrick Troughton. Skelton continued the Dalek role in Doctor Who until 1988, and also became the voice of other enemies, including the Cybermen and the Krotons.

There’s just a few days left of Amazon’s celebration of heavy metal with their
50 $5 Metal Albums sale. For only $5 each in MP3 format, there are some insanely good must-have metal albums up for sale through the end of March, like Metallica‘s …And Justice For All, Judas Priest‘s Screaming For Vengeance, Black Sabbath‘s Heaven And Hell, Quiet Riot‘s Metal Health, and many more, including some really great “Best Of” compilations.

I picked out a few here below, but be sure to check out the main sale page to see all the albums available now for only $5 each.

Metallica …And Justice For All
Danzig Danzig
Judas Priest Screaming For Vengeance
A Perfect Circle Thirteenth Step
Pantera The Best Of Pantera
Van Halen Van Halen – Best Of Volume 1
Megadeth Megadeth – Greatest Hits: Back To The Start
Black Sabbath Black Sabbath – Heaven And Hell
Cinderella Night Songs
Rainbow Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow
Testament The New Order
Anthrax Spreading The Disease
Kiss Kiss
Queensryche The Best Of Queensryche

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.

Russian band Pushking have joined forces with an onslaught of major musicians and vocalists from heavy metal and hard rock to create an impressive line-up on a collaborative album. The release has been titled The World as We Love It, and compiles 19 re-recorded songs from Pushking’s past efforts, with special guests ranging from Paul Stanley (KISS) and Nuno Bettencourt (Extreme) to Alice Cooper and Steve Vai!

If you think those four guests listed above is enough, think again. Check out the track listing and the guests on each song by continuing on below.

The New York Times released an online hodgepodge of musicians we lost during 2010, and have omitted three major losses during the year that should anger metalheads across the Earth. In their year review, the Times has snubbed Ronnie James Dio (Black Sabbath, Dio), Peter Steele (Type O Negative), and Paul Gray (Slipknot).

You can view the New York Times montage over at their site if you can be bothered. I’m not embedding it here, because for my part, I’m disgusted they’ve overlooked three significant musicians — presumably just because they’re from the metal genre. The grounds upon which I make this assumption are that there is no metal whatsoever in their “tribute.” Rock, Soul, Pop, R&B, Hip Hop, Post-Punk are all included in the company of Funk, Disco, and others. Metal (and related genres) are nowhere to be seen.