JUMPING DARKNESS PARADE: EYAL WONDERS IF METAL IS ABOUT TO GO BACK UNDERGROUND
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 4:30pm by Eyal Levi
When did you guys start listening to heavy music? How many of you started listening this decade? I’m seriously curious about this. Those of you who started this decade… Are you sick of it yet? Are you starting to get sick of it? Does it excite you the way it did in 2004? For those of you who started earlier… do you remember what things were like 1990-1995? Remember when Megadeth was going multiplatinum, Pantera was flying in private jets, and Morbid Angel and Carcass were on major labels? Remember how that pretty much died off?
Many people just grew out of it. Some bands kept it going… Slayer, Pantera, etc. But overall, it seems like in the mid to late 90’s, a good amount of people who were into metal stopped caring about it. The underground definitely kept on going, but it was rough times. Very few bands were able to make any sort of life happen unless they were already huge, or incredibly radio friendly… Nu Metal?
I kinda feel the same thing starting to happen again. Many people that I know don’t care like they used to. Passion that people had for metal five years ago is now gone. There’s obviously still a fanbase for it and it’s always going to be there, but I’m wondering if its about to go underground again. There’s nothing certain in the record industry right now. When you can crack the Billboard Top 200 by selling 2,500 records, it’s clear that something isn’t right. So is it just that music is in a fucked up spot, or am I onto something by saying that I predict that the metal explosion of the early to mid 2000s is coming to a close and that we’re going to enter lean times again?
I hope I’m wrong of course. But I’m just calling it like I feel it. Many bands in metal are doing very, very well these days. Soundscan last week showed some very impressive numbers for a lot of heavy hitters. We’ve been on two tours for this cycle that have done very well. I’ve been to some huge shows. I don’t think that things are going to fall apart any time soon. I just get this sense that people are starting to care less. Am I alone here?
-EL
Prove that you still care by visiting Daath on MySpace.
The problem is that no one buys records anymore, IMO.
Yeah, I remember back when Overkill, King’s X and Testament were optioned by Atlantic after Megaforce fell through. I also remember how all three of those bands put out subpar records at around the same time (”I Hear Black”, “King’s X” and “The Ritual”, respectively). I also remember how all of them went back to form in ‘94 (”WFO”, “Dogman” and “Low”) and were subequently dropped. Horseshit.
The thing about metal is, it gets over-exposed, goes back underground, gets pissed off and comes back. Are we starting the see the same over-saturation we saw when death metal became popular in the early ’90s (Osmose Productions and JL America, anyone)? Yeah, a bit… but this time it’s all these “-core” genres people were sick of from the beginning. So yeah, I think some parts of metal will end up going back underground (or die out completely), but the pattern is rarely the same. So, we’ll see.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna dig up my old copy of Cathedral’s “The Ethereal Mirror” on Sony.
Um….I Hear Black is subpar? Que?
As long as I have Nile, I’ll be happy.
No fucking way is it dead. Yeah maybe it’s still not up there with “poop (shit)=pop), as far as sales, but for myself, son, his friends now being interested in black metal, & there are more black metal bands popping up in the US (my fav is Ceremonial Castings,). And the black or doom etc.whatever genre the metal bands in Europe are having more of an influence & subsequent fan interest-COF, Dissection, Dark Tranquillity, Bethlehem, Anaal Nathrakh, Naglfar I can’t get enough!!!…. Abigail Williams from NY, Sothis from CA (they are quality wise excellent but I think they’re trying too hard personally, too “commercial” but they are extremely popular with others). Yes, I wish people would BUY CD’S!!! And more merch PERIOD. I know paying $8-$15 for a show the band isn’t making much. And there are SO many great death/technical metal bands here-Cattle Decap, Conducting from the Grave, Arsis, (and of course DAATH), good metal bands PERIOD! Black metal is not for everyone, but once a fan-a fan for life.
so you think thta metal is dead then you are full of shit… the shit tthey call rap,pop,and country is dead not metal… there are so many bands come on to the scene these days.. we all know there not as good as some of the old stuff but some of the new band are cool too… no shit the sells are down for one all this computer download shit is to blam for alot of it… and the ecomeny is the other reason for it and if you think that metal is dead so much then stop listening to it and go complain about some other kind of music then!!!!
justin666 metal forever
Every bubble bursts, eventually. With this metal generation, it seems to be a ton of smaller bubbles. The metalcore bubble has well since burst, with several other genres either there or on their way.
Really? Because you know…there are more metalcore bands today than there have EVER been, regardless of whether you think the best of the genre has passed.
I see what you mean, but there are a few bands that have progressed from older metalcore seen 5 years ago.
Examples would be August Burns Red, For Today, Conducting from the Grave, etc etc.
I got sick of old textbook metalcore, but these bands have added a bit more of a fresh, progressive sense to things.
the smaller it gets the better it gets
No. When it gets smaller it just leads to less shitty bands, so it seems better. The good bands are always there, you just have to sort through the shit.
So technically you would happiest with 0 bands.
You are SO right! Ceremonial Castings, Arsis, both don’t have millions of MySpace fans, but they are top of the line. Altho my goal is to hit Europe and see some HUGE black metal shows!
I don’t think you can really use album sales as a standard to judge how into a specific type of music people are anymore. It’s the day of the digital singles and torrent downloads, especially with the economy being the way it is.
I don’t doubt that all the trendy “myspace metal” bands that jumped up 3-4 years ago are going to start dying out soon, and a lot of the smaller bands that really rose to prominence because of myspace and the crowd that idolised that type of music are going to disappear, because they never really broadened out to a larger audience.
Natalie Portman said something recently that’s probably one of the most asinine things I’ve heard to date about the recession, and that I can use to illustrate my point. She said she thought the recession and huge amount of unemployment was a good thing, because it would allow people the time to invest in their hobbies that they hadn’t been able to, because they had spent that time working. I guess it’s because she’s a typical Hollywood halfwit who hasn’t personally been hit by the recession, but when people don’t have jobs, they don’t have money, and if they don’t have money – regardless of how much free time they have – they can’t really do anything with their hobbies if it takes money. Lots of people love music, and I know plenty of people who are still as into metal as they’ve ever been – but because they’re out of a job, have taken wage or work hour cuts, or are just trying to save money for when they do get laid off, they simply can’t afford to buy records. They still follow all of the news that comes out on their favorite bands, still debate which ones suck and which ones rock, but none of them are buying albums.
I’d personally say that the record sales numbers that metal bands have seen over the recent months have actually been surprisingly good, all told – because people are downloading albums and singles instead of buying them, due to what I mentioned earlier, and because metal is, and will always be, a niche genre.
To sum up the whole rambling bit, I don’t really think the true metal fans are losing their passion for the music, nor do I think that overall, metal will go underground. We’ll see a lot of the recent _____-core bands get flushed, as much due to their audience growing up and acquiring new tastes as anything else, and record sales are going to continue to drop until more bands do the NIN/Radiohead thing with online digital releases at “discounted” prices (I’d imagine if you can cut the RIAA and label bullshit out, cds could be sold for much less and the bands would still see the same net profit as if they’d been sold for $20 with all the other associated fees), but I think the cold, hard heart of metal fans will be around for quite a while yet, and they won’t let things sink too far under the waves.
Good post.
Hey, Natalie Portman went to Harvard! Where all smart people come from!
Thanks Natalie Portman! I’d love to invest time in my hobbies of not working and playing guitar, but I don’t make millions of dollars from poor acting…
She obviously didn’t major in economics at Harvard.
I hope that huge earthquake hits soon and takes Hollywood into the ocean.
Arizona Bay!
A follow-up to my earlier comment:
You know what REALLY drove metal back underground in the ’90s? Nirvana and the Black Album. Seriously, think about it. The black album came out and introduced this new streamlined version of Metallica that combined riffage with straight-ahead rock beats, and it was instantly more accessible (and new at the time, 18 years ago). Remember when other bands (like Nuclear Assault, even!) tried it and failed? Yeah, by then people were sick of it.
Nirvana… seriously, that was the nail in the coffin. Helloooooo alternative (whatever it was the “alternative” to)! From there, the floodgates opened: Smashing Pumpkins, NIN, Manson… “metal? what’s that?! Bye-bye.”
I abandoned my wigger ways back in 2005 after my girlfriend cheated on me and I found solace in the angry riffage of metal. I guess that’s around the time this surge was going on, but I found it on my own because I went searching for it and I don’t plan on leaving. My only issue are these crappy crab-core bands and the like impressing the girls with their use of autotune and techno in the middle of drop z chugging breakdowns, and a few of my freinds stereotype me by asking, “Yo man, I just heard this awesome band, Attack Attack! Do you listen to them?” and I want to punch them in the face for thinking of me in that way.
I try and do my part to tell them if they want to talk about some real metal (Lamb of God, Gojira, Behemoth, Slayer, Outcast…sorry I’m not ziltoidian and only listen to bands with 6 fans) I’d be glad to point them in the right direction, but otherwise I hate the fact that this shit is somehow hitting MTV? I just got here in the metal scene basically, and now these ridiculous-core bands are taking the stage, but if I ever hear of an Ozzfest or Rockstar Mayhem headlined by Attack Attack! then I may consider cutting my hair off.
The only thing we can do is keep going to shows and letting the venues know that if they keep charging too much for bands to play on their stages, churches might not be the only things metalheads get blamed for burning down. I’m going to keep going to shows, buying shirts, hanging around after just to even catch a glimpse of a band member and going home happy that my ears will be ringing for a good 2-3 days. See you there.
I LOVE U!
u know wtf is up!
Funny enough, I really got into metal in 2005 as well, when I made fun of my friend’s music and he flipped out on me because I didn’t at the time listen to metal, so how could I comment? It didnt’ take long for him to get me into the “lighter” stuff…it only took a couple years and now it’s basically all I listen to.
I really don’t feel like Metal is going to go back underground because it’s been underground to begin with. You look at all the “-core” bands and they just want to be Metal. Someone made a good point about Arsis, same goes for Obscura (obscure would describe them quite well to all the Crap-core kids), and any other band with technical prowess – those bands won’t break out from the underground but will find some commercial success because they have staying power.
I can always go back to the examples of BTBAM and Mastodon (and Dead to Fall RIP) – these bands had found some success with their first offerings but didn’t choose to totally re-hash that sound and put out the same thing over and over (cough*BDM*cough – although, Deflorate is fucking great). Sure, the change of sound may alienate fans, but after you realized that it was good progress, you should have embraced the change.
Where’s all this going? The underground bands that will stay underground know what it takes to stay alive while staying true to the MUSIC. They’ll never “break out” and I hope it stays that way.
2005 was the big year for me as well. and it did start out with metalcore, specifically Killswitch. since then I’ve gone onto bands such as gojira and lots of death metal.
@Eyal I was actually thinking about that today. I hope it doesn’t go underground entirely, but last time it came back fresh Ideas that lased almost a decade.
No, I think you’re probably right. These things are very cyclical, and it doesn kinda’ feel like we’re on the cusp of a new cycle – much like in 1990 before Nirvana exploded onto the scene and changed everything. This current cycle seems to be about eight or nine years old now, having really gotten started around 2001 or so – maybe slightly earlier – with say, Slipknot really blowing up. Regardless of your opinion of them, they really did do a lot to bring metal to the mainstream (and yes, they’re metal, so don’t waste your energy claiming they’re not – in terms of Eyal’s argument/observation, they are), along with bands like SOAD, Ozzfest and whatever. The market right now though, does kinda’ seem to be somewhat oversaturated, in as much as a comparitively small market like metal can be oversaturated, anyway. I mean, look at the new crop of popular bands like Winds of Plague (wait – they *are* popular, right?) and whatever other garbage is out there that is sort of the equivalent of the last gasp of hair metal in the late 80s. That was HUGE, but it burned itself out and became too repetitive and recycled and rehashed. Same thing happened in the mid-late 90s with all the Grunge clones (Seven Mary Three, Dishwalla, Creed, etc). Same thing’s happening now. Whatever is popular and new & exciting eventually becomes dilluted in order to sell even more units – especially in places with limited availability and exposure, like rural Kansas or whatever. Of course, the internet has changed that a lot, but still…
Anyway, yeah, I think you’re probably right, and metal will slip back underground a bit for awhile. And that’s ok. It needs to happen to keep things fresh and new, and it’s really the only way the art can evolve and grow. And it’ll give small-minded retards with low self-esteem the fleeting pleasure of feeling like they’re cool again because it is more underground, and they won’t have to worry if the “popular kids” are listening to the same shit they are.
Oh – and I’m 32 (well, 33 as of tomorrow) and started listening to heavy music in about 1987 when I started getting into hard rock like Poison, Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, etc. Then Appetite For Destruction came out and totally blew my doors off and opened my ears & mind to an even heavier, more dangerous side of things.
And then I heard “…And Justice For All” in the summer before 6th grade (or thereabouts), and was immediately and irrevocably hooked, and have loved metal ever since.
Lots of good points all around. Eyal’s right, 3000 units doesn’t sound like it should land you on Billboard. But as many have already said, people just aren’t buying music like they used to. I still buy all my music, either on CD or MP3, and I’m probably somewhere in the middle in terms of consumption (it goes through bursts – Sep/Oct of this year will be a lot: AIC, Living Colour, Gov’t Mule, Slayer, Baroness, Skeletonwitch, Saviours…). But a lot of folks download for free. There are arguments on both sides: record companies do get the lion’s share of your $15 per CD (or even $10 per MP3 album), bands probably get a couple bucks at most per record (with a few exceptions: I remember reading years ago that Metallica negotiated for something like $6 from Elektra in the 90s). Boo me if you must, but I do believe downloading for free without the band’s consent is stealing. Music isn’t free to produce, so it shouldn’t be free to acquire (again, unless the artist wants to give it away, like NIN). The present economy doesn’t help merch & ticket sales either, which is where bands make their money (and have probably since the 80s at least).
I think popular music and metal take their own separate trajectories, and once in a while they meet up. I started listening to heavy stuff in 1983 with Quiet Riot and Scorpions at the age of 9 (earlier if you count my brother’s KISS 8-tracks and LPs), so I was in high school when Metallica was just starting to sell millions of albums, and cheerleaders listened to it alongside (well, at the same time as) us dirty metal heads. (We did not, however, succeed in getting them into Slayer, Kreator, or D.R.I.) I think it will be a while before we see many more bands playing football stadiums like GnR & Metallica did in 1992, and shitty bands like Poison and a host of glam bands you can’t even name went Platinum with ease like they did in the 80s. Rock was cool for a few years there, and the culture at large (at least in the U.S.) was on board, but that’s a cycle that’s probably still moving outward. Maybe in a couple decades it will happen again, but I’m not going to lay a bet on when.
I have to admit, I’m not helping a lot, other than buying albums. I keep up with the news, read the websites, and buy a fair number of albums, but I don’t go to a lot of shows or buy a lot of merch. I’m into the “scene” on an intellectual level, but not the participatory level. I’m 35 years old, I have a wife, a house, a mortgage, a demanding job, etc. It’s hard to go to clubs and shows every week. It’s more like a couple times a year. More power to people to make being part of the scene a part of their lives, but I just can’t commit the time (and money). I don’t think that makes me less of a fan, just a different kind of fan.
I’ll shut up now. Eyal’s right, there is a cycle, I think we’re just starting to see the downward portion for metal for a while.
Do you live in Maine?
Maybe if you downloaded more albums you’d have more money to go to shows. Just sayin’.
I’d be curious to see a breakdown by age regarding illegal (or legal, for that matter) downloading of music and whether or not it’s seen as ok to do (or to what degree it’s seen as ok)…
I know people who do it because they’re budget is tight, I refuse on the basis of PRINCIPLE. Metal bands need the income just as much as other genres. These are the twenty somethings, life is expensive now, not like when I was 20 something. Good question.
To bucketochicken, nope, Colorado, not Maine.
To bearbomb, I can afford to go to shows. It’s not a money thing, it’s an effort thing. I have adult responsibilities like a career, friends & family, so I can’t go hang at the local clubs all the time. That’s a choice I’ve made, but it doesn’t make me like the music any less. I support the artists by BUYING their music, and telling other folks about stuff I like so maybe they’ll buy them too.
Maybe if you downloaded fewer albums, metal musicians wouldn’t have to hold down day jobs (sometimes more than one, see Ben Falgoust) to pay their bills. Just sayin’…
How did I miss this one before?
Metallibrarian, I can see your point (clearly AND I can empathize) and I share your position against illegal downloading, but you should know that artists don’t make much money off of their album sales these days, unless you buy their album directly from their merch booths at shows. Album sales count, but not like they used to. Bands buy their own albums from the labels wholesale and anything they make after breaking even from selling them at their shows is theirs. Also, the most revenue they see from their work is from ticket sales and merchandising. [Thanks to a certain someone in the know for setting me straight on that.]
And should you decide to make time to attend shows in Colorado, hit me up and you’ll have a ready-made concert buddy. :)
honestly, I started by listening to Panic At The Disco and Fall out Boy, and then it just started getting heavier… two years ago I couldn’t stand listening to Lamb Of God, but now it’s one of my fave bands.
Also, I think that there’s a new wave of metal coming, something with a different kind of sound… I don’t now how to explain it… for me Dååth and Goatwhore have some of that new sound, but also Destrophy (anyone?), and last, but not least *sigh* Attack! Attack!, which will probably be the *sigh* Korn of this generation…
So in conclusion, Ithink that metal might go underground again for some time, then storm back out again, stronger than ever!
Destrophy is from fucking Cedar Rapids (I grew up 30 minutes north of there), and has been around FOREVER. I remember seeing them a loooong time ago at some all-ages show in C.R…. they did a pretty wicked cover of “This Love.” I remember them being ok, but that they sounded a little too… I dunno, I don’t want to say “cheesy,” but maybe just a skosh to power metal-y. It’s been a long time though, so it’s hard to honestly remember what they sounded like.
I haven’t heard any of their old stuff… I now they had a clench with Slipknot once, but every band in Iowa did, so…
it’s pretty hard to compare them to anybody, but I’d call it sorta Dååth-delight or something… too cheesy?
I’m from Cedar Rapids… Desttophy sucks… big, hairy ass.
Any Waco Jesus fans here?
Their former guitarist Juan Sanchez has a pretty sweet band called 5th Dawn you should check out.
http://www.myspace.com/5thdawn
I started listening to heavy music way back in the 80’s and I’d say by the mid 90’s the market was flooded with so much crap I got tired of wasting what little pennies I had on albums that were recommended to me either through word of mouth or through some shitty magazine.
Nowadays I can just listen to a tune on the bands myspace page or download a tune on itunes and decide for myself if I like it or not. As long as bands put out music that sound good to my ears and I don’t have to sift through mountains of shit at my expense I’ll stay interested.
Accessibility is key.
Amen to that. Paying $15 bucks for something unheard but hyped that turns out to be a turd is no longer an option!
I seem to be drifting back towards industrial metal like Angelspit and 16 Volt (who I used to manage) and retro-thrash acts like Mantic Ritual and Lazarus A.D. Of course, bands like Cobalt and Bergraven do it for me as well, but the rest are few and far between this year.
Colbalt is the shit, if you haven’t yet check out Gin. Great stuff.
I love Gin and it’s infatuation with old school Killing Joke and bits of the Cure when they still sounded evil as fuck. One of my faves bro!
Yeah Cobalt is fucking great – Profound Lore just released a real limited pressing of their first t-shirt in years, pick up one of those bad boys before they’re gone.
In my opinion I would be great for metal to go back underground. Scrape all the “core” shit off the end of Metal or Death or what have you. Stop all the bands in it solely for the money from getting with producers who are in it solely for the money, and get back to writing with feeling. Remember when the riff was as impotant as the lyrics? Remember when lyrics were important??? It used to be I was into a band because 1) I liked what they had to say as a band, 2) The music fucking slayed and 3) Their integrity.
Used to be bands didn’t succumb to the will of the money hungry producer\record company. The shit out there today like Attack Attack, BrokenCyde and whatever the fuck else is one more nail in “metal” music.
Fact is if it goes “underground” there will not be a better situation. There will just be less. Less good
bands and less shitty bands. Of course we don’t care either way about shitty bands since don’t
listen to them whether there is more or less (hopefully) but we DO care about less good bands.
I think there are plenty of artists out now who still do these things you say don’t exist anymore.
If anything is recent clear example of a band with the “total package” I would say
Crack the Skye is about as good as any album could possibly be.
Oh yeah there are still bands that have integrity, however shittier and shittier bands are popping up constantly from the dark cookie cutter realm. Multitudes of groups that sound so much like the rest.
Good point though about Crack the Skye, definitely one of the best newer metal bands. And one of the best albums as of late for sure.
See, we can get along Vince.
Yeah that’s true that there seems to be a resurgence of crap bands lately.
Attack Attack leads the charge. Right now I have a hard time thinking of a
band that makes me angrier then them but then again seriously me and my
little bro got a real kick out of watching Stick Stickly so at least they are good
for a laugh. I loved the keyboard player running in place while he had a
seizure and the pudgy lead singer rubbing his nuts against the ground.
Hilarious.
Yeah it’s not like me and YouSuck were the only ones here to flame the living
crap out of each other. This one dude came to rate our argument named
MV081 and I saw his name earlier that day. I was looking up an old blog
and found a huge flame fest he was in back in June. Pretty funny. I think we
probably gave everyone something to laugh about at least.
I started getting into heavy shit between 2002 and 2003. I would say I wrote off anything played on the radio after Ozzfest 2004, which to this day is one of the better shows I’ve ever been to. I used to go to any show I could, working in a law office and having leeway like no ones business to make my own hours and wear my band shirts to work. I left the place in October 2006. As I had less cash to spend on shows, I began to prioritize according to finances and, as I later discovered, tastes. I’m bored to tears with 90% of metal because there is nothing new that is really exciting. There are a few great bands, but for every band that puts out a good record, it seems they get thrown on a tour with 3 shit bands and one mediocre one. I spent most of the last 6 months catching up on some older death metal bands and some non-metal acts because there is nothing that has me addicted in the world of heavy.
Personally, I’m glad that I’m bored stiff. Because you are correct – music is going to go back underground and when all the penny-a-dozen scene/scream/whatever bands drown in their lack of talent (God bless fight or flight), the really good bands are going to start sounding even better. It’s then that we’ll find our next ‘As the Palaces Burn,’ ‘The Art of Balance,’ and ‘Alive or Just Breathing.’ So long as certain essential bands continue to put music out, I will maintain my interest in this genre. For instance, seeing Gojira play for 300 or so people last week and KILL IT has me reminded of the things that make me feel great because of metal. Since last Monday’s show, I’ve listened to a lot more At the Gates, Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Lamb of God, In Flames and any other frequented artists on my iPod than I have in the last two months. And they’ve sounded better than they have in awhile too, proving that the good stuff really does make you appreciate everything a little more.
Hey Eyal,
to answer the first part I guess the first time I ever remember liking metal was when MTV first starting showing “One” by Metallica. Because my tastes have been very broad over the years I won’t present myself as some true fan for all that time but I was paying attention the whole time for sure. Still for me in the nineties it was really all about alternative. Bush, Weezer, Green Day, Pearl Jam…..I dunno I could go on forever…
More then any other band Tool sustained my interest in metal from 1996 to about 2003. I know some will say Tool is not metal but my opinion is that they are and nobody is going to change that so don’t try. I dabbled in Nu-Metal but hated a lot of it too. I also discovered Opeth when they released Blackwater Park. They would later on become VERY influential to my listening to metal.
2003 I got back into Radiohead in a big way with hail to the theif which was something that started in about 1994. It was definitely at that point when I drifted away from metal…..at least contemporary metal.
Yeah I know at this point I was at an all-time depressed and disillusioned state and somehow decided to immerse myself in the distant past. I was upset over the country and how fucked up it was and in my mind was going back someplace where music felt real. So yeah for a good 3 years or so it was almost nothing but classic rock / metal bands. These were all the guys who I overlooked for not having a modern sound but suddenly they had something I was starting to feel that America was and had lost. A soul.
Zeppelin, Sabbath, Hendrix, Creedance, Allman Brothers, Dylan….I could go on and on. Suddenly I was seeing a huge world in this music and loved it. I would even listen to new bands that sounded older. Kings of Leon, Clutch and the Strokes. I was so upset over the lack of respect and understanding my generation had for the older generation that I connected with these guys that seemed to get it.
I’d say around 2006 I snapped out of that and have progressively listened to more and more metal music.
Lamb of God, Gojira, God Forbid, Killswitch Engage, Mastodon, Between the Buried and Me. Still not a metalhead by any means because I still maintain very broad tastes that encompass everything from the past that I loved.
I’d say your best bet for metal to stay alive is to stay relevant to the people of this country and world. I don’t mean that in the sense of what fashion or technology you employ but with the content of your music and most importantly the vibe you give off. I wish you guys good luck.
Eyal, as always, an interesting subject and thoughts. I’m interested in seeing what people here have to say.
I’d like to echo the comments on the economy being tough, and less people spending money on albums, specifically those they are unsure about. Granted, it’s much, much easier to sample an album, both legally, and illegally, and then go out and buy the disc if you like it. I think that is where we’re seeing the huge numbers. I had Megadeth’s new album early from the inside, and also was able to listen to it on myspace. The day it came out, I bought it, cause I wanted to hear it on the big stereo!
On a side note, it’s worth noting that the touring world has slowed down. I can’t go to a show, see a band, grab a shirt, and take a friend to see a new band as easily as I used to. A lot of bands are skipping Arizona entirely. Which is ironic, cause Phoenix is pretty much one step from hell, with the temperature not dropping, and the amount of Scottsale douchebags driving around everywhere.
In regards to music in general, I’d say that the album is pretty much officially dead. Nobody gives two shits anymore. Sure, it’s going to stick around, in the metal world, and certainly in the progressive rock world and such. But most people aren’t going to buy an album, or even download the full album, when they only care about hearing the song that was on the O.C.
I’ve got a feeling that the CD will stick around for a while in the metal world, and that’s why the numbers are still decent. If the band can make an album worth twelve bucks, it’ll sell. Hell, I picked up Behemoth’s new album for eight. New. The big box company I work for pretty much sold out across the state.
I’m finally seeing a drop in vinyl prices too. The hipsters love this crap, and for the most part, they don’t know the first thing about it. I saw a Miles Davis Kind Of Blue for $52 dollars, used. 2007 pressing. Music CAN NOT SURVIVE when things are like this. Of course the bubble is going to burst. I’m just happy to have picked up Atheist’s Piece of Time for eleven dollars. Picture disc. Freaking epic.
And for the record, I just turned 24. Been into metal since about 2001, with Judas Priest, Sabbath, and Maiden leading the charge. Iced Earth’s Something Wicked This Way Comes was the lightning rod for the obsession I have now. And I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of it. Whenever I think I have metal figured out, I find something that breaks the mold. Doesn’t matter if it came out yesterday or thirty years ago, there is always something that blows my mind.
It’s not that no one cares about metal anymore. It’s that no one cares peeiod.
I’m in 10th grade, and a lot of kids my age (the vast majority) just don’t care. About anything. They don’t care about anyone’s opinion but their own, they don’t care about anyone’s feelings, they barely care about themselves. No one puts in any work on anything. If they don’t do a half-assed job, then they won’t do it at all.
I think this translates into metal/music in general. See, way back when, if someone heard a song they really liked, they’d check out the song, find out the band, buy an album, become a fan, and dig deeper and deeper, discovering more and more underground stuff. That’s certainly how I did it. I went from Van Halen to Metallica to Pantera to Slayer to Behemoth, and now I check out metal bands spanning all the metal genres from the most successful to the most underground. But, what I notice with my peers is that no one attempts to find new music. They find a few bands they like, then just stick to that. They take what’s popular or what’s on the radio, and stick with that, never scratching the surface. They don’t attempt to find new music at all, don’t do any searching themselves. So, only a few bands reap any rewards, while the rest toil for little to nothing. So yeah.
Well said. I wish some of the other younger posters on this site showed as much thoughtfulness in their remarks as you did here. If you are only in the 10th grade, then you are wise beyond your years.
Yes. This, also.
I’d say that’s pretty true for most people from all generations, especially with an art from like metal that just simply does not have the universal appeal that others have. And really, it’s not just metal, but all music in general. A lot of people simply don’t care all that much, and are perfectly content with whatever is served to them via radio or whatever other medium. Same can be said for movies, TV, books… any media/art form, really. I mean, why do you think so much of what’s popular and so much of what sells really well is such utter garbage? The SAW movies, all that Seth Rogan crap, American Idol, Kanye, Jeramih (or whatever), the Twilight books & movies (although I have a much harder time putting books in this category, because people reading ANY books is a good thing, even if they are horribly written), Linkin Park, etc… It’s all very easy and available, and requires little to no real thought or mental effort.
That kind of shit has always been there, and always will be. But, there has also been, and always also will be, and entire universe of GOOD art that flys right over the heads of a lot of those aforementioned people.
I would say that this “no one cares/everyone is intellectually lazy” seems more prevalent now due to the internet and everything being immediately available/the instant gratification aspect, but really, not much has changed.
Hang in there. You’ll find like-minded people. You might have to wait until you get to college or whatever, but they’re out there.
you’re so right! i’m in 10th grade too, and i really got into metal only about 2 months ago (so i’m not in much of a position to talk about metal anyways :D)…nobody really cares about real music anymore. what’s most infuriating is that people KNOW that the pop/rap artists they listen to have sold out and that the artists don’t care about the music…and people still don’t give a shit. the radio doesn’t play anything but pop, rap, and the occasional station will play nu-metal (which is just as awful) and so it’s hard for people to find new music. most only stick with what they know, and follow the crowd. all the other girls in my grade are obsessed with david archuleta and twilight. it’s disgusting.
that may have been a rant…sorry :P
Don’t worry. I’ve been in your position too. In 9th grade, I was listening to Maiden while all my friends were listening to dreck like the Black Eyed Peas, Nickelback and Hedley. Most people are just casual music fans who need background noise. They don’t care about lyrics, originality, or heart. They want a beat and a melody and are satisfied. I actually ditched rap entirely for a while because I was so fed up with the commercial shit, although I ended up gravitating back to the ones I recognized as true artists.
I’m at my heart a metal head. Half of my music at least is metal. If you want to know some really good bands to check out, the internet is the best tool. Check out bands which began styles, like Death, Atheist, Slayer, Cannibal Corpse, Black Sabbath, Napalm Death, Iron Maiden, Possessed, Bolt Thrower, Dream Theater and their ilk, and see if you like some of them. For new bands, check this site and others.
Don’t worry too much about your classmates. They’ll grow up listening to jetsam by their own volition.
Long winded, I know, but peace.
My older brother and his friends introduced me to metal back when Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Quiet Riot, etc, were all relatively on their way up. Everything changed when I heard Slayer though in the early ’90’s and I’ve never looked back. Argueably, I’m a newcomer to hardcore, which has kind of had it’s bubble burst for me in the last while with all these (fill in the blank) ____core bands of every concievable genre.
I think the important bands will stay relevant. Every genre experiences the ebb and flow of popularity and oversaturation. It happened with NWOBHM, Thrash, Death …even hair-metal and Grunge. All gained relative popularity and subsequently, were carbon-copied to the point of being indistinguishable. The thing is, the originators of those genres are still remembered and revered. Once time has passed, and all the copy-cat slag has been washed away, those original bands still have a legacy.
Metal is my religion. It has been since the mid 90’s when I was in elementary school. I know I’LL never stop, and if the “bubble has burst” and a whole bunch of people are (or starting to) jumpin’ off the bandwagon and latching on to other things, that’s fine with me. I’ve been waiting years for the myspace kids to grow out of the emo/scene/metalcore/deathcore/wiggercore/crabcore ad nauseum. It’s time for a purge of all the people who are just trying to cash in on the image and reputation associated with metal. I envision a new metal world in which guys look and dress like guys, rather than tween chicks. Where words like true, kvlt, and brutal actually mean something. Where nobody ninja-pits and breakdowns are used tastefully. I would love to babble on and on about the opportunities for the growth of Metal, but I have classes to get to.
All we need is that ONE band to make something new and interesting like KsE in 2002 and its gonna come back cause its like Posehn said it “They’ve killed METAL twice, but it will never really die!
It’s kind of like a zombie or even that Jesus guy…”
3 word why metal needs to go underground again, Attack Attack!…BrokenCyde…CrabCore. That is all
Moderate my balls. Wtf? Free men and women no longer allowed to voice an opinion?
Moderate your balls?
Yeah nevermind, its all good bro.
The first ‘metal’ album I heard was Psalm 69 by Ministry back in the early 90’s. I know a lot of people who ‘grew out’ of metal. Their loss!
What I ask is this, in reality, has Metal even left the underground? I’m a bit of a late bloomer when it comes to metal. I grew up on classic rock which led to rock played on the radio which led to being a fan of Korn, Slipknot etc. From here my interests became heavier until I am where I am at today, although I only aquired this taste for music in the past couple of years. No more than 5 years ago you could have put a Lamb of God album on for me and I wouldn’t like it. Now all I listen to is Metal.
Back to my question though. Take a very popular band in the Metal community, say The Black Dahlia Murder. Odds are if I took a walk around my campus and asked every person I came up to if they knew who they were, they would say no. Same thing can be said for other popular metal bands (save the few, such as Lamb of God.)
Just because metal has recently become more popular , does that mean the music has necessarily become mainstream? Perhaps my definition of mainstream is skewered, but I have never heard metal played very much on the radio other than bands such as Killswitch and FFDP. Music Publications rarely cover metal bands and unless your looking, you’ll be hardpressed to find news on them.
My view on it is this. Obviously a large enough group of people are out there making and supporting the music now, as they have been. What does it matter if it is Underground or not, if its good, and people like it, it will succeed. Am I wrong?
I’m not feeling particularly creative today (or any day lately, for that matter) so I’ll let Jack Black’s thoughts sum it up for me:
You Can’t Kill The Metal
The Metal Will Live On
Punk-rock Tried To Kill The Metal
But They Failed, As They Were Smite To The Ground
New-wave Tried To Kill The Metal
But They Failed, As They Were Stricken Down To The Ground…
I think it’s more of a symptom of the current state of the industry as well as the shift in the way people think about music.
First and most obvious; people just don’t by music nearly as much as they used to. People just download it for free and there is no doubt it is really hurting record labels and bands themselves. Metal had its most recent revival right as file sharing became rampant. Regardless of how mainstream metal has become lately, bands just cannot sell hundreds of thousands of records because of file sharing. Just look at Mastodon. They are considered hugely popular and they only sold something like 50,000 copies the first week. Those are good numbers, fifteen years ago that would have been nothing to talk about.
Secondly, because people simply download huge amounts of music for free. The concept of an “album” is completely lost and the concept of a band is not what it used to be. People no longer look for the new album by X band, but just individual songs they like. Those songs are often seen independent from the rest of the bands work. More and more often when people are listening to a song they like I will ask, “Who wrote this song?” and the response is, “I don’t know I just like this song”.
I think that line of thinking is why you see less “passion” among metal fans. Music is cheap(free) and it’s readily available on a whim. People will spend less time getting into an album that doesn’t grab them right away when they can move on to the next 3-4 minute catchy metal tune.
I’m 37, and I’ve been listening to metal since 1982. I’ve also been listening to jazz, Latin music, mainstream and alternative rock, electronic music, and hip-hop. Shit, click on my name and go to my blog…I’m in the middle of eight posts in a row analyzing a streak of albums from the mid ’70s by jazz pianist Keith Jarrett.
I am getting a little bored with metal right now, to be honest…or at least my tastes are narrowing. I’m starting to focus my listening on the subgenres I actually find rewarding on a regular basis – technical death metal, retro thrash, and “classic”-sounding metal. I don’t find myself going back and listening to just older stuff – I LOVE a lot of albums that have come out in the past few years by younger bands like Revocation, Evile, Born of Osiris, The Faceless…even Trivium have gotten better over the course of their discography. But there’s a lot of crap out there, too. 99 percent of black metal bands should wash their faces and fuck off. And doom is almost always a waste of my time.
Do I think metal’s gonna go underground again? No, because I don’t think it ever was anything but. There’s only one Metallica, and even when they used to sell ten million records, that was in a country of 250 million people. Now Metallica’s selling two million records in a country of 300 million. That’s .66% of the population. Metal’s always been underground music – for every person who’s heard of your favorite band, there’s at least two hundred million people who haven’t.
If you are getting bored with metal, listen to Insomnium… and if you say doom is almost a waste of your time… then listen to Swallow the Sun. They aren’t traditional doom, but have a lot of doom elements. Check it out… let me know what you think.
I heard Insomnium’s Since The Day It All Came Down and liked it, but haven’t kept up with them since. They’re pretty in a non-cheeseball way. Swallow the Sun didn’t do it for me, though.
If you want killer doom that doesn’t sound like all the other doom, Ahab is the way to go.
try Before the Rain or Virgin Black.
I blame all the bands like Attack Attack, Devil Wears Prada, etc etc. They never brough one thing original to music…which means the market is overflowed…which means too much shit music labeled “metal”. The people will move on to something else. True metal will stay, but these bands with hair-doos and only repeated breakdowns will die, but not fast enough (as in today!!!)
If you dont and wont ever like a different band to whatever grainy trebly shit some satanists recorded in a forrest on a mobile phone that you swear by then I hope youre fucking happy with the current state of affairs. Youre grim as shit, you are tr00 metal, and youre probably a virgin with no job living in your mothers house with nothing better to do than whine about metalcore and how fred durst is a cunt. Or if you arent a virgin youre probably porking some fat mong with black lipstick and a clout that smells like your grandparents in summer.
Oh by the way, must we give attack attack any more exposure?
mong.
Love this comment. : )
I agree with you. Instead of blaming bands, people should blame the music industry for labeling everything.
Get over it. If your a metal purist go die.
True metal fans love all metal. I started listening to Metallica in 3rd Grade (thanks mom)
Don’t blame the bands, blame the music industry for putting a label on every fucking thing.
Bands like As I Lay Dying, Winds of Plague, Suicide Silence, KoRn and Testament have kept me loving metal. The reason why metal is “decaying” is because to many people look at bands by genre.
They don’t appreciate the subtle differences in every band. (granted I don’t like Brokencyde or attack attack)
But it the purist that don’t even give the other sub-genres a listen.
ture, i actualy started listening to metal with new bands but lately i have been gettin greal tired how the those bands you mention is fucking everything back, so now i’m going backwards and listening to amazing shit like iron maiden, slayer, mayhem.
The old model of doing business in the entertainment industry is the #1 contributing factor to the decline of record sales worldwide. Greedy corporate businessmen who genuinely care about only money and who wouldn’t know true art if it smacked them in the face are a dying breed and for good reason; I smile when I see the Billboard 200 nowadays, I really do. Bands can blame illegal downloading all they want, but maybe if the vast majority of them didn’t write 12 song albums with 9 or 10 songs of utter garbage, more people would buy their shit. This whole illegal downloading issue is total bullshit in my opinion. I wholly condone downloading music; in fact, I’ve been doing so for over ten years now. If I truly enjoy an album from start to finish, I will purchase it everytime without question. But why the hell would I spend my hard earned money on some replicated, emotionless bullshit that has one or two songs I actually like? Give me a break.
Furthermore, I make every possible effort to purchase band merch and concert tickets over CDs anyway. Aside from “supporting” the artist with a CD purchase, what use it a CD to me? I have a brand new car with a rocking sound system which I can directly link my IPod to using the factory built BOSE connection; when I work out, I use my IPod; when I listen to music at home, it’s through an IPod deck or through my computer using MP3s. Honestly, I haven’t listened to an actual CD in probably 5 years or more, as technology simply doesn’t warrant it anymore. Unless you’re a band like Tool, who puts just as much effort into packaging (see: Lateralus, 10,000 Days) as into the musical creation process, what good is a CD? Not much to me, anyway. However, as I was saying, I attend every possible show I can (which is A LOT, by the way; so far in 2009, I’ve attended at least 150 shows, including 3 major music festivals – New England Metal and Hardcore Festival, Wacken 2009, and Mayhem Fest) and I own shirts by just about every band I listen to, if you see my closet, I have a special section for metal shirts/sweatshirts/beanies; I haven’t counted in a while, but I own well over 100 band shirts. I personally believe the best way to support an artist is to attend shows and buy merch; regardless of the ecomony, I still do this stuff.
Ok, wow, I just realized I’ve been ranting about a subject that is only slightly related to your question, Eyal. To quickly answer; I’ve been listening to heavier music since 1989 and metal since the early 90s (I started off with grunge and industrial, then moved to metal). At this stage, I think metal is still thriving, but I have been bored with all of the -core shit for a long time now. It’s definitely a good thing when people become bored or disinterested with metal because it allows the genre as a whole to go back down underground and reboot for a while. Eventually, it will be reborn again. I continually look for new and interesting artists who offer something innovative and, really, there is a lot out there, you just have to sift through all the bullshit to find it.
I’m all for downloading music. Correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that it’s really the label, not the band, that see’s most of the profits off labels, and the band’s income is made up primarily of shows, merch, and perhaps some endorsements. With this in mind, I think it’s a great idea to get the music out to as many people as possible to encourage them to go to the shows and buy the shirts.
^ that
In the nineties, when I was a teenager, I was listening to alternative rock, ska, punk music, and a little metal, such as Sublime, System of a Down, Metallica, Pennywise, and Cake. Never liked Pearl Jam or U2, no sir. I was busy playing hockey and being dysfunctional in those days.
Going through hard times, I found solace in metal and began to get into eighties stuff that I hadn’t heard before, loved Testament and Anthrax, Exodus and Slayer, DRI and Black Flag, and my interests led to new bands like Shadows Fall and Lamb of God. Music became more and more important to me, and sometimes it seems like the only thing that makes sense in a fucked up world. Really, more of a religion than true religion. I discovered In Flames, and was introduced to Children of Bodom by a friend whom I love. I enjoy finding new music and checking out new songs and bands that I haven’t heard before, one reason that I love this website. I have picked up albums by Lazarus AD, Mastodon, Opeth, Daath, and Revocation because of recommendations here, and I like all of them. (My mom will tolerate Opeth while riding in my truck, but she’s not into Daath, sorry.)
I have a music budget, and I make live shows and album purchasing a priority in order to show my support for the bands that I love. Music is like air, and so deserves a place right up there with food and utility bills, in my budget and in my opinion. I am fortunate enough to have a good job these days. I will probably always love punk and metal music, and have passed on the legacy of love of music to my great kids as well, future fans.
Brother, reading your post gives me hope for music. It read like something I myself have said before. If you were in the same room with me I’d high five ya.
A lot of the _____core bands just don’t do it for me. That’s not to say they suck – it’s just not my cup of tea – but I have found myself going back to gone eras and checking out albums and bands I missed on my first pass and have uncovered some real gems.
The real beauty is the thrill of discovery… of bands I hadn’t known about… of bands others have forgotten about… it’s like finding a time capsule.
Right on, thank you! Peace and metal always.
I’ve been exposed to metal my whole life. My parents are fans of the classic stuff (Ozzy, Maiden, Priest, etc.) and I loved it. I actually got into metal in ‘99 or ‘00. I got really into the nu metal thing, but I was like 12 it’s not my fault. From there I started getting into heavier stuff and more melodic stuff , like the Gothenberg stuff. Then I went back to the classics and now I’m hooked. I remember trying to find the bands that nobody my age knew. I was trying to be the outcast. I had that “more metal than thou” attitude. I try really hard to keep it interesting for myself. because it can grow tiresome, by looking for more obscure bands that pique my interest or going to local shows. We have some fantastic bands in my area too, Buffalo NY. Everybody should check out Discidium (www.myspace.com/discidium) and Dragonwind (www.myspace.com/dragonwind), they are 2 of the better bands around here. I will always listen to metal though, other music generally doesn’t do it for me. I’d rather have some At the Gates, or Carcass, or something to that effect playing in the background during my day than anything the radio has to offer me these days.
I’ve been a metal fan for a solid decade, since I was 14 years old. I can tell you exactly how it happened. I was in the backseat of this dudes car, Josh. He was two years older, always wore orange, and had a house speaker in the trunk as his sound system. And it got LOUD. Josh prided himself on his massive, 1000+ CD collection, never mind that he only really listened to 10 or so of them on a regular basis. But he had just made a new acquisition and admitted to having no idea what it sounded like, so we took off the R&B (Anybody remember NEXT?) and Josh popped in Cruelty and the Beast. I had never heard anything like it! It was so fast, so heavy, so violent, it was nothing like the country, jazz and blues I was (and still do) listen to at the time. I was excited! Music had never gotten me excited before. And now, even though I’m not a big Cradle of Filth fan, that album holds a special place in my heart.
A lot of the people that I knew that got into metal about the same time are jumping ship. But there was always a fundamental difference. I would always get excited when I discovered a song or a band that had a great melody that was so heavy, or when I discovered stoner and southern metal, and found that groove, or when I found a band that sounded like they sold their souls for their talent, a la Robert Johnson. But my buddies wanted something more violent. They wanted something blasphemous on the cover. They wanted to piss off their parents and be different from the rest of society, to be cool in their own clicks. That was never me. I didn’t try to piss anyone off. Hell, I like people. If I can avoid getting someone mad for no real reason, I try to avoid it. And I sure as hell never did it to be cool in any sense. It’s the type of listeners like those guys that are “growing out of it” that are going to drive metal underground again. A large chunk of people are going to go by the wayside. But it’s the listeners like myself that will keep it thriving so that when it does hit the mainstream again, it’ll ride that wave high and long and be poised to bring in a whole new generation of metal heads, both temporary as well as life long devotees.
It’s not the music that is childish and is eventually grown out of. It’s how you view the music and use the music that can be childish. This shit get’s me excited still just like it did when I was 14 years old, maybe even more so. Metal til the day I die.
Quick side note on the idea of trying to use metal to be different: I did an observational experiment in high school. I walked around to where the trendy and popular people were. I took note of what everyone was wearing, and there were about7 or 8 different brand names represented. All different designs, different color schemes and different styles (t-shirts, sweaters, jeans, skirts, shorts, sandals, sneakers, etc.), but within a limited scope. I then went to where the “outcasts” and “rejects” hung out, which was my neck of the woods (ain’t it funny how, for all being rejects and outcasts, there sure as hell are a bunch of them in relatively small spaces?) there were more brands represented, yes, but at least a quarter of the people were wearing camo pants. Steel toe boots we’re also a very common thing. Dark colors, mostly black were everywhere. And, perhaps the best part, I counted at last 10 people wearing t-shirts that read “You laugh because I’m different, I laugh because you’re all the same.” I was laughing because these people didn’t realize how ironic they were being. I followed this experiment for a few weeks, and could not see much variety in the “different” people, but saw so much with the popular people. Is it just me, or is doing your best to not be trendy, to be different, one of the trendiest things a person can do? I’m not talking about being yourself and saying “fuck you” if people say your clothes aren’t cool, or make you a sellout, or what, I’m talking about, instead of trends dictating what you can do, letting them dictate what you can’t do? “I’m not gonna buy these clothes anymore, because they’ve become trendy! I’m gonna wear all black and listen to metal because people hate it!” Aren’t these people still being told what to do?
Love this comment. :)
I agree with you. Instead of blaming bands, people should blame the music industry for labeling everything.
Dude, are we the same person? I often get disappointed when I go to underground metal shows and all the people there are clearly only into the music because it’s loud, atonal, and misunderstood. I like metal for the excitement and energy, and the musicianship, and the variety. I really couldn’t give a shit about the negative aspects of the music. I was never trying to rebel, I had friends in high school and I’ve always pretty much had a good time living. I always hate it when people assume I’m into metal because I’m some kind of “dark” person. It’s really all about the energy.
It’s very possible. Perhaps we are the lost twin souls, seperated by an evil force of “rebellious” metalheads, because they know that, when we reunite (in a totally heterosexual manner) we will be the harbingers of truth, life, and brutal, powerful metal in such a manner that no mortal soul will be able to do anything besides have their colons melt away and their life forces dissolve into a vastness of nothing greater than this or any other universe could possibly contain…
Or maybe we’re just a couple of cool dudes. Either one is fine with me.
Metal till the day you die, that’s fucking awesome!
I totally agree with what was said before. By being anti-establishment, people are creating their own establishment which is trendy due to being “rebellious” or “against the grain”. It’s a funny little hypocrisy for sure.
I have been listening to metal since around 79. I have seen the cycle come and go as it will do continually. Further the trend of declining sales is hurting everyone regardless genre making this this lull extra-difficult. The herd will be thinned, many will quit, and the next time the cycle swings around the music will be viewed as hip and relevant and better for the thinning. Many, many metal bands completely suck. Most records are not made with artistic relevance or interest. Bad art has no value. Fortunately these weaker ones go away and leave the better ones to slog through the lean times. The new guys will find income not from the sales of records but from licensing.
I’ll never lose my passion for metal, and neither will most of my metalhead friends. However, most of the shit that we love so much is from the 80s and 90s. When it comes to newer bands, there are only a handful that I love as much as say…Death or Judas Priest. I think Mastodon are doing wonders for the success of metal right now, by proving that you can make killer music AND be a popular band. Besides them, most of the modern bands I listen to will never have the success that Pantera and Metallica once had. I can’t really see the guys in Pig Destroyer or HORSE the Band touring the world in tricked out tour buses, let alone private jets. That being said, there will always be plenty of metal fans who never lose interest, and even though there aren’t enough of us to make our favorite artists rich, there are enough to keep metal alive forever.
And you do guys know, my co-workers watch American Idol and listen to silly hip hop and radio music. I was subjected to Nickleback last week. Nickleback! It was like torture! And once, that Sexy Back song played, I swear to you people, I wanted to run screaming from the room. Just saying.
Id rather Nickleback than Daath anyday. Definately more brutal.
I am old. I was into Ratt, Van Halen and Twisted Sister by around ‘84 (I was about 10), and I got seriously into music around ‘89. At the time it was Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeth, Maiden, Ozzy and all the classic hard rock bands of the seventies (Aerosmith, Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Sabbath, AC/DC, etc). I was a huge Testament fan, and in response to the first post, I thought The Ritual was excellent, especially Skolnick’s amazing “Return To Serenity” solos. Faith No More, Pantera, all the good stuff.
In the nineties, there was Life Of Agony, Type O Negative, Helmet, Prong. I started to get into European bands like Amorphis and The Gathering around ‘96, and In Flames, DT, Opeth and Children of Bodom the next year. This roughly coincides with the Internet becoming useful so that I could discover these bands.
It’s easy to say that “Alternative” or grunge music was the end of metal’s popularity around the early nineties. I think hardcore did more damage to the genre in the long term. While these European metal bands were releasing excellent albums, we had all these shitty hardcore bands popping up in the US. I still blame the hardcore influence for the suck-ass vocals that are prevalent in a lot of metal today.
There will always be good bands, but sometimes you have to look for them.
I really wish you could play decent music, then you could experience a jet. The big bands still make cash, ever thought about that you self righteous fuck? You suck, your band has ALWAYS sucked, and your never gonna be living off your music.
It is cyclical. It is in the mainstream eye now, and that will fade, and it will lie low and ferment.
However, I would challenge your assumptions. Metal didn’t leave the bands; the bands left metal. Remember when Carcass and Napalm Death became gay death and roll bands? Remember when Blaze Bailey sang for Iron Maiden? When Queensryche made generic albums? When Megadeth made Craptic Writings and Risk?
And another generation ariseth…
I keep waiting for when I grow out of this stupid genre, but for now songs and album covers about war, zombies, and gruesome death draw me in.
I don’t think metal will Die.Immortal just came out with a new C.D.It may go back to underground but Die No.
As long as there are trees and steel weaponry, black metal will never die. That’s for sure.
Sorry, I misquoted
“One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever…”
I dunno. I’m only 16, and most old metal I listen to is from the big guys, like Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Iced Earth, and so on… I got into metal in 2006, and I listen to Chimaira, Killswitch Engage, Amon Amarth, All That Remains, Gojira, Slipknot and metal like that for the most part. I don’t know if it’s going to go underground again, but I do know I’m one of maybe five people I know who listen to anything but rap and The Beatles.
My buddies got me listening to ” Chaos A.D.” back in ‘94 I think, and then the master of puppets and cowbows from hell kicked in. For me it was then. It wasn’t until ‘99 when I got back from the army and I heard “Gallery of Suicide” that I really got addicted. Since then I heard the first SLIPKNOT when I got out and was totally blown away with energy. (makes up 90% of good metal) I wasn’t too keen on the rythmic lyrics on that album but shit, it was heavy and deep. Now Gojira is really the only band that sticks out to me in a unique and unyielding fashion. Including Daath respectfully. Hatebreed is king in thier own right and The Facless is pretty cool, but lasts only a bit of my attention span. Where’s the next shit? I’m waiting.
check out Cynic, dillinger escape plan, between the buried and me, and protest the hero
Daath is fucking terrible man. Stop sucking this dudes cock, you know Daath sucks.
oh man alec …. i can’t begin to explain to you. Daath is ok in it’s own right, and I like a few tunes considering their composing and choruses. I wouldn’t even suck your moms so now we are on the same page. ok?
Yeah, it’s kind of hard far me to answer this question, seeing as I’m only 16. I began listening to metal in 7th grade (when I was 12) and I have never gone back. However, occasionally, when I’m listening to metal, I get a feeling of “wait… why am I listening to this? I could just as easily be listening to rap or alternative.” For some reason, though, I stay with the metal. Maybe it’s because metal has helped me out in lots of tough times, or that I’ve been with it the longest, but I am not planning to leave the metal world anytime soon.
However, I am noticing an interesting phenomenon. Not that I’ve been paying attention to metal for 4 years, give or take a few months for my initial genre-bending tastes, I have noticed something relating to albums. Previously, I’ve only been able to be excited for a band to release their first album AFTER I’ve already gotten into them. Now bands are starting to release their 2nd album while I’ve liked them, and there’s a definite lessening in the hype. Certain bands, like Devin Townsend and the Ocean, never get old for me, but others do. I’m way, way less interested in Scar Symmetry’s “Dark Matter Dimensions” than I was with “Holographic Universe”. Don’t get me wrong, I still love music and buy records (as a matter of fact I bought four CD’s half an hour ago at my local record store) but there’s so much subpar new music and just music in general that it’s hard to constantly be up with the hype.
And now for the second part. I don’t think metal will ever die. While there may be a certain shift towards the mainstream, there will always be a dedicated metal corps supporting the ultra-underground bands and the ultra-unorthodox bands. Right now, we seem to be in the phase where everywhere you turn you see Slipknot shirts. That is the kind of metal that will die, not metal like Cormorant or Periphery.
And yes, people care less. It’s not the recession, that’s just a small part of it. Truly, people are more worried about themselves than their bands, and as a consequence are buying less music, listening to less music, and going to less shows.
Sorry for my rambling.
No need to apologize. That’s what this is about. And good job supporting your local record store!
I don’t really think people are listening to less music – in fact, if you compare today with a decade ago, I’d imagine people are listening to exponentially more music, because of mp3 players and phones and cds, which make it a lot more convenient and easier to listen to music at work, while exercising, and driving home from work. I wouldn’t disagree that people care less, though. We’re moving into a much more “Well what do I get out of it?” society than we were 15 or 20 years ago.
It seems to me that metal is getting watered down by shitty bands more interestead with flat ironing their hair than concentrating on the music. I think that metal is going the way it went in the 80’s a few good bands and a lot of shitty bands riding the band wagon.
I am very confident that metal will not go underground any time in the near future. One problem may lie in the fact that the economy is struggling so people don’t buy like they used to. Also, if you look back at the old style of metal, it was sort of repetitve music in such bands as Pantera and Hatebreed. The metal today is very different, it is much more complex in my opinion. This will be metal music’s saving grace. I, for one, love it and will never tire of it. I am going to be a very odd old guy, listening to music that is too hard for the new generation of maggots. I look forward to it.
I think I would wish financial sucess on the dudes who enhanced my life throughout the years by making
great tunes for me so yeah I don’t wish it goes underground. Like Eyal says underground wil probably allways be around regardless.
There are a lot of good points described. I think that one of the biggest factors in the decline of metal a decade ago was the division in metal, that sense of elitism that “my group/style is better than yours” that weakened the total fanbase. Also, a lot of people that were “metal fans” were only people that listened to Metallica because that was the thing to do. If metal does die out, it will largely be the fanbase that does it. There is definitely the argument to be made that there is a lot of shitty music right now, but there is also a lot more great stuff than ever.
Damn there’s some long comments on here. All I have to say is that I’ve been listening to metal since the late 80’s and I’m going to continue to listen to metal until I die. Something to keep in mind though, all great musicians, regardless of the genre started in some kind of “underground”. Think about it. Great art is made for the sake of art. When money is not the driving force. When artists truly have not only a desire but a NEED to create something, it doesn’t matter if 100 people hear/see it or 100,000 people, it’s something special.
I think you are underestimating the NEED for money.
I’d say that yeah, it’s becoming to where no one cares about straight heavy metal anymore. Very small fanbase, I think. I think there’s so many more genres now and everyone wants to categorize music down to what kind of fucking equipment they use and ridiculous crap like that. I remember when I thought there was only “metal” and nothing else. Maybe “death” metal but none of this “math metal”, “2 step”, “deathcore”, “melodic punkcore”…I mean the gayest categories you can think of. I’m just exaggerating but it really has gone too far.
I also think that people that started to get into more technical music, which is fine, forgot what their roots are and for some reason show nothing but disrespect to those bands that got them started.
+1
People nowadays have no fucking clue what a genre actually is. Everyone wants their own
unique label though.
Amen. Is it good? That is all that matters.
The most rediculus thing about crab-core to me is the implication that somehow this is music
that is to be defined as hardcore fused with undulating crotch movements and bent knees.
Attack Attack is fucking retard-core.
When I saw “nintendo-core” used to describe Horse the Band, that’s when I knew niche categorization had gone too far.
I mean fuck, we’re damned near close enough to making specific genres based on whether the lead singer’s hair color, or whether the drummer shaves his taint or not.
When it comes to metal, familiarity breeds contempt and obscurity breeds pretension
I tried to think of all kinds of ways to respond but each time I keep coming back to the fact that
your statement is perfect and I can’t say a damn thing to contradict it.
I bow to your unassailable logic.
+1
metal has always had a circular pattern…it goes underground and experiences a resurgence…there will always be the core, devoted metal following though. there are just cycles where metal gets, dare i say “trendy”, like the past few years, where there was just an explosion of new bands and talent; but sadly, that will fade away and go back underground until the mainstream gets tired of all the manufactured music that dominates airwaves
I started listening to “metal” when I was around 11 (around 1999). Korn started it all. I listened to a bunch of random bands around the 11-12 age: Smash Mouth, Blink 182, Limp Bizkit, but the one gateway band that was really important to me was Korn. Through them, thanks to band/member associations, tour partners, etc. I got into other popular metal like Disturbed, Godsmack, System of a Down (Slipknot came much later, around 2003), and then around grade 10 I started getting into older Metallica, and then through friends and the internet and support acts for my favourite bands got into bands like Children of Bodom, Opeth, Chimaira, Megadeth, Unearth, Killswitch Engage. I didn’t really “progress” through metal so much as just really add on. I still listen to Korn, Disturbed, Slipknot, etc. on a regular basis. Fuck, I listen to stuff ranging from Sevendust to Dark Tranquillity to Breaking Benjamin.
I guess what i’m trying to say is that had metal never been mainstream, or had metal not gone through that “false metal commercialization” phase in the late 90s/early 2000s, and I didn’t discover bands like Korn and Sevendust and Papa Roach, I probably wouldn’t be a metal fan. And thanks to those bands and other associations, I’ll be sticking with metal (or whatever metal I find enjoyable) through mainstream and underground days.
i started listening to metal when i was in 1st grade in 97 or 98. i started off with KoRn and they were the bomb. as i started listening to more and buying more albums, my tastes got heavier. eventually i got into every kind of genre that had anything to do with metal (death metal, black metal, goth/industrial, hardcore, deathcore, grindcore, even some jrock). but ill never stop loving korn and all the other bands i started listening to. back then i loved “nu metal” bands and older stuff (such as ozzy/black sabbath, dio, megadeth, slayer, pantera, etc…). i love everything the same i did back then, but i like more now.
but limewire and other things like that is probably a huge reason metal is more underground, and ppl are just lame. and the deal with metal and death metal especially not being on major labels is because those hardcore, deathcore, bands. all those bands with those “hxc” fans. i love the music but its taking over the labels. ppl consider that death metal. they obviously have mental illnesses and havent heard morbid angel, death, obituary, or cannibal corpse.
love all the music, but newer crowd loves the new stuff too much unfortunately
Seriously dude, shut the fuck up. Your moaning cos your lower than average, ex nu metal band is getting a reality check from hell. Why do you preach, Daath aint ever gonna be flying in Private Jets, and if Pantera were still around, they still would be rich as all fuck, you know why… its because they are actually great!
You are just like Dallas, a wanna be rockstar with a blog and too much too say.
Can we get some REAL metal ‘celebs’ im sick of this wanna=bees.
Your a fucking idiot that doesn’t understand what being a metal musician really means. Keep flying your fanboy band wagon flag ya fuck!
So according to your logic, it’s the amount of money that a band makes that determines how good they are?
You seriously want me to start breaking out the Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys arguments? Really?
I got into heavy music in the second half of 1991 before the Black Album came out. I listen to every type of music out there, but the heavy stuff is my steak and potatoes. Been listening to so much of it – it is so deeply entrenched in me – for so long that I don’t really think twice about it. I don’t think “WALK!” when I’m walking, why should I think “METAL” when it comes to music? The novelty of listening to rebellious stuff wore off quickly for me. Thank goodness.
I think that one of the things “hurting” metal now are the folks who say “METAL!” twice a minute and throw the horns like it is some sort of contest to see who can do it the most. In addition, and to paraphrase Tommy Victor of the mighty PRONG, the bands using that morse code crap instead of riffs can’t be too good for the scene either.
To me, it’s always been about the music and getting those goosebumps. I don’t get them as often as I used to, but it still happens. Bands like Gnostic, Daath, Suffocation, and Nevermore (to name a quick few) get my juices flowing and keeps me going. With the new Alice in Chains out this week, I have had those goosebumps constantly, as that album has me in tears it is so good… AiC is sacred to me… their music has helped me through my darkest days. It’s like reconnecting with an old friend who is just how you remember them, only older and wiser.
Always, always about the music. Always. If it gives you that rush or stokes emotions, it can’t be wrong. Anyone who says otherwise is only hurting what they claim to love.
I dont believe that metal will ever actually die. There will always be the people who love the dark and heavy, and love offending people. Who breathe the unusual and the taboo. There will always be loyal followers.
Just saying, yes I remember the wonderful days of Pantera and Megadeth and all the others. When Slayer and Carcass came around, all the brutality. I remember the first song I listened to by Cannibal Corpse, Behemoth, Morbid Angels and so many others years ago and how I’ve been hooked on it all ever since.
While we may go through good and bad times I really do thing metal will stand above all because of the loyal fans who DO breathe this music, me being one of them and proud to stand and say it. Metal is in my soul. I will never tire of it.
Another good sign: I went to see Obituary yesterday, and I got the last two tickets. For those of you without functional brains, that means the show was sold out. Granted, I saw them in the most populous city in the US, but still they play fucking nasty death metal and they’re selling out decent sized venues. If that many people still wanna hear URRRRCHOPPEDINHAWWWWRFFFFF!!!!!!!! then metal ain’t goin nowhere. There were a shitload of Goatwhore fans there too.
Like I just started listening to metal 3 years ago and I was listening to Death, Canibal Corpse, Hate Eternal, Bodom, and other DEATHmetal bands and it was the shit but now theres all these off branches such as death core, grindcore, Numetal, electrocore, and other stuff like that and I think its kind of ruining metal.. Its like all breakdowns and blast beats, Metal was sick when It was about satan, wicked riffs, intense bass and heavy drums.. Like it just all changed… Personally I think It would be good for metal to go underground because then it could branch back out as its own thing.
Jeez you sound, like, braindead
I understand the core of what you’re saying, but grindcore actually isn’t an offshoot of death metal. Both genres have been around for roughly the same amount of time.
I haven’t lost any interest lately. In fact, right now I’m pretty excited about all the good metal that’s come out lately. Older bands like Exodus, Testament, Megadeth, Death Angel and Kreator all coming back with some great albums and putting out some good metal. And there’s a lot of great new death metal and new thrash out recently too. New Goatwhore, Blood Red Throne, Lazarus AD, Mantic Ritual, Obscura, Aeon, are all kicking some serious ass.
I’ve been listening to metal since the eighties. It may be a trend for some now, but I’m seriously in it for the long haul.
I am 15 years old, and I’m gonna be honest, the first “metal” I ever listened to was Linkin Park, in 5th grade, though at that time, i didn’t know what really was metal. Then came “One”, about three years ago, then i dug deeper and deeper, and listening to heavier and heavier, always looking for that spark to get me going deeper into the metal world. I probably followed the usual path of any ‘00 kid who dove into metal xD Thing is, being in Quebec sucks for one reason: the metal scene is not established, and the kids in Quebec don’t give a fucking damn about Metallica or Iron Maiden (to name a few popular ones…).
This is the reason why I think metal shouldn’t go underground, it would have even bigger difficulties establishing itself in new regions. It sometimes discourages me that I’m the only “loser” listening to Slayer on a daily basis, the only “loser” who doesn’t know the latest hit song by (fill the blank with a rap or pop artist) ____________.
Even though I now listen to things like Meshuggah to wake me up in the morning (works big time…), I still have, from time to time, those little classic rock moments, or those little alternative moments, or those little grunge moments, and I am proud to say I enjoy all of them with the same fervor as metal music, because it keeps me from being a dumbfuck who rejects anything that isn’t brootal or troo or kvelt. My Ipod is filled with anything, from Bob Marley to Vader, from Daft Punk to Celtic Frost, and I could go on and on and on…
As I said, I am 15 years old, and don’t have a job (no time), so I don’t buy music… anywhere… Limewire is my friend… Having said that, I would buy albums if I had the money, but unfortunately, money doesn’t grow on trees (isn’t it sad :-( … ) I sometimes feel a little guilty about it, but I think the average kid who wants to listen to metal needs those softwares, ’cause he won’t bother going out and buying a record, IF he has money to spend on it.
Metal saved my life. A couple o’ times.
Dude, stop calling yourself a “loser”. Just because some of your idiot peers identify you as such doesn’t mean you have to use their language in your self-description. Trust me, these morons who are listening to whatever is hot at the moment are the real losers, which will become more apparent as you get some mileage on you.
I remember when I was fifteen listening to “Reign in Blood” when all my high school peers where calling “Huey Lewis and the news” the cool stuff. Funny how time works out. Slayer is hipper than ever and still touring and Huey Lewis is probably sitting in a bar in Miami, high on coke talking to 18 years old girls trying to convince them he was a star once.
I’m not calling myself a loser, that’s why i put it like that “____”
But thanks for the reply :-)
“the metal scene is not established”
Are you sure you’re living in Quebec dude? Last time I checked Montreal was the metal capital of Canada. The amount of bands (whether they’re “real metal” like Quo Vadis, Voivod, and Kataklysm or just -core bands Despised Icon and The Agonist) that come from there and how rabid the fans are would tell you otherwise.
When I say not established, I mean that people are not used to metal like they are in the USA or Europe. In Quebec, you ask someone who Voivod is, they’ll probably tell you it’s a new alien movie… If you go in San Francisco, you ask someone who Megadeth is, i’d say about 40-50% of the people are gonna tell you they know them, from name or by being a fan. That’s what I call an established scene.
There’s a lot of things that go into the mixture here. For one thing everything is downloaded off the internet instead of buying the actual cd, which sucks. I think the biggest problem is these punks kids. Grown people usualy are too busy to learn how to download shit off the internet, my uncle got a nickelback cd (not metal, i know, but bear with me) instead of downloading, he doesent have the time to spend 5 hrs on itunes organizing shit.
the new acts today focus on a younger and younger audience, which is an audience that spend their money on shirts. so there has become an age seperation. look at suicide silence type of crap, kids listen to this shit, and it is increasingly becoming the most popular type of metal now.
these young fuckers go around saying “this is not metal” , and other rants on what’s cool and what’s not. fucker, metal is metal. daath, slayer, demon hunter, god forbid. it’s all good. too much focus has been spent on looks more than anything. fucking hot topic, selling canniabl corpse shirts (awesome) with these pussy ass bless the fall shirts. metal used to be for tough people, now it’s been market something close to emo and and screamo shit.
I don’t know if metal is dying , but I do know right now it generally sucks KSE, ATR Shadows fall and LOG all are not what they used to be. With that said I Like the Direction BTBAM and Protest the Hero are going. august burns red is fairly compelling as well. Black Dhalia murder and Into eternity are my favorite bands at the moment. because they seem to be focused on quality still. the rest of the bands seem to have a fantasy in their heads that they will be the next Metallica which is never going to happen.
As someone who’s been around maybe longer than a lot of people on here, “good” music (ie: not just metal, but anything creative, rebellious….outside the norm) comes during Republican presidencies. The oppression and downright stupidity of the republicans in power seems to ignite music. Check it out if you don’t believe me……
Also, I think the problem with metal in general is nothing worth listening to gets exposure any more. You really have to dig for good new music. There’s no Headbanger’s Ball (maybe there is, but fuck if I’d know, I don’t have cable), there’s no metal played on your local rock radio, etc. And the stuff that does get played, is that overproduced (like mentioned in this column earlier) shit that you know is more the product of a 1,000 takes than it is talent.
Are you serious or did I miss the sarcasm? I’m sure all the bands that aren’t from the U.S. (like the other six billion people on the planet) are concerned whether or not a Republican or Democrat are in office, and let it dictate their musical direction…
No, you’re right Eyal! The thing is that everything sounds the same right now and I seriously can’t tell the difference between all the new “popular” bands at this point. Everybody should be as brutal as possible which is bad because brutal music nowdays is so fucking non-musical, that it makes you sick just by listening to it. They are all about playing as many notes as possible on the highest string and screaming their lungs out. What happened to good written songs and records where the musicians actually have recorded every single second of a song, instead of copy pasting in logic?! Bring back Pantera, Megadeth, Metallica and all those fuckers that actually played their instruments and wrote awesome music and wasn’t in for it just to be brutal!
Ever since everybody started promote their band via myspace/facebook etc. we’ve had too many bands around and too many choices. I listen to all kinds of shit but I’ve become tired of looking for new bands as everything sounds like the previous band or bands that you’ve recently listened to. The best thing for the genre would be to go underground again so that all those emo loosers writing shit music, can go die or start listening to hannah montana or something.
We need something new and refreshing… like fart metal? No seriously, we need a change
Surely it wont go back underground, the internet & sites like MS make that impossible, there will always be a band to talk about or on tour flying the flag. But as said in the reams of text above, the -core bands are nearing critical mass, the fans of those bands are slowly growing up & maturing in taste & will probably migrate over to true metal, unless the genre can reinvent itself & outlast the next trend. The industry is still trying to row against digital downloads & we’ve almost arrived at a 100% download culture – its already too late for the industry to sort their shit out, people are used to free downloads & that wont change. If album sales are the way forward, then they need to get joe download on a mailing list, Possibly giving the CD away for an email address, then making sure these people come to shows… I dunno Im not the savior of cd sales.
One thing is known though, genres come & go, Most of them like true classic rock have stars that shine into other eras of music decades after their time, but they all come & go. Metal will constantly mutate & outlast all of these, The core kids, once converted, will take care of the next 10-15 years of metal & ridicule those who come after them, chiding them into a state of true metal conformity.
If metal goes back underground then there won’t be any hipsters or shitty nu-metal bands. I’m really digging the stoner and southern metal though (Mastodon, Weedeater, Kylesa, etc.) Theres really alot of good bands out ther, you just have to find them.
I started listening to metal over 5 years ago now, at the age of 11, with bands like Iron Maiden and Metallica. It gets better with every new killer band I discover, don’t think I’ll get sick of it for a long time, if ever.
I’ve been listening to metal since I was a little kid, maybe 7 or 8 years old, the first album I ever bought was re-load when it came out, and pretty much since then, I’ve been expanding my tastes into the many sub-genres of metal. I remember being scared at some songs by slayer (”Ghosts of War” the lyrics and the music scared the shit out of me). Metal has been a constant in my life and I can see why you think metal is going underground again. Many people just see metal as a phase, they try to tell me that I’ll grow out of it but they just don’t understand. Now that the metalcore scene has practically faded out, and deathcore seems to be going that way, one can understand why there seem to be less and less people listening to metal, and that is because the fanbase of that trend see metal as a phase, and they burned that phase with the scene. Only a small group of that “fanbase”, get into metal for real.
…though I’ve heard some good points, I feel that one source of this problem is that there is a big lack of originality within metal. I think that people need to let go of the sub-genres and start playing what they truly feel. Its getting BORING and ANNOYING. For example…I loved At The Gates but now I can’t stomach listening to them anymore because of all the bands that ripped them off and formed a sub-genre after them!! Lack of originality is destroying music….the same thing has been going on in the rock scene for years so don’t feel alone.
Being from Texas, I can’t listen to Pantera anymore due to local bands incessantly regurgitating Dimebag riffs and Phil screams. When I’ve done shows in Louisiana, I’ve noticed that most bands sound like Goatwhore and Acid Bath rip offs…I can now understand why a local musician there told me he was sick of swamp and sludge metal.
I’ve been searching online for 2 years and have not heard an unsigned band that has blown me away as an original and innovative group of artist. Don’t get me wrong…there are amazing and talented unsigned bands out there but those genres that they fit in have been spoken for by the people who created them…not by the bands that get adopted into them.
Though alot of “metal heads” will be offended by this but I am anticipating another “grunge-like” movement. Not saying I want grunge to come back…I’m simply pointing out that the metal scene needs its saviors like in the early 90’s when Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam took over the rock scene…hell, even Nirvana was original. Yeah I said it. Why the hell do you think they did so well? If you want to say that these bands destroyed music go ahead but I believe it was the bands that copied them. You might as well accuse Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Obituary, Suffocation, etc of destroying metal because of all the bands that copied them.
James Murphy told me, “if you write a record that can’t be ignore…it won’t be.”
Concur 100%
Given my own unusual circumstances, I doubt this will perk you up, but here goes. I turned 55 this year, and about the only metal I liked in my “formative years” were bands like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Emerson Lake & Palmer, but even that didn’t last long. The whole hair metal phase of music in the 70s convinced me that metal sucked (and not in a good way), I couldn’t even stomach bands like ACDC or Judas Priest or Black Sabbath, and I was ignorant of any underground metal scene. I was 100% into punk rock in the late 70s and early 80s, but eventually my interest waned. I guess that had something to do with working too hard, marriage, raising a family. Anyway, among other things, I completely missed out on the genesis and early evolution of hardcore, thrash, death metal, and basically all other flavors of extreme metal. I won’t tell you what I listened to instead, because, in hindsight, it’s too embarrassing.
And then, beginning only 3 or 4 years ago, my “kids” (now both in their 20s) started pushing me to listen to bands like In Flames, At the Gates, and Dark Tranquility, and it struck a chord. Their listening tastes branched out into just about all subgenres of extreme metal, and I went right along with them, loving every minute (or almost every minute). I haven’t been this excited about music since the heyday of punk. It’s been like walking through wormhole into a whole new universe that I never knew existed. I’ve spent a small fortune on CDs, filling in all the years that passed while I was ignorant of this scene during the final decade of the last century and the first decade of the new, and also keeping up with new releases.
My son has about a hundred different classifications of metal that he applies to his collection of music, and I love all of it — death metal, melodic death metal, deathcore, metalcore, thrash, hardcore, black metal, doom, progressive, you name it. It has the energy, the passion, and the irreverance that turned me onto punk about 30 years ago.
For the last couple of years, my “kids” and I have been going to a couple of live shows a month (we live near Seattle, so we get to see lots of tours, big and small). Daath happens to be one of my favorite bands. We had the pleasure of seeing you guys in Seattle earlier this year, and we’ll be there again in February when you roll through with Epica. I’m always the oldest guy in the clubs by a country mile, but I’ve got a bunch of tattoos, and that seems to buy me enough cred to get by. And I just eat up the energy of the music played loud and live, and I’m so impressed by the dedication of the bands and the devotion of the fans.
So, to sum up, everything you say may be right. Maybe people are starting to care less than they used to (I’m such a newbie that I wouldn’t know), maybe they’re not spending the dollars they used to, maybe the scene will go back underground. All I can say is that for me, it has been a rebirth of my interest in music, a new lease on life, a way to stay connected to my “kids.” And to bands like Daath, and so many others that get mentioned on this blog (in both good and bad ways), I have to say thank you.
One more thing: Since this is my first post on MetalSucks, I need to say thank you to the guys that run this site. I read it every day, and it never fails to make me laugh and think and explore. It’s been a vital part of my metal education and my daily entertainment. Keep up the good work!
I concur with Eyal. The scene is oversaturated with too many same sounding bands. I used to try and check out any new band I could..now it all starts sounding the same. I remember getting burnt out the same way ion the early 90’s. All though everyone loves to hate on “grunge” as killing the music of that era, both the hair metal and the thrash scenes, truth is grunge/alt injected, albeit briefly, a reason to actually give a shit about music again. I think we’re about to have something similar happen. I fully expect Gojira to be the new Slayer for the next generation…
My two cents:
-First got into heavy music when I was about 8-9 yrs old (mid-late 80’s). My best friend’s older brother would sleep all day and we would only know he was awake when he would plug in his guitar and start playing Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, etc. After he would finally leave the house in the evenings we would go in his room and listen to all of his tapes. I moved away from that neighborhood & friend and went on being a kid, then in middle school I befriended a little trouble-maker from a broken home and he caught me up to speed and introduced me to Pantera. I drifted away from that kid and when I got into my early 20’s I discovered Ozzfest, moshpits, and BLS’ first few cd’s and I’ve been a full-blown metalhead since.
-I typically still buy all of my cd’s in stores or pay for them from the Zune marketplace. I consider myself a collector and still enjoy going to the store the day a big cd comes out and I always try to buy at least one album from a band I haven’t heard much of…you find a lot of stuff you never knew you would like that way.
-I don’t go to shows really anymore because I work too much and there aren’t very many good metal events around South FL anymore (that I would go to, anyway). I pretty much save my money & vacation time to go to the Wanee Music Festival up in the panhandle every year and get wasted watching the Allman Bros., Gov’t Mule, Derek Trucks, etc. in the woods all weekend. If there were better metal shows around, they might compete for my dollar, but right now the ABB get it all.
-I don’t really care if it goes underground again or not. I love metal, but I’m selelctive about the bands I listen to. As long as that handful of bands keep making albums, I’m fine. There’s a bunch of stuff out there that I never got around to listening to, so I can discover it and it will be new to me.
There are 2 problems and 2 problems only with today’s metal scene:
1) Over saturation in the genre
2) No stand out/breakthrough/mainstream band exists
1) Over saturation in the genre
There are too many mediocre metal bands out there. Too many that rely on stock metal riffs. Too many that when you listen to them, you think “Oh, that sounds like this”. Someone needs to reinvent the genre or at least bring something completely unheard of to it.
2) No stand out/breakthrough/mainstream band exists
Not since Metallica and Pantera’s heyday has a metal band existed that crossed all paths of taste. Anyone who liked metal liked these 2 bands when they were both at the top of their game. Can you name a band like that today? There are certainly several heavy hitters like Gojira, KSE, LOG, Machine Head. Slayer, Megadeth and others. But do any of these bands give you the same feeling about the metal scene like Metallica of Pantera did in their prime? Since these two, I haven’t heard a new metal band and said “Wow! What the fuck is this?” And just kept repeating the cd’s ad nauseum to ingest every possible ounce of their music. When you think of all the great and I mean legendary great bands. They made you rethink what metal (or whatever genre, i.e. Beatles, NWA, NIN) was supposed to sound like.
In conclusion, someone needs to blow up the metal genre and give it a kick in the nuts. I read about these average metal bands and how awesome everyone says they are. Especially people who try to find these niche bands that no one’s heard of. THEY ARE NOT GOOD. They are just new. Once that wears off, their lack of originality and talent shows through.
Death to the metal scene so it may be reborn.
Good post. Just curious though: “There are certainly several heavy hitters like Gojira, KSE, LOG, Machine Head. Slayer, Megadeth and others. But do any of these bands give you the same feeling about the metal scene like Metallica of Pantera did in their prime? Since these two, I haven’t heard a new metal band and said “Wow! What the fuck is this?’”
I notice you didn’t put Mastodon in that list of bands. Is it something you meant to include and just forgot? They seem to me be the one band who, like you mentioned, ALL metalheads seem to like. For me personally, they certainly fall into the “Wow, what the fuck is this?” category. Wondering what you or any others think.
I agree with you. I mean I could’ve listed at least another handful of bands but after reading some epic long posts on here, I wanted to be as concise as possible.
The problem with Mastodon is that they don’t have recognition outside of the metal scene. Therefore, their mainstream appeal is lacking. What metal needs is another “pillar” type band that is recognizable to the mainstream, yet stays true to the scene.
Yeah, I know you were looking for something with mainstream appeal and no doubt, Mastodon doesn’t really have that. However, I think they’re going in that direction with Crack The Skye (and if they keep putting out albums THAT good, I don’t care if they’re melodic/mainstream or not). They’re certainly talented enough that they COULD be that band…but not there yet (and may not aspire to be, who knows?).
I’ve personally stopped caring as much because of the lack of shows. I remember a time 4 or 5 years ago when I was hitting up AT LEAST a club show a week. And when I went to the shows and got to interact with the bands and the fans and have a few beers with them, it made the commitment to metal all worth while.
I’ve become very hard pressed to find a show that isn’t going to be at an arena and in turn, cost $50-$60 for tickets and then another $40-$50 on beer and gas on top of that.
I like going to club shows because the bar’s prices aren’t hiked up, the ticket prices are decent, and just the overall experience of being right in the band’s face while they shred is something you can’t forget. It’s always great to have the memory to look back on and think “Yeah they played the fuck out of that shit!” when you’re listening to their album that you BOUGHT at their show.
Whenever a genre of music gets popular there are a lot of trend-followers. When the trend dies down, the best or the pioneers of the genre stick around, but the rest die off. It’s been that way for a long time. And, metal was really popular in the 80s (to early 90s) and it burnt itself out. Market saturation.
1978 I heard AC/DC & Black Sabbath which isn’t considered metal today, but it was back then. I’ve just continued to listen to new bands, I like heavy shit, but has to have some melody….like Arsis, or Emperor.
I hope it’ll get undergound. I started listening to metal in 2003, and I haven’t stopped listening since. the only problem is, then I’ll have an even harder time finding shows in the SF area for bands that I like.
I wonder when “Billboard top 200″ will be replaced with “Torrent top 200″ based on overall seeding stats. Actually, I wonder how many bands (or labels?…nah) monitor stuff like that to gauge the popularity of a new release.
…leeching stats, not seeding stats, although both could be used anyway.
+1
I love metal just as much as I always did. The problem is that I haven’t heard a new band that really, really grabbed my attention in a good 2 or 3 years. Bands that have been around a while continue to put out good albums, and I fully support those bands, but it seems like the attitude of the current generation of metal bands is just “let’s out-shred everyone else and be the fastest/most brutal band on the planet.” I’m so fucking sick of hearing the word “brutal” get dropped every five seconds any time you try to talk to someone about heavy music. What happened to hooks and, oh I don’t know, writing good SONGS? Yes, musicianship is a key component to metal and I love that part of it, but music is suppose to make you feel something. All this “-core” bullshit just seems so lifeless to me.
My other problem with the current scene is very few bands bringing anything new to the table. Most bands are either sticking to their bread and butter and releasing the same album every year or two, or they’re just trying to sound like other metal bands. I played Heartwork for some metalcore-loving dudes I know and they thought it was an unoriginal death metal take on some of their favorite bands. They were shocked to find out that shit is fifteen years old…bands are STILL ripping that shit off! Shouldn’t metal as a whole have progressed by now? Sure some bands are doing new and original things, but not enough. New ideas need to be brought to the table. Until then, I’m sticking with my old favorites.
…Am I the only one who feels this way?
i hate you eyal or whatever the fuck it is, you act like you know so fucking much and are so HXC METALHEAD OMGZ. get over yourself.
also, DAATH FUCKING SUCKS NOW, THE HINDERERS WAS A GREAT FUCKING ALBUM AND YOU GUYS THREW IT ALL AWAY FOR A SHITTY RECYCLED BULLSHIT METALCORE SOUND. I HOPE YOU’RE PROUD.
/cruisecontrol
I’ve been saying this shit all year. I’ve been through metal’s death a couple of times now…the 80’s and 90’s…and it died in the 70’s too. Metal was dead when the NWOBHM started it back up in the mid 70’s. So yeah…its probably gonna happen. But it will still exist…the shows will just be cheaper to get into :) Less chicks too.
Less chicks? Is that possible? As things stand, every time I go to an extreme show, I already feel as though I’m crashing a penis party.
BACK underground?? I never realized we ever truly left.
My very first exposure to metal would have been the 80’s glam metal movement. I remember being 8 years old, checking out the cover of my older sisters’ brand-new copy of *Look What the Cat Dragged In* on vinyl, and telling them the chicks in their new favorite band needed to shave under their arms. Through my older sisters, I eventually fell into listening to bands like Def Leppard and whatever else was on maximum rotation on MTV that week – to include, of course, Poison. In retrospect, it’s amusing to me that my parents mostly trusted my older sisters and their friends (all of whom welcomed me to hang out with them at all times and treated me as an equal, albeit one who required a little extra looking after; they were uncommonly generous for their age in encouraging a little kid to tag along all the time) to be the responsible judges of what I should or should not have been exposed to. They were generally great about it, but being adolescent themselves they were of course less intimidated by Warrant and Nelson than by Guns N Roses and Metallica, so guess who I wasn’t allowed to listen to? You got it. I had to sneak around listening to *Appetite for Destruction* for the first few years after it came out. (*GNR Lies,* too, for that matter. *Use Your Illusion* was more palatable, so my sisters actually took me to buy that one.)
Addiction experts talk about “gateway drugs;” connoisseurs talk about “acquired tastes.” I learned to drink watered-down American pilsners before I could appreciate Guinness; also, I acquired a taste for wine by starting with white zinfandel. (I wouldn’t touch white zin NOW, but stick with me for the analogy for now.) Most people can’t say Metallica was on their radar before The Black Album and I’m not ashamed to admit I’m one of those people. *Appetite for Destruction* and The Black Album were less “gateway drugs” and “acquired tastes” for me than aural mother-fucking NUKES, but the effect was much the same: a whole new world revealed itself to me. But despite the impression those two albums left on me, I couldn’t fully appreciate extreme music (metal, hardcore, thrash, grind, all the cross-pollinations in between, you name it), the sentiments expressed within or the aesthetics associated, until after I served in the military. Once I went looking for something that could channel the depth of rage and the wealth of all other emotions I had uncovered, I discovered there was more to metal music and its community than I had been exposed to previously; specifically, that it had plenty to offer me in terms of expression and understanding. I had merely skimmed the surface in the years prior, and in the years since I’ve been like a glutton making up for lost time and culling through sites like this and many others in order to get the best picture possible of what all is out there for me to check out and, hopefully, make a connection with.
So while I’m relatively new to the process of mining the genre *as a whole* in order to discover all it has to offer, elements of it have been on my radar for longer than a minute. For some people, Winds of Plague, 5FDP, and Attack! Attack! will be their “gateway” acts into metal or other forms of extreme music. Those bands will capture their imaginations for a time, and then a few will do some investigating and find that there is more out there. Maybe they’ll decide to stay a while. For others, they’ll try on that music and the procumbent aesthetic like the latest fashions, only to discard them for another trend once the novelty wears off. (Although, to be realistic, plenty of people originally thought the popularity of bands like Disturbed, KoRn, and Slipknot would wash out with the tides, but those bands are still giants in our branch of the industry.) It never fails to surprise me whenever I’m presented with evidence to suggest that the majority of people seem to regard music as a product to be consumed and discarded at will, and are perfectly happy to allow the corporate world to make their tastes by presenting them with options A, B, and/or C to choose from. Predictably, the music they tend to get behind is often just as disposable as whatever other trends, fashions, interests, or values they’re subscribing to at any given time.
Metal having been around for more than 40 years and enjoyed varying levels of mainstream success and popular interest, I would still say it’s perhaps more relevant today than ever. Given the paltry and shallow options the mainstream continues to offer us, those of us who need more substance will always look to the underground to provide us with sustenance. I should clarify here that I’m not necessarily of the school of thought that anything that’s popular and makes it to the mainstream is shit. Just look at Mastodon – proof positive that hard work, persistence, musical chops, and, this is key, fearless creative abandon can occasionally be accepted by the mainstream. Mastodon and others of their caliber making their way into commercial acceptance seem to increasingly exceptions to the rule, though. This was illustrated to me a few weeks ago: to make my roommate and her fiancé happy, I sat and watched the VMA’s (just to be sociable, don’t you know). That was 2 hours out of my life I will never get back, and all I got out of it was the illustration of just how far outside the mainstream my musical tastes are and a few freaky looks from my friends when I laughed derisively at the assertion that Beyonce is the hardest working woman in the music industry for having performed 60 or so live shows in the last year (Seriously, 60?? THAT’s hardworking???), at every lip-synced performance, and at the overall absurdity of a bunch of people getting together in a room and congratulating each other on their mediocre talents. Even Muse’s performance felt plastic that night and I seriously hated the world for that. And God, I hate those emo twits… [End of tangent] Back to my original point, which was … What was my point again?
Oh yeah, metal! So long as the core faithful remain, so will the genre and the music will continue to evolve as we need it to. I expect the popularity of metal to wax and wane with the times, just like it always has, and while I find it hard to conceive of metal ever actually being popular or of real metal (no hard-and-fast classification to offer you as to explain what I mean by that) ever truly leaving the underground, I’m not overly concerned by the rhythms of metal’s relative acceptance to the mainstream; however, I do concede that maybe if I were attempting to make a living out of metal, my interest would likely be perpetually piqued. I do the best I can to look after my favorite acts and promote the scene as much as possible, but I don’t have the sort of missionary zeal to attempt to force our music on anyone who can’t truly relate to it to start. If we’re going to stick to the traditional model of the fanbase of our genre typically being composed of outsiders and outcasts (or those who perceive themselves to be), I don’t expect our music to ever truly leave the underground and, as such, most of the bands who manage to make the jump to the mainstream will continue to be regarded as suspect.
I think you’re right Eyal, but going underground again wouldn’t be so bad really. If metal goes back underground, maybe new people will get the fire and passion about it.
Unfortunately I agree with you E. And it’s these damn “-core” bands that are doing it. This whole steal-your-sisters-pants, comb-over rock needs to disappear in it’s entirety. But I’m afraid it won’t, these bands are to metal what Greenday is to punk. Poser-generating machines. It’s Nu-Metal for a Nu generation. Heavy distortion is not congruent to metal. It seems like it’s just one copy-cat after another. As I Lay Dying paved the way, and now we’re 1000 Agony Scene’s deep and I just can’t fucking take it. I often encourage using techniques from other genres, in fact that’s what interests me the most in music, but how many more fucking “breakdowns” do we need to fucking hear. Right, you’re both playing C and the bass drum is following the cadence…cool, heard it before, on the other 12 tracks on your CD.
Please please please no more copycat bands.
Or christcore either.
AX7 can disappear too.
Well, you said “heavy music”. So I guess Zep and Kiss count? So for me, mid-70s. Maiden in the late 70s/early 80s, etc. Never got tired of it. Not the only music I listen to though, but the music I listen to the most.
Adding to that last comment, metal’s popularity does ebb and flow, as you said.
Are you thinking it might be at it’s cycle-zenith at this point? I was recently surprised at Megadeth and Shadows Fall being on Jimmy Fallon. Not sure if it means we’ve hit a peak, or if it’s popularity is continuing to grow.
But to me it doesn’t matter. I stay a fan regardless. There are always new bands out there that keep me interested. I don’t care if it’s popular. Don’t care if it’s “underground” or not. If it’s good music, it’s good music. \m/