I think it vanished from many people's consciousness in the mid-90s since grunge and nu-metal became big but groups like Overkill were still putting out great stuff. In the 2000s+, the best metal has come from hyphenated sub-genres IMO although groups like Amon Amarth do good straight ahead metal. Gojira for prog, Epica and Nightwish for symphonic, Amaranthe for dance are my favorites have all made great albums in the last 10 years.
There was great metal bands in the 2000'. Mastedon,Lamb of God,Opeth....I am more worried about now,the 2020'... This years,I only bought 2 metal albums. One is very good: Code Orange-Underneath. The other one is pretty boring: Lamb of God eponymus album. Still wait for Tool to sell their lastest album on a normal 15$ cd so I'll give it a listen.
But much of the "metal" that charted at any time in the whole history of rock wasn't really metal anyway.
Did metal die? Only if you weren't paying attention...and considering it's going strong I'd have to give a very loud NO to the question.
Absolutely not. Just because there were great albums released in the early to mid 90's doesn't mean there weren't great albums that came after that. Sure, some styles like NWOBHM, groove metal, and industrial had their place in time and have fallen out of fashion since, but it's just ridiculous to act like nothing worthwhile has happened in black metal since the Norwegian scene, in death metal since the Florida scene, or in doom metal since the "epic" stuff. All those genres have continued evolving and have developed sounds that hadn't even begun to be hinted at in the 90's. Even once-dead genres like thrash and traditional metal have come back in recent years in ways that go way past mere retro revivalism. I get that some metal fans have really narrow preferences in terms of genre, but if you're going to be that much of a purist you should at least admit that the disconnect is between yourself and new music, not between old music and new music.
is Asking Alexandria a metal band? I think they had some commercial chart successes in past 10 years. Their last song is kind of poppy though
The terminology or the term ties people in knots. When I was 14 in 1978....everyone from UFO via Rush to BOC were HM. Sabbath and AC/DC Van Halen, Motorhead etc were all grouped together with Thin Lizzy and The Scorpions or whoever. For me personally I think HM ended any real development in that era when a lot of bands realised they had a very loyal and stable audience.....many of them played to that and it was in a cultural context as most countries had alternative genre wars, punk, pop, disco and whatever combination. I think it took some younger bands to give it some fresh energy but that came a wee bit later for me than the NWOBHM as I found most of those bands adapting to big success without much grounding......I think most of the 80's were a bit of a wasteland for Metal irrespective of it's popularity but we are all impacted by our own bias I grew up a Metal fan but quite quickly got bored with how cliched and generic it became in the early 80's I much preferred bands whom stretched themselves....
Correct, Purple ! I confused the German, UK and US Metal Charts (which they topped) with the US Billboard 200. There, they only reached the 187th place with their first LP... However, their second album, "Metal Resistance", hit the top 40 in the first week. We're talking about japanese high school girls. "Idol Metal"
There's a a ton of great metal bands that can be found beyond the mid-90s. It's just a matter of digging around bands from certain waves and sub-genres within sub-genres (i.e., black-death/bestialwar metal, Les Legions Noires, the "metal punk death squad", the non-sucky 90s metalcore scene, etc.) or the underground scene that kept certain sound from the above sub-genres. Currently, there's many, MANY metal bands and albums to dig through online in recent times, so it can be quite overwhelming.
So much of the 80s' and 90s' metal was just primordial soup necessary to foment the genetic mutations required for musical Darwinism to produce the staggering array of competent, complex, and impossibly diverse music that represents the genre today. God, but contemporary Metal is a wonder to behold! N0 longer the realm of head-banging teenagers, neo post-Reconstructionist Klansmen, or nostalgic 40 and 50 year olds for whom the neanderthalic beat is an aural trigger of peak testosterone High School memories. Metal has entered its Classical era: so say I.
If anything metal has continued to evolve and change constantly over the years. The 90's were laying the scene for heavy music next big mainstream resurgence in nu-metal. Ozzfest was big, Korn were all over mtv, hair metal was dead, grunge was dead and heavy music was preparing to take over the mainstream. A few other things I can think of; Katatonia was cranking out great music, In Flames were kicking ass, Sabbath got back together, Pantera were at their height, Rammstein were on the rise, Black Label Society were formed, Cradle of Filth were releasing good music, Meshuggah were on the rise (and about to spawn 1000 imitators), Opeth released Still life (their best album). Metal was fine in the 90's, it didn't and never will need the mainstream to survive
In the mid 90s lots of the metal subgenres peaked and their classic albums were released then. But the 2000s was the biggest decade of metal looking at it from other metrics. Just look at things like the record sales, number of well known artists pumping out albums, MTV, Ozzfest, Gigantour.
This question has been answered quite well a dozen times in this thread already. But I’ll just add more perspective: Metal music dominates the music scene across the world — not in terms of sales (being commercial was never the goal of metal LOL) — but in terms of sheer number of album releases, and number of active bands. Far from dying, the thing has gone to entirely new levels year after year. At this point, none among us can possibly keep up with all of the metal releases by all of the astronomically-talented bands in the scene right now. Hundreds of terrific albums coming out every month is not the telltale sign of a genre that has perished. Metal is so prolific that sometimes you need to remind yourself to focus on the 100 or so bands that you really love the very most. I’ve avoided the rabbit holes of dozens of similar bands because I need to listen to each of Ne Obliviscaris’ albums hundreds of times before I’m satisfied. And speaking of genre-defining quality? Just as an example, what Irish heroes Primordial have given us since the turn of the century has been breath-taking. Like the oft-mentioned Opeth, these groups have given us ultra-fine heavy music literally to pour over and cherish for the rest of our lives. It’s quite alive...
“The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted.” DH Lawrence Hostiles ! Best western to date. So, maybe I should rephrase my question. More tricky. Did the classic subgenres of Metal die in the mid-90s ? Because afterwards, I often hear either Revival Thrash, Revival Death, etc. (2000s) or bands like 85% cosmic black metal, 10% true black with 5% electro pop (2010s) ! I'm too old for this **** I also think that it is more about Generation X vs Generation Y. Many of you started with Nu Metal, didn't you ? However I am open minded as I started with the grunts (r)evolution, Classic Death and I worship Babymetal (like Rob Halford, Metallica, ...) !
If your cousin has been a jerk since 1995 do you say your cousin died in 1995? In other words, why would whether something is dead hinge on whether you like it (as much as you used to)? If you simply want to say that you don't particularly care for any metal after the mid 90s, okay, but what do you want us to do about it? Surely a lot of people on the board like a lot of recent metal. Maybe you don't or wouldn't like any of the more recent stuff we like, but
Excellent. I may have found another reason for my questioning. The Loudness War = between 93/95 and now. I like my dynamics and almost skipped fabulous albums because of this war ! Empyrium, Isis, Opeth, Evoken, Enslaved, Gojira and Deathspell Omega (France, ), Meshuggah, Moonspell, Ne Obliviscaris ...
I can't agree more ! I bought their first three dvd boxes (Legend, Budokan, London). don't remember having heard such an innovation in Metal for a long time ! Kobametal is a genius.
