Is metal dead? not according to these stats, welcome to the world of very cheap in home studios capable of producing excellent quality recordings and Bandcamp (who needs a record label in 2020). The 10 Best Metal Albums Of 2020 Longtime readers already knew this next part was coming: 22,275. At the time I’m writing this in early December, that’s how many metal releases either came out or are planned for the remainder of 2020 per Encyclopaedia Metallum. 7,835 of those are full-lengths. Once the dust settles, it’s likely that 2020’s total number of full-lengths will eventually exceed 2019’s all-time record of 8,121. In a vacuum, that wouldn’t be particularly notable. Metal releases have been creeping impossibly upwards for years, like a game of Jenga between sociopathic tech CEOs played on a table made of Jenga blocks. But, of course, 2020 has been a year. A life-altering, societal-shifting, economy-crushing, kayfabe-shattering, systemic-rot-exposing year. I don’t need to summarize it. You lived it.
...Ono Threads like these are needed for me cuz I just can't keep up. My son helps in this regard as well...
I'm an old fart so I like when new bands sound like old bands, it's comfortable. That said I am always looking for new sounds, in every genre. The last new 'unique' sounding Metal band I liked was Imperial Triumphant.
Another thing of note is that Metal fans have always embraced the physical format and the collecting of shirts, patches and other 'things' to who how Metal they are.
It’s just really funny seeing these judgemental true metal and extreme metal types dancing around to Ghost lol.
So true. Very good modern occult acts are/were Blood Ceremony and Purson. Second BC album (almost metal) and first Purson...
Seems like all kinds of great metal is still being made. Never heard of all those genres. Are they real?
Probably more the late 90s as a major big selling genre. But being mainstream was never really what heavy metal was about. It'll always be around, there'll always be kids who like loud guitars and go against the mainstream. The absolutely rank joke that was the Nu- Metal era didn't do much good, if any, but even then System of a Down were and are good.
I apologize if I was short, but I was offering an objective standard to judge the quality and cultural impact that metal has had over the last thirty years. Album sales? Same story - dwarfed by the 1980s. If there's a better standard, I'm open to hearing it. If y'all want to hand wave about how great this underground band is, that's great. I like a lot of it too. I'm sure there has been incredible band and swing music composed during the last seventy years but it has had very little cultural impact. I just think 99% of the US is probably surprised that people still even make the stuff. Maybe metal has had a bigger impact internationally, but I don't see it in the US/Can/UK. As to what constitutes metal, "Metal Health" is and was considered a metal song and that went #31 in 1983, while the metal song "Cum on feel the Noize" went #5. Now one can define that reality away (anything that makes the radio by definition can't be a heavy metal song) or just accept it.
And then there were some old bands that made AMAZING albums this year. Testament - Titans Of Creation. Effin amazing thrash just like our mother made it. A highlight in the genre.
Not metal, so not worth discussing. As for cultural impact, real metal is and with only a few exceptions has been a non-mainstream cult phenomena. It can still be very popular, such as '80s Metallica, but it's about album sales and not charting singles (though the '80s did have a few charting metal songs). Real metal is actual proof that cultural impact can be had without any radio friendliness - just look to Scandanavia and other European countries, post 1990s. If metal hadn't evolved in any significant way in contemporary times then your analogy to swing music works. However, "real" metal didn't sound anything like what the hair variety was doing on the radio,, even by the late '80s, much less in the '90s and beyond. So the analogy doesn't work. Most of the contemporary metal music that most people who identify as metal fans listened to post-1995 doesn't sound like much metal that was created before then. As for any rock music in the 2010s and beyond... well, none of it has had much cultural impact. The last significant "movements" in popular music at large was probably the mid and late 2000s popularity of indie and the trap sound of hip hop that really got big a couple of years after that. Rock music in general has had near-zero mainstream cultural impact in the last 10 years. It's all about smaller cult scenes.
To answer the question, I don't think the question has any meaning. Styles and precedents have been established. They fall out of common use/popular fashion, but they don't go anywhere. They don't "die". What happens is that mediocre, uninspired people and frauds chasing after relevant trends (even the really stupid ones) become increasingly more visible as they begin to multiply. Even more so today, given the Internet. This is true of everything, not just metal music. Also, I don't think you can ever find a "real" consensus (beyond garbage tabloid-tier magazines/websites who make up all their "best of..." lists inside hermetically-sealed offices and boardroom echo chambers) regarding the the true pinnacle of any particular flavor/distillation of music, especially when you complicate things even further by comparing apples to oranges through lumping, say, all examples of the genre death metal together, regardless of style, period, region, or even individual aesthetics. PS: "Gothic metal" is a pretty gross oversimplification of TON, by the way!
One of two things happened: 1. Metal died. or 2. You got old and your finger lost the pulse. My money is on 2. Don't worry... it happens to us all...
+1000. 1.75 But it is true that I am getting old. So, I'm going back to listen to Reign In Blood or Altars Of Madness for the millionth time.
Remember how controversial and hated bands like Slipknot, Cradle Of Filth, and Dimmu Borgir were 20 years ago. Serious metal fans would actually want to kill you if you admitted to like these bands. Now these dudes all listen to Ghost lol.
