Actually agree with MC for once. Metal/rock is dead when it comes to mainstream appeal. Couldn't even tell you one name of a band 2013 and beyond.
Metal was never meant to have mainstream appeal though. There's like 6 metal bands who consistently sell in this day and age. Just because it's not mainstream successful though doesn't make it a dead genre is what everyone, aside from MC, is trying to get at.
In the 80s metal was fucking king. NWOBHM, hair metal, fucking thrash blew the fuck up in the mainstream. Then grunge killed it, and ever since nobody has wanted to take a chance with metal. I get people are content with metal existing purely in the underground. But eventually the appeal of being stuck at a local level is going to wear off, and less and less bands will form. We've seen it impact small but successful bands like Vektor, and Agalloch already. Or with bands that made it onto major labels like Mutiny Within, only to get dropped because theres no money in metal.
Metal will always exist. Just as Im sure every genre "exists" still to some capacity. But I think its safe to say some genres are dead, with minimal appeal, with very few new bands or artists emperging in their scenes. And as much as I hate to admit it, I see metal going down that way.
Even at a local level, a lot of metal dudes in the scene are starting to defect to hardcore, or synthwave.
okay really how many bands in the 80's that weren't playing pop metal were getting main stream recognition though? we weren't there, but I'd think it was really only like Ozzy, Judas Priest, maaaaaaaaaybe Metallica. bands like King Diamond, Megadeth, Slayer, etc had big followings in the 80's sure and were playing big festivals and there was headbangers ball, but that's not much bigger than say where Mastodon, Deafheaven, and Gojira are at now. metal didn't really get mainstream (if that's what we're talking about) until the 90's when bands started to water down their sound. and then nu-metal. the 80's is definitely the most glamorous time for metal and the most innovative, but it's not like bands that defined the genre then were nearly as big as they become a decade later or in some cases even now.
Yeah i was gonna say Metalica didnt really blow up in the mainstream until the late 80’s when bob rock started producing their albums and shorting their songs to get on the radio. Then obliviously One debuting on MTV helped them too. My uncle saw them in a bar in/around 1984 either right before or right after ride the lightning came out. He said he didnt even know who they were when he went to the show lol.
The bands were still selling out medium to large venues back then. And kids especially flocked to the shows.
Metal is an old person genre now. Lyman is kind of right in saying its an unsustainable genre without younger people getting into it. But they're all about edm and hip hop now.
Coincidentally, my coworkers and I had a discussion about this same thing at work last night. My friend is in pretty much the biggest local band in Chicago (Reign), and he says metal is dead. This girl we work with (happens to be the same chick who said white dudes are ugly and unfashionable) is a huge rap finantic. Shes a upper middle class white girl from suburbs of Indiana.
So we asked how that came to be. She said she grew up in a conservative household, and the sex and drugs and blackness of hip hop and rap was taboo in her house, so she sought it out.
Rap is still taboo apparently. Which is why so many young people flock to it.
Metal is no longer taboo. The dark taboo shit is looked at as parody now. Nobody takes the satanic or gore shit seriously. Kids laugh at it. Taboo was metal's claim to fame, and now kids think of it as nothing more than Halloween.
Ive been watching quite a few metal documentaries lately. And the 80s were lit. We'll never have another Metallica. Hell we'll never have another Mastodon.
yeah and there's packed metal shows now. I even see plenty of high schoolers when I see bigger bands. young people are still at metal shows, it's just not shit head teenagers like you see at hardcore and hip-hop shows. if anything I say that's a good thing.
yeah and there's packed metal shows now. I even see plenty of high schoolers when I see bigger bands. young people are still at metal shows, it's just not shit head teenagers like you see at hardcore and hip-hop shows. if anything I say that's a good thing.
Maybe thats cali. But i know Nashville metal shows were exclusively 20+ crowd. And at Chicago, I see maybe 5 at most kids younger than 20.
what metal people have been ousted as pedos? if anything there's pedos in indie rock and pop-punk. then kind of shit that's on warped tour... not to mention rap.
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Metal will always exist. Just as Im sure every genre "exists" still to some capacity. But I think its safe to say some genres are dead, with minimal appeal, with very few new bands or artists emperging in their scenes. And as much as I hate to admit it, I see metal going down that way.
Even at a local level, a lot of metal dudes in the scene are starting to defect to hardcore, or synthwave.
Metal is an old person genre now. Lyman is kind of right in saying its an unsustainable genre without younger people getting into it. But they're all about edm and hip hop now.
So we asked how that came to be. She said she grew up in a conservative household, and the sex and drugs and blackness of hip hop and rap was taboo in her house, so she sought it out.
Rap is still taboo apparently. Which is why so many young people flock to it.
Metal is no longer taboo. The dark taboo shit is looked at as parody now. Nobody takes the satanic or gore shit seriously. Kids laugh at it. Taboo was metal's claim to fame, and now kids think of it as nothing more than Halloween.
Thats not a metal problem. Its an entertainment industry problem.
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