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Thoughts on 2021 metal

markm

By markm
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AlSymerz Grand Master

AlSymerz

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Not denying the findings but Metal Archives are very hit and miss with their genres a lot of the time. There is plenty of stuff on MA that is listed in completely wrong categories or cross listed through multiple genres. Then there is heaps of bands marked as active that aren't. I've got a mate who's listed in death, prog and experimental but the only album he's listed is none of those genres and the mods agreed to it. It wouldn't effect only one genre but it would have an effect of the totals.

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markm
markm

Those of us veterans of the trade have a long story of our trip through the metalsphere to 2021. I'd love to hear any of the posters journey, I know you have one....Everybody's got a story, don't they

SurgicalBrute
SurgicalBrute

It was always like that though. Everyone always looks at the bands from the past and acts like everything coming out at the time was unique and amazing because that's the stuff that made it to the top

FatherAlabaster
FatherAlabaster

2021 wound up being a good year for me finding new music to enjoy. I really appreciate what you guys have added to the forum and I've found a good deal of stuff through your posts. Haven't had this st

GoatmasterGeneral Grand Master

GoatmasterGeneral

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I didn't mean that no one has tinkered with it in 30 years. Obviously we went from less than 10,000 black metal albums released in the 90's to more than 66,000 in the 2010's so the sub-genre has grown quite a bit and yes as you've said it is quite adaptable. I just meant that despite all that tinkering people have done to it and all the outside influences that have been invited in to corrupt it, black and death metal do still exist quite plentifully in the same basic forms as they did 30 years ago. For all the myriad hybrids and offshoots and 'blackened' this and that, and 'progressive' whatever, and the 'post' nonsense, there is still plenty of plain old traditional or "old school" black and death metal being released today that would be instantly recognizable as black and death metal to any metal minded time travellers from 1992.

10 minutes ago, KillaKukumba said:

Not denying the findings but Metal Archives are very hit and miss with their genres a lot of the time. There is plenty of stuff on MA that is listed in completely wrong categories or cross listed through multiple genres. Then there is heaps of bands marked as active that aren't. I've got a mate who's listed in death, prog and experimental but the only album he's listed is none of those genres and the mods agreed to it. It wouldn't effect only one genre but it would have an effect of the totals.

 

This is true, there are a ridiculous amount of mis-labeled genres on M-A. This must be party due to the fact that it is a user editable Wiki. I would think that the mis-tagging would kind of even out though and the rough numbers for the relative ratios of black vs death vs thrash would be somewhat in the ballpark. I think they like to keep a band as active unless they have some kind of conclusive proof that they broke up. I see a lot of bands with question marks as to their end date that leads me to believe that no one's really sure if they're still active or not.

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AlSymerz Grand Master

AlSymerz

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I saw a band not long back that had an official release date for an album through a major label, but there was no track listing shown, not title shown and according to MA no members still active in the band. I have no idea how things like that would effect the count but it's probably still closer using MA as the data gather than it is any other site.

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navybsn Grand Master

navybsn

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32 minutes ago, zackflag said:

Lol, yeah the "similar artists" tab on MA is hilariously inaccurate. That site also has very strange standards as to what constitutes as "metal". Like how they consider Rush to be a metal band but not Slipknot. I'll never understand the mental gymnastics behind that one...

Yeah, you're not going to find a bigger Rush fan than me, but I'd never say they are even remotely metal. Widely loved in the metal community - yes, but they are most definitely a prog rock/hard rock band.

Definitely not a Slipknot fan, but I'd classify them in with metal.

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AlSymerz Grand Master

AlSymerz

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2 hours ago, zackflag said:

Lol, yeah the "similar artists" tab on MA is hilariously inaccurate. That site also has very strange standards as to what constitutes as "metal". Like how they consider Rush to be a metal band but not Slipknot. I'll never understand the mental gymnastics behind that one...

Some of the reviews on MA are useful at times, but you're right the similar artists at times seems they have just cut and pasted names from the main players. All thrash bands are like Slayer or Testament. Death metal bands are like Obituary and Death. The site as a whole is not bad as a resource given that it's not 100% fact checked but it does pay to read some bios etc with an open mind.

 

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