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The State of Metal

There were times not so long ago that Metal looked as though it were about to take over the world. Metallica and Megadeth were high in the charts and on the T.V regularly in one way or another. Somehow it all went wrong and disappeared faster than a choccy bar in a health spa full of middle aged women. Metallica have dropped the heavy sound, Megadeth seemed to loose their spark and Maiden lost their singer only to release two half baked attempts with Blaze. Maybe the reason is that in order to get media success bands had to start changing their bad ways, like less swearing, less drugs, less violence and less politically incorrect actions. This is true I think and it is hard to act rebellious when you have to behave well.

Another thing is that over the last 10 or 15 years it hasn’t been cool to listen to bands that sold shiploads of records and being with it was about listening to unknown bands who were not liked by the establishment. It was a kind of being UN trendy was trendy and this caused big sellers to have to find a new audience as they were now the UN trendy by being trendy and older fans weren’t into them any more. To say they sell out is a bit unfair really as it’s hard to rebel when you’ve everything you wished for and you’re a millionaire.

These days metal isn’t doing as bad as people think just look at Marilyn Manson! People say he’s not metal but just what is metal? Thrash isn’t metal, Glam Rock isn’t metal, Hard Core isn’t metal, industrial isn’t metal and what about Death and Goth’s? At the end of the day if it’s loud, proud, atmospheric, energetic, abusive or highly emotional rock it is metal and that’s all there is to it.

A lot of the seventies and even sixties (original metal) is back now with a kind of back to basics thing going on. This has to be good as only last year the OZZFEST sold out the Milton Keynes Bowl to 60,000 people for one day when the Phoenix Festival was cancelled for not selling the 15,000 tickets necessary over a 4 day period.

But like I said earlier, today’s music is still cool, just listen to Cathedral, Bruce Dickinson’s last 2 albums, Skunk Anansie and even Venom’s last album was great. The only thing I can say is “ FUCK THE ESTABLISHMENT ” and “ IGNORE THE MAGAZINES ” as all they want is sales. The scene is alive and well, it just need’s to be found.

Some band’s to look for;

Remember that there are 30 years of metal to choose from so start to collect 12” L P’s too.

Thermite