Another Metalhead gone too the great moshpit in the sky.

[ironlord]

As we all know, just a few days ago the great Ronny James Dio passed on from this earth after his long battle with cancer, At the end of 2009 we lost James Sullivan, the drummer of Avenged Sevenfold and now it would appear that Paul Grey, the bassist from Slipknot, has been found dead in his hotel room.

Paul Grey Dead, Chicago Tribune
An autopsy report is now pending (apparently its tomorrow).

But I have to say that so far this year has sucked ass for metal fans.
We have seen the advance of the tween bands, whose legions of followers grow stronger with each new twilight movie (something that affects our own standings as vampires), the domination of Tween music has meant that some of the more origional (and better) metal sounds are losing out on air time in any radio/tv channels and they are slowly but surely being brought down into a never ending dark spiral.

With the death of another metal musician we are made just a bit weaker, even if you don't like Slipknot's style, there is no denying that they are one of the most succesful metal bands out there and that their ability too lead the charge into the mainstream as a band has been invaluable over the years. With the loss of one of their friends, will we see such energy from a band who are a cornerstone of new metal?

If we continue to loose beloved musicians and icons of our culture, can we as metal fans, go on?
Or will we be forced into the corner (even more) by waves of gangsta rappers and tweens?

 

[Thanmar Thrask]

First of all, I'd also like to mention Peter Steele of Type O Negative who recently left us aswell.

That being said, metal is still the musical powerhouse it has always been. Eventhough the days of bands like Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Scorpions and Judas Priest are long gone, there are loads of fresh young bands lined up to start bashing your speakers to oblivion.

The conservative Black Metal genre for example, is still evolving, with more and more progressive approaches to it. More bands stray away from the Blood, Death and Satan approach and come up with new and innovative ideas to make Black Metal, seen in bands like Borknagar, Bal-Sagoth and Damned Spirit's Dance.

Death Metal still has alot of its old bulldozers, Bolt Thrower, Suffocation, Obituary, Dark Tranquility and Immolation razing cities in brutal carnage. Theres also a load of promising new bands that put their bloody stamp down,

And lets not get started about Thrash. Went through a huge thrash revival not too long ago, and a few clear victors stood out from that. And lets not mention Exodus's last two albums, hacking and slashing through a crowd just because they could.

The ''core'' genre's ( Death/Grind/Hard/Metal ect ) also had a recent burst of new bands, and just like thrash in the many copycats and wutnots, there are clear victors to carry on the bloody banners.

Ofcourse I mentioned only a few more extreme ones, but on every aspect metal is still not done. Remember that its only 40 years ago that Black Sabbath released ''Black Sabbath'' and ''Paranoid''. Those ''tweens'' won't push us in any corners. Why not? Because thats not metal, period.

These boys and girls ( ''gansta tween guys you mention'' ) miss exactly what makes the metal community so awesome. While we ''embrace'' any new recruit to our loud ways, and praise our founders. Theirs is one which has its roots in mainstream culture. And mainstream culture is what the name implies, its not here to stay, but flow onwards. Metal however, is a rock in that stream, deeply embedded in the riverbed. We will erode a bit, especially after 40 years, but we are still there, and above the river we still look like that rock everyone knows.

Heavy, rough but defiant.

 

[ChaosJedi666]

Just don't forget though that Metal lasts a whole lot longer than anything else. Aside from Classical. You mentioned Paranoid, and others, and those songs are still around. In ten years time, realistically, who will be listening to rap/hip hop/ R & B, etc, tracks released today? Black Sabbath, Dio, Iron Maiden, some of the biggest, most successful metal bands, who have completely revolutionised Metal, are still around. Go to a metal bar, concert, whatever, and these are *some* of the bands that will be playing. Whether it be live or through a speaker, they live on. Atm metal seems to be going through a bit of a down period, but that happened in the nineties. Early '00 we picked up a bit, now we're being shunted aside by overnight tracks and bands. They hit their peak, then crash and burn, whereas Metal strives for achievement, with the end result being 40+ years on and still extremely popular band. Like a cockroach, metal never dies. And thats my rant for the day

 

[Skeletor]

A great musician has passed away. It's never easy to see a childhood hero gone for good.

ChaosJedi666, I would argue that hip hop and R&B will still be a great musical genre decades from now. Just like I listen to metal from previous decades, I also still listen to hip hop from previous decades and always will. I'd like it if you didn't automatically peg the genre as the 'bang bang skeet skeet gangstas hoes' rap you see on MTV and hear on the radio, just like I don't automatically peg metal as an harsh and brutal genre that has more similarities with static than music. If you worked hard enough to find some real hip hop, you'd be pleasantly surprised, as I was.

Back on topic:
If there is one thing I know about metal, is that it will persist. Like you've said the glory days are long gone, but there is always a band that will pop on occasion and carry the genre on for that much longer! I can't say I'm much of a metalhead anymore, but I know where my roots are. And I know, there is always a band out there that will wow you.

 

[ChaosJedi666]

Skeletor, I wasn't saying that hip hop etc will die out, just saying that the majority of the tracks are one night chart toppers, if you will. In ten years people aren't still going to be going to clubs that play songs released today. Metal is a much harder genre to, in general, get major public recognition. For example, the majority of Music tv shows on channels such as c4, mtv, etc, do not really play metal. Its all about whats new. Hope like hell this explains what I meano.o. Its actually quite difficult to put it into words