JUMPING DARKNESS PARADE: EYAL WONDERS IF METAL IS ABOUT TO GO BACK UNDERGROUND
When did you guys start listening to heavy music? How many of you started listening this decade? I’m seriously curious about this. Those of you who started this decade… Are you sick of it yet? Are you starting to get sick of it? Does it excite you the way it did in 2004? For those of you who started earlier… do you remember what things were like 1990-1995? Remember when Megadeth was going multiplatinum, Pantera was flying in private jets, and Morbid Angel and Carcass were on major labels? Remember how that pretty much died off?
Many people just grew out of it. Some bands kept it going… Slayer, Pantera, etc. But overall, it seems like in the mid to late 90’s, a good amount of people who were into metal stopped caring about it. The underground definitely kept on going, but it was rough times. Very few bands were able to make any sort of life happen unless they were already huge, or incredibly radio friendly… Nu Metal?
I kinda feel the same thing starting to happen again. Many people that I know don’t care like they used to. Passion that people had for metal five years ago is now gone. There’s obviously still a fanbase for it and it’s always going to be there, but I’m wondering if its about to go underground again. There’s nothing certain in the record industry right now. When you can crack the Billboard Top 200 by selling 2,500 records, it’s clear that something isn’t right. So is it just that music is in a fucked up spot, or am I onto something by saying that I predict that the metal explosion of the early to mid 2000s is coming to a close and that we’re going to enter lean times again?
I hope I’m wrong of course. But I’m just calling it like I feel it. Many bands in metal are doing very, very well these days. Soundscan last week showed some very impressive numbers for a lot of heavy hitters. We’ve been on two tours for this cycle that have done very well. I’ve been to some huge shows. I don’t think that things are going to fall apart any time soon. I just get this sense that people are starting to care less. Am I alone here?
-EL
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