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The
State of Metal Today |
Heavy Metal, that beast that continually refuses to die, is more alive
at the start of the new century than ever before. Today, Metal is a fragmented
hydra-headed beast living it up mainly in the underground, a world-wide
underground that is most strongly connected via the internet.
Fragmentation
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Heavy Metal began to fragment in the early 1980s. In the past dozen years
many new styles, often called subgenres, have emerged. Among them are
- Thrash Metal
- Doom Metal
- Power Metal
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Death Metal
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Progressive
Metal
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Black Metal
Globalization
Metal began in that small island which once headed the British Empire.
But today the sun never sets on the empire of Metal. Metal scenes abound
in far-flung places such as Turkey, Columbia, Greece, Taiwan, Namibia, Saudi Arabia, and, among so many others :
Wherever there are bands there are fans, or is that vice versa? Metal fans
are as globally ubiquitous as cockroaches, and a hell of a lot hardier.
For example, one band has scores of fan-made
websites in over 30 countries, from Argentina to Japan
Proliferation
Once upon a time, obsessive metalheads (a redundant phrase if ever there
was one) could name almost all of the Metal bands, their albums, and genre-based
magazines. Today that isn't remotely possible because of the vast proliferation
of
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bands (including innumerable "side-projects")
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new recordings
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concerts
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record labels
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'zines
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internet sites
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net-based discussion groups
Via the internet you can also learn about Metal's enemies, past and future.
Read the transcript of the 1985 Senate hearings that Mrs. Al Gore put together.
PMRC
Hearings
Underground focus
Metal's vitality is not something that the mass media You won't hear much if anything
on radio, unless it's a college station. And unless it is an older glam-metal
band whose members have died or were into drugs big time, televsion avoids
the genre as much as the major rock mags. But the genre lives most vividly
at shows and festivals.
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