This is a thread from over at PM:X (squared):
Pirage:
Well I had to register at metal archives to find this out but there are some interesting results.
Total number of albums registered for a 2007 release at MA is 3596. I had a list below which contained 1300 or so. That was only a third of listed releases hehe.
The word 'death' appears 1101 times in genre style
The word 'black' appears 1053 times in genre style
The word 'power' appears a paltry 283 times in genre style.
However the word 'heavy' did appear 449 times and 'traditional' 55 times.
Doom followers - that word appears 299 times. Meaning 8.3% of all releases have some aspect of doom
The modern and popular term 'gothic' appeared 178 times all in all.
the word 'core' appears 297 times.
the word 'melodic' appears 396 times. So the vast majority of metal is a bunch of fucking noise haha!
for the benefit of the prog fans:
The word 'progressive' appears 602 times in genre style. Quite a lot of "prog" influenced releases out there. How many of them are actually prog is open for debate of course.
interestingly enough the word 'metal' appears 3334 times which is less than the total albums by 200 or so. So there are some albums listed in the full list which are not even metal.
conclusion - Big majority of metal released involves vocals that one cannot understand. Probably 60%-70% or so i would guess.
800 albums have been released in the US accounting for 22% of all releases. The highest portion on any country. Of the 800, 267 were in the death metal or related fields. 52 in power metal and related field. and 165 contained the word 'black' in the genre style.
Other country notables:
The UK is responsible for 116 releases in the metal field. 29 were in the death metal field. Only 5 contained the word 'power' in genre style. 26 contained 'black'
Germany is responsible for 393 metal releases. Fairly surprisingly for me only 41 of these contained the word 'power' in genre style. The word 'death' appears 109 times. 'black' appears 119 times.
Sweden had 184 releases of which 110 were either death or black.
This leads me to believe that black metal is the most popular genre of metal in most places who like metal or have a large fan base for metal.
Finland was responsible for 158 albums released. Of which only 10 contained the word gothic surprisingly enough. 33- Black. 49 - Death. Power - 20.
Norway the original home of black metal released 86 albums of which 42 were black related. 16 death.
miscellaneous facts:
Only 19 albums titles feature the word 'metal' in the title.
9 album titles contain the word 'fuck'
Nuclear Blast released 27 albums
Century media released 19 times
SPV - 15 albums
Neil
This is awesome. I was just going to do the same thing yesterday, but I couldn't find an obvious link that would allow me to search by release year, so I quickly gave up. I guess that's what you have to register for.
I figured it would be a pretty reliable data set, because those m-a people are rather stringent about what qualifies as "metal"...which might explain the relative lack of "-core" stuff.
Since I've been using these numbers to try to help people realize that the existence and availability of metal is in no way threatened by illegal downloading, I'd also be curious to see the total release numbers from previous years. What does the trend look like? Are the numbers still increasing, or were there 5000 releases in 2004?
Pirage
Yes let's see how it tallies with last year.
Total releases in '06: 4071. (btw I should clarify this is full length albums not ep or MCD)
death = 1207
black = 1043
power = 355
progressive = 342
doom = 353
gothic = 210
melodic = 449
core = 272
So this year is about 500 releases below last year so far with some time to go yet. Although MA does list known 2007 releases even if they are not actually out yet. So I'm not certain how many more will be added. Maybe a couple of hundred more. So the final total is likely to be below last year's but not by too much. So much for downloading killing music. (Please try and not respond to this, I don't want a battle!)
USA relased 889 albums in 2006. More or less on course this year too at 800.
UK-130. '07 stands at 116
Germany-445. '07 at 393
Sweden-167. - so the Swedes have already beaten last year's score at 184
Finland-156. '07 stands at 158.
To continue the theme 31 albums had the word metal in the title and 12 had the word fuck and just for your information here they are!
1.Anesthesia (US) Unfuckwithable
2.Barbatos - Let's fucking die!
3.Bughole - Fucked Up
4.Carpathian Forest - Fuck You All!!!!
5.Hymen of Darkness - Unholy Total Hate... Fuck You All
6.King Travolta - Kill Fuck Metal
7.Malveillance - Just Fuck Off
8.Psychopathic Terror - Fucker
9.Redrum (Rus) - satis[fuck]tion (my personal fav one!)
10.Stoner Kings - Fuck The World
11.Unburied (US) - Pure Fucking Brutality
12.Untamed (Fra) - Fuck The Fucking Fuckers
labels:
Nuclear Blast = 21. 27 this year.
Century Media = 26. 19 this year
SPV = 11. 15 this year.
Metalblade 21. 31 already this year. Big increase.
Inside Out = 1. 6 this year. Only 1 release the whole of last year for IO! At least they made it to 6 this year.
Massacre - 27. 24 this year so not much change there.
right and below the total albums released in each year going back to the earliest year.
2005-3872
2004-3549
2003-3042
2002-2681
2001-2258
2000-1939
1999-1820
1998-1514
1997-1338
1996-1235
1995-1087
1994-901
1993-766
1992-656
1991-566
1990-530
1989-515
1988-482
1987-393
1986-416
1985-360
1984-286
1983-180
1982-127
1981-86
1980-71
1979-28
1978-20
1977-14
1976-14
1975-9
1974-10
1973-7
1972-10
1971-6
1970-8
1969-2
1968-2
and thats it! Let the debates begin. It does look like that 07 will buck the trend of gradually increasing releases each year though. I doubt we'll break the 4000 barrier this year unlike last year unless there's a mammoth bunch of releases in the next month or so.
I can come to two basic conclusions here though. Firstly metal and rock is far more popular now that it has ever been. Secondly the cost of making an album and releasing it is not actually THAT much!
Neil
Yeah, that curve almost looks exponential. Though there is clearly a slowdown in 2006 after five years of record growth in the first half of the decade.
I didn't include the 2007 number yet; I wonder how much of a "delay" effect there is, meaning albums that have been released in 2007, but just haven't made it into the database yet, because the one person who knows about it lives in a shack Ulgutomagaria and isn't a metal-archives member. I know metal-archives is pretty unbelievably complete, but I'm sure 2007 releases will continue to trickle in well into 2008. I guess it might be worthwhile to recheck the 2000 and 2006 number in a couple months to get an idea of that trickle-rate, and how it varies for recent years vs. more distant years.
It's interesting that even in the "dead" years of for metal (the mid- to late- 90s), the rate of releases was still shooting up pretty well. There was only one "down" year (1987), and it came in the midst of a relatively flat period (1986-1991).
Pirage:
Well I had to register at metal archives to find this out but there are some interesting results.
Total number of albums registered for a 2007 release at MA is 3596. I had a list below which contained 1300 or so. That was only a third of listed releases hehe.
The word 'death' appears 1101 times in genre style
The word 'black' appears 1053 times in genre style
The word 'power' appears a paltry 283 times in genre style.
However the word 'heavy' did appear 449 times and 'traditional' 55 times.
Doom followers - that word appears 299 times. Meaning 8.3% of all releases have some aspect of doom
The modern and popular term 'gothic' appeared 178 times all in all.
the word 'core' appears 297 times.
the word 'melodic' appears 396 times. So the vast majority of metal is a bunch of fucking noise haha!
for the benefit of the prog fans:
The word 'progressive' appears 602 times in genre style. Quite a lot of "prog" influenced releases out there. How many of them are actually prog is open for debate of course.
interestingly enough the word 'metal' appears 3334 times which is less than the total albums by 200 or so. So there are some albums listed in the full list which are not even metal.
conclusion - Big majority of metal released involves vocals that one cannot understand. Probably 60%-70% or so i would guess.
800 albums have been released in the US accounting for 22% of all releases. The highest portion on any country. Of the 800, 267 were in the death metal or related fields. 52 in power metal and related field. and 165 contained the word 'black' in the genre style.
Other country notables:
The UK is responsible for 116 releases in the metal field. 29 were in the death metal field. Only 5 contained the word 'power' in genre style. 26 contained 'black'
Germany is responsible for 393 metal releases. Fairly surprisingly for me only 41 of these contained the word 'power' in genre style. The word 'death' appears 109 times. 'black' appears 119 times.
Sweden had 184 releases of which 110 were either death or black.
This leads me to believe that black metal is the most popular genre of metal in most places who like metal or have a large fan base for metal.
Finland was responsible for 158 albums released. Of which only 10 contained the word gothic surprisingly enough. 33- Black. 49 - Death. Power - 20.
Norway the original home of black metal released 86 albums of which 42 were black related. 16 death.
miscellaneous facts:
Only 19 albums titles feature the word 'metal' in the title.
9 album titles contain the word 'fuck'
Nuclear Blast released 27 albums
Century media released 19 times
SPV - 15 albums
Neil
This is awesome. I was just going to do the same thing yesterday, but I couldn't find an obvious link that would allow me to search by release year, so I quickly gave up. I guess that's what you have to register for.
I figured it would be a pretty reliable data set, because those m-a people are rather stringent about what qualifies as "metal"...which might explain the relative lack of "-core" stuff.
Total number of albums registered for a 2007 release at MA is 3596.
Wow. So 10 releases per day, every day. There could be a "New Metal" radio station that would play each new release as it came out, and it would have to be on like eight hours per day just to keep up. If you wanted to "sample" every metal album by listening to it once, you would be hard-pressed to do it, even if it was your full-time job. Also, you would probably blow your brains out after the first week.Only 19 albums titles feature the word 'metal' in the title.
9 album titles contain the word 'fuck'
ha.9 album titles contain the word 'fuck'
Nuclear Blast released 27 albums
Century media released 19 times
SPV - 15 albums
That's an interesting one. I wonder what label had the most releases? And also, what percentage of these releases were "Independent" or "Unsigned"?Century media released 19 times
SPV - 15 albums
Since I've been using these numbers to try to help people realize that the existence and availability of metal is in no way threatened by illegal downloading, I'd also be curious to see the total release numbers from previous years. What does the trend look like? Are the numbers still increasing, or were there 5000 releases in 2004?
Pirage
Yes let's see how it tallies with last year.
Total releases in '06: 4071. (btw I should clarify this is full length albums not ep or MCD)
death = 1207
black = 1043
power = 355
progressive = 342
doom = 353
gothic = 210
melodic = 449
core = 272
So this year is about 500 releases below last year so far with some time to go yet. Although MA does list known 2007 releases even if they are not actually out yet. So I'm not certain how many more will be added. Maybe a couple of hundred more. So the final total is likely to be below last year's but not by too much. So much for downloading killing music. (Please try and not respond to this, I don't want a battle!)
USA relased 889 albums in 2006. More or less on course this year too at 800.
UK-130. '07 stands at 116
Germany-445. '07 at 393
Sweden-167. - so the Swedes have already beaten last year's score at 184
Finland-156. '07 stands at 158.
To continue the theme 31 albums had the word metal in the title and 12 had the word fuck and just for your information here they are!
1.Anesthesia (US) Unfuckwithable
2.Barbatos - Let's fucking die!
3.Bughole - Fucked Up
4.Carpathian Forest - Fuck You All!!!!
5.Hymen of Darkness - Unholy Total Hate... Fuck You All
6.King Travolta - Kill Fuck Metal
7.Malveillance - Just Fuck Off
8.Psychopathic Terror - Fucker
9.Redrum (Rus) - satis[fuck]tion (my personal fav one!)
10.Stoner Kings - Fuck The World
11.Unburied (US) - Pure Fucking Brutality
12.Untamed (Fra) - Fuck The Fucking Fuckers
labels:
Nuclear Blast = 21. 27 this year.
Century Media = 26. 19 this year
SPV = 11. 15 this year.
Metalblade 21. 31 already this year. Big increase.
Inside Out = 1. 6 this year. Only 1 release the whole of last year for IO! At least they made it to 6 this year.
Massacre - 27. 24 this year so not much change there.
right and below the total albums released in each year going back to the earliest year.
2005-3872
2004-3549
2003-3042
2002-2681
2001-2258
2000-1939
1999-1820
1998-1514
1997-1338
1996-1235
1995-1087
1994-901
1993-766
1992-656
1991-566
1990-530
1989-515
1988-482
1987-393
1986-416
1985-360
1984-286
1983-180
1982-127
1981-86
1980-71
1979-28
1978-20
1977-14
1976-14
1975-9
1974-10
1973-7
1972-10
1971-6
1970-8
1969-2
1968-2
and thats it! Let the debates begin. It does look like that 07 will buck the trend of gradually increasing releases each year though. I doubt we'll break the 4000 barrier this year unlike last year unless there's a mammoth bunch of releases in the next month or so.
I can come to two basic conclusions here though. Firstly metal and rock is far more popular now that it has ever been. Secondly the cost of making an album and releasing it is not actually THAT much!
Neil
Yeah, that curve almost looks exponential. Though there is clearly a slowdown in 2006 after five years of record growth in the first half of the decade.
I didn't include the 2007 number yet; I wonder how much of a "delay" effect there is, meaning albums that have been released in 2007, but just haven't made it into the database yet, because the one person who knows about it lives in a shack Ulgutomagaria and isn't a metal-archives member. I know metal-archives is pretty unbelievably complete, but I'm sure 2007 releases will continue to trickle in well into 2008. I guess it might be worthwhile to recheck the 2000 and 2006 number in a couple months to get an idea of that trickle-rate, and how it varies for recent years vs. more distant years.
It's interesting that even in the "dead" years of for metal (the mid- to late- 90s), the rate of releases was still shooting up pretty well. There was only one "down" year (1987), and it came in the midst of a relatively flat period (1986-1991).
