Best era for metal ARGUMENT THREAD

[SentinelSlain]

That's gay.

 

[Sven Pakkanen]

Mid-nineties. When all of the other genres of the world were complete shit. The second wave of Black Metal wins this for me, but there was a lot of other great stuff too. From 1993-2000, when the second wave had been out for a bit and started making quality stuff, and when blackened death metal was still good (Sacramentum, Dawn, etc. I consider that blackened death metal. Or deathened black metal or something).

 

[fps]

2 things. Metal has been played out in a lot of the most popular areas so currently you have retreads or you have things that are much more out there than normal mainstream listeners can grasp. This means that the "best" era to be a FAN of metal is probably over.
Secondly, I think metal fans are letting bands down. Lazy, a lot of them here in Britain, only get off their bums for the very biggest names, and the new generation likes CRAP like bullet and horizon. Desperate stuff.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Wtf...

He was making fun of your stupid point, ldo.

 

[Kara-Shehr]

You're lying.

Nope.

 

[HolyJari]

90's were great, bands like Amorphis, Death, Electric Wizard, Thergothon, Burzum, Mayhem, etc. Its when genres like Death, Doom and Black really formed.

 

[no country for old wainds]

93-2000. Metal stopped being so limited by genres.

the opposite is true imo. i know there were more bands who consciously tried to span different genres often including non-metal genres, but that's because this is when the genre blueprints started casting such a suffocating shadow and metal started churning out genre pieces by the bucketload - these genre-spanning bands started popping up precisely because an obvious problem had arisen that needed solving. plus i find that most of these bands failed because whilst they were taking influences from a variety of places, they didn't really build upon them, or integrate them into anything coherent.

as for cyth: i know where you're coming from, and it's pretty obvious that the peaks of early '90s death and especially black represent metal's most advanced, creative, original etc state. but i think writing off the '80s is somewhat unfair, as some of the steps made during the period were almost as huge, just at a more primitive stage in the genre's progression. those jumps are really all you can judge an era by. i mean, generic burzum worship from 2008 is further from rock 'n roll aesthetics than the spectre within or morbid tales, and i'm sure you wouldn't say that means it's better? you can put the creativity of any movement in metal down to a few key bands, usually between 5-10, with the rest just tweaking formulae established by those bands and often being glorified far beyond their actual achievements. it could be argued that because there are so few bands who really push the envelope, talking about metal in terms of 'eras' is somewhat misleading in the first place.

 

[The Butt]

The 90s as a whole, I feel were metal's best years. I like thrash and late-80s death metal as much as the next guy, but it just doesn't come close to a classic 2nd Wave black metal album for me.

84-93 gets my vote. 1984 was when metal really took off all over the place instead of just among the biggest names and I appreciate the evolution of every style of metal up until the early/mid 90's. By the point of second-wave black metal, all sorts of sacrilegious influences became present in metal to the point that you needed dark ambient or gothic or other such false elements to be edgy and experimental. Up to 1993 there was experimentation that could still be reasonably incorporated into the riff-centric metal framework necessary for all that is good (see: Focus, Dimensions, Elements, Screams & Whispers...) but Scandinavia went and fucked it all up.

Stop posting.

Because it doesn't sacrifice headbangability. Most of that album is still quite riffy and concise, which shouldn't be surprising considering the songs in their fully tech-death form two years earlier. Something like Filosofem is much further removed.

So basically, you're a dunce that expects all metal to be headbangable and LETS SMASH BEER CANS ON OUR FOREHEADS BRO AND FUCKING WRECK A KID YEEEEEEEAAAAAAH SLAAAAYYAYYYYYYYYYERRRRRRRRRR

 

[Satanstoenail]

Stop being a dick. Not everyone is a 2nd wave BM fanboi.

 

[The Butt]

I'm not expecting him to be a 2nd wave BM fanboi. I'm just expecting him to not be a 'tard about BM all the time.

It's fine if he doesn't like it, but all this "false" bullshit, clinging to the idiotic notion that all metal must fit into a "riffcentric framework" or other such filth, is just retarded.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I probably shouldn't have used the term 'headbangability' (my favorite progressive metal albums certainly aren't full of that, and honestly neither are some of my favorite thrash albums) but my point is that at about 1993 and prior, things still placed metal first. And it's not just second wave black metal (some of which I can tolerate and even enjoy on occasion). To bring Focus up again, just compare it with something like Aghora or Exivious. They may be more technically demonstrative, evolved, and whatever else, but it's like the metal elements are just there to put a new angle on their jazz-fusion, not the other way around. Of course, the alternative isn't necessarily better (see a thousand shitty blackened flower bands incorporate "folk influences" and call it innovation) but I think that there is too much push for progress where it does not need to be made.

 

[Manic Ferocity]

Most 80s metal was still pretty firmly rooted in rock & roll aesthetics and techniques (there were a number of notable exceptions.) If it weren't for early to mid 90s black and death metal, we would probably be sporting cheeseball mullets and waxing nostalgic about glorified hardrock and crappy thrash. In fact, plenty of people do that, and they suck.

As opposed to corpse paint? Metal has always had a cheese factor to it regardless of what decade it is. As much as I love the 90s, I'm going to have to go with the 80s (especially the late 80s) because it is clearly metal's greatest evolution and, quite frankly, contains most of my favorite bands.

I mean come on. Metal doesn't get much better than Slayer, Mercyful Fate, Destruction, Jag Panzer, Fates Warning, Celtic Frost/Hellhammer, Bathory, Sarcofago, Kreator, Manilla Road, Seupultura, Morbid Angel, Vio-Lence, Possessed, Holy Terror, Pentagram, Candlemass, Trouble, Saint Vitus, etc.