This internet thing and consumer level recording has been really good for metal...
...but I think the music industry as a whole is going to change, radically...
Most of the big-wigs (in terms of where they're throwing their money and such) seem to know this.
We still haven't seen the full effects of mp3.
We still haven't seen the full effects of consumer level recording. (When you can build a studio in your home for the same it would cost to record at a 'pro' studio and, if you take the time and have some know how, can get the same sort of sound... You know the shit is going to hit the fan... This, for consumers, just means more music available... And what better way to deliver it than mp3, something that costs next to nothing to produce, oppossed to CDs or tapes or vinyl....)
The costs of production are dropping drastically, music is more readily available... Massive marketing tools such as radio and television are losing a lot of the hold they once had... Marketing is become more extreme and "current" to try to hold people's attention... (In the music industry and as a whole...)
Metal is the genre that has the most to gain from all of this because it is the genre that has remained underground for the last 10 years or so... It is the genre that depended on tape trading (now mp3 trading) and word of mouth. It is the genre that appeals to the so called "misfits" because of the extremity and "metal attitude" (whatever that is suppossed to mean... but I digress...)
Yeah, metal is coming back, I think. That is the way the world seems to work... There are cycles. Especially in the music industry.
I think emo and the metalcore bands who are very obsessed with image is the current day's equivalent of the 80ies glam rock bands... (I am not saying ALL metalcore here... But there are some definate examples of bands in this genre who follow a formula in both music and image, and that screams of "Music Business Degree" to me.)
But, in the end, only time will tell. It will be interesting to see how the industry changes with the new technologies... Certainly the industry big-wigs would rather have something 'underground' like metal to hit it big at the same time that all this new technology comes out, until they can find a way to dump money into something to make it a sure-fire hit. (With metal, it would appear to be more of a merit based thing rather than "Who has the most funding and exposure!" sort of thing... Of course, the funding and exposure just tip the odds in your favour... but, it would seem in the metal genre the only way to get the funds is to slowly climb your way up the proverbial mountain of success... Wheras with pop and rock, often what the industry is selling is NOT the music, but the IMAGE CONVEYED WITH THE MUSIC. Thus, it is all about finding an image that can sell and then pumping cash into it.)
It's going to be an interesting 10 years or so... I think metal is going to be around for a long, long time... Simply because there are so many sub-genres and people pushing boundaries in so many different directions that there is pretty much a metal band for everyone...
Then you have the fact of the sordid histories of the Norwegian black metal scene and how that got the underground public eye onto music more extreme than most anything made before it and yet, some of it brilliantly composed (Emperor and Immortal anyone?)... I think this was another huge step towards metal suddenly being part of this "mainstream" thing we all talk about.
...I do know that the shows nowadays are WAAAAAY more packed than they were even 4 or 5 years ago. And there are a LOT of young kids coming out to shows.
I'm not really scared about metal becoming mainstream. I don't think about metal as some sort of elite clique I belong to, but rather just music I enjoy...
So if more people like it, it just means more money goes into the stuff I like, and makes it easier for me to access and cheaper. (Well... The CDs and shirts would be cheaper, but concerts have DEFINATELY risen in price a lot in the last few years... Hell, 5 years ago I saw In Flames for $12, and now it would cost almost triple that!)
.......
I'm rambling again.
Oops.