The state of news coverage in the heavy metal media is a joke. Most "news" consists of regurgitating press releases, or "exclusively" releasing "news" which could have been a general press release. Announcements of album titles, tracklists, things of that sort are not news. A musician making negative comments about another musician is not news. It is publicity and advertising at best, gossip at worst.
Any real news which gets out is carefully worded and controlled. Remember when the Philadelphia office of Nuclear Blast closed down and then the US office of Century Media announced they were going to run the US office of Nuclear Blast? That is probably the biggest real news in American heavy metal for the past ten years. What happened there? We did not get any news concerning the situation, we got press releases.
Do we ever learn true figures about record sales? Concert attendance? Salaries of record company executives or overall revenue of record companies? No, we don't. That's all proprietary information. Nobody else's business.
That makes Metal Sludge the closest thing to actual journalism in heavy metal. Isn't that just fucking great.
But the truth is that real industry news is the business of anyone affected by it. Including fans. Think about how the Napster/MP3/file-sharing issue has had an effect on the music industry. Sure, we've heard all sorts of numbers of the music industry as a whole. But how much of the heavy metal scene, with its distribution through mail-order and specialty shops, is included in that? What is going on in the world of heavy metal? All we have to go on are anecdotes. Arguments made on opinion. No facts, no figures.
Think about the issue of royalties and the musician's share of income from the money generated by their own efforts. Income has been a leading factor in band breakups, individual musicians quitting a band, and musicians changing their style. Don't you think investigations of record companies and record company executive income versus that of the musicians that their businesses are built on is of general concern?
This information (and it just scratches the surface of important issues that would be real news) directly impacts the music that is available to fans. The revealing of this information would be news. Yet fans are kept completely in the dark about important issues and are happy to discuss the decision of a band firing some bass player that neither wrote any music nor could ever be heard in the mix.
Any negative news items concerning heavy metal are regurgitation of news items from non heavy metal media sources. One almost never sees this "news" put into any sort of context by the heavy metal media, never sees any additional investigation or follow-up by those just reprinting news other people released. Scandal is something often hidden by the heavy metal media (for the good of the cause, of course). One would wonder how the reaction would be if a heavy metal writer unearthed an honest-to-goodness scandal with enough ramification that a major heavy metal record company or distribution company crumbled. I'd predict a loss of credibility and constant physical threats, not from any record company employee or musician who lost their job/record deal, but from fans angry that their access to music has been made difficult.
This sort of secrecy is not uncommon amongst business entities existing within fringe subcultures. The movers and shakers encourage ignorance and the fan base goes right along with it. Those who aren't satisfied with the current state of things, who want to know more, or who want change based on what they do know, are labeled as troublemakers. The fans who think the way things are should be the way things remain will cause problems for the dissenters. Heavy metal fans do not want investigation. They do not want the truth. None of it is important as long as they get the noise they want into their ears. But remember: Dissent is always heavy metal.
Judging how the world of heavy metal news holds up to the standards of heavy metal ideology is impossible, because there is no such thing as heavy metal news reporting. Hundreds of magazines and websites report the news yet there is not one news reporter working for any of them. We are all much poorer for it.
Any real news which gets out is carefully worded and controlled. Remember when the Philadelphia office of Nuclear Blast closed down and then the US office of Century Media announced they were going to run the US office of Nuclear Blast? That is probably the biggest real news in American heavy metal for the past ten years. What happened there? We did not get any news concerning the situation, we got press releases.
Do we ever learn true figures about record sales? Concert attendance? Salaries of record company executives or overall revenue of record companies? No, we don't. That's all proprietary information. Nobody else's business.
That makes Metal Sludge the closest thing to actual journalism in heavy metal. Isn't that just fucking great.
But the truth is that real industry news is the business of anyone affected by it. Including fans. Think about how the Napster/MP3/file-sharing issue has had an effect on the music industry. Sure, we've heard all sorts of numbers of the music industry as a whole. But how much of the heavy metal scene, with its distribution through mail-order and specialty shops, is included in that? What is going on in the world of heavy metal? All we have to go on are anecdotes. Arguments made on opinion. No facts, no figures.
Think about the issue of royalties and the musician's share of income from the money generated by their own efforts. Income has been a leading factor in band breakups, individual musicians quitting a band, and musicians changing their style. Don't you think investigations of record companies and record company executive income versus that of the musicians that their businesses are built on is of general concern?
This information (and it just scratches the surface of important issues that would be real news) directly impacts the music that is available to fans. The revealing of this information would be news. Yet fans are kept completely in the dark about important issues and are happy to discuss the decision of a band firing some bass player that neither wrote any music nor could ever be heard in the mix.
Any negative news items concerning heavy metal are regurgitation of news items from non heavy metal media sources. One almost never sees this "news" put into any sort of context by the heavy metal media, never sees any additional investigation or follow-up by those just reprinting news other people released. Scandal is something often hidden by the heavy metal media (for the good of the cause, of course). One would wonder how the reaction would be if a heavy metal writer unearthed an honest-to-goodness scandal with enough ramification that a major heavy metal record company or distribution company crumbled. I'd predict a loss of credibility and constant physical threats, not from any record company employee or musician who lost their job/record deal, but from fans angry that their access to music has been made difficult.
This sort of secrecy is not uncommon amongst business entities existing within fringe subcultures. The movers and shakers encourage ignorance and the fan base goes right along with it. Those who aren't satisfied with the current state of things, who want to know more, or who want change based on what they do know, are labeled as troublemakers. The fans who think the way things are should be the way things remain will cause problems for the dissenters. Heavy metal fans do not want investigation. They do not want the truth. None of it is important as long as they get the noise they want into their ears. But remember: Dissent is always heavy metal.
Judging how the world of heavy metal news holds up to the standards of heavy metal ideology is impossible, because there is no such thing as heavy metal news reporting. Hundreds of magazines and websites report the news yet there is not one news reporter working for any of them. We are all much poorer for it.
