Top 10 Metal Albums of 2016

[HamburgerBoy]

Music is inherently trendy, it's a social artform. If funk isn't just nostalgia, where's the hordes of Funkadelic clones? If Baroque-period classical isn't just nostalgia, where are my Bach clones?

 

[CiG]

Funk and baroque music still exists, but unlike nu-metal which came and went in the blink of an eye, they have had a slow drop in popularity until they became uncommon styles of music to play in contemporary times. You can check on Discogs and see that since 2000 to now more releases exist under the 'baroque' and 'funk' genre tags than under 'nu-metal' which indicates that nu-metal completely lost steam at a certain point whereas genres much older but no less uncommon or obscure outlived it.

I believe you when you say you don't favour some Korn due to nostalgia, but if this isn't a major factor in most people's choice to listen to them now, I think it's fair to question the strange lack of new nu-metal bands considering the genre was only really created in the early 90's. What other forms of metal that were popularized in the 1990's now barely exist (but are still extremely popular among many people)?

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Nu metal still exists as well. Per Discogs, when adjusting for the 10s being incomplete, there should be about 3400 nu metal releases at the end of the decade, compared to 9500 during nu metal's heyday in the 00s. In contrast, there should be 3100 baroque releases at the end of the year (and the majority are simply new performances of classic baroque composers). While funk may claim 20000 by the end of the decade, if you click around on Discogs, you'll see that many are either reissues of 70s funk releases, or genre-mashups tagged 'Electronic / Funk / House' or 'Prog Rock / Funk / Indie Pop / Ambient / Industrial' or shit like that.

RYM is a better source for this kind of thing and you'll find instead a 3-fold difference between funk and nu metal in the former's favor. While you might try arguing that a mere 3-fold difference is the difference between a living and dead genre (which would be pretty absurd; by that logic you could say doom metal never was popular because death and black metal always eclipsed it), there is also a massive difference between what people on the internet listen to and what people in real life listen to. Nu metal and its progeny in alt rock, mallcore, etc still get radioplay from the normies. While I love my local black station, funk that didn't cross over to mainstream white audiences appeals largely to older black Americans, as evidenced by listening to the callers, listening to the commercials, etc. Modern-day Afro-beat LPs might make their rounds about Pitchfork and blogs but that doesn't represent a thriving musical genre, particularly within a Western context which I assume you're operating under for the purposes of this discussion.

EDIT: Another obvious demonstration of Discogs' lack of use for this argument

 

[CiG]

I don't actually think doom metal was ever popular, the big difference here is that nu-metal was massively popular and now it's basically dead as an actively performed genre, yet the heyday albums probably still make a lot of money for whoever owns the rights to them.

Essentially, we have a once-massively popular genre of music that was born and died in basically the span of a decade yet the albums and bands are still popular and revered by people who seem simultaneously unwilling to keep the genre alive with their own bands.

It's a strange situation that seems to me to be summed up by a huge nostalgia factor. Is that so wrong an assumption?

 

[Slayed Necros]

Goatbrew Alcosodomydozer

Not bad.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I don't actually think doom metal was ever popular, the big difference here is that nu-metal was massively popular and now it's basically dead as an actively performed genre, yet the heyday albums probably still make a lot of money for whoever owns the rights to them.

Essentially, we have a once-massively popular genre of music that was born and died in basically the span of a decade yet the albums and bands are still popular and revered by people who seem simultaneously unwilling to keep the genre alive with their own bands.

It's a strange situation that seems to me to be summed up by a huge nostalgia factor. Is that so wrong an assumption?

I don't deny that there is a nostalgia factor, I'm just saying it's more broadly applicable than you're treating it as and that there's an observer-bias effect when we're discussing it on a forum heavily slanted towards old-school metal and retro acts.

 

[CiG]

That's fair enough. As I said, my bias is based on real life experiences with Korn fans. Not guilt-ridden secret fans either.

I actually have an ongoing clash with a good friend of mine over nostalgia in general, he highly prioritizes it and I tend to be very anti-nostalgia by comparison.

 

[Bloopy]

The message about a steep decline in nu metal popularity hasn't reached here yet. The bands might shy away from the nu metal tag, but they're still playing the same kind of shit and seemingly getting just as many fans as they would've 15 years ago. Rap/rock hasn't gone away either.

 

[no country for old wainds]

i like korn and not for nostalgic reasons, i just find them too samey from song to song is all.

 

[Onder]

Korn reminds me of their fanbase. I remember 10 years ago, met some retards in a pub. My friend started hanging out with them and those guys were totally dumb, wearing their Korn caps and hoodies, everything KoRn.

 

[CiG]

The earliest memory I have of Korn was on that South Park episode they featured in, so if my nostalgia related to Korn is anything it's actually positive.

 

[Serjeant Grumbles]

There was once a time when I liked Korn enough to write my name as "KonЯad," which is just so hilariously cringeworthy in retrospect. However, I only ever bought one album, because I hardly bought any CD's in my neophyte, nu metal days.

 

[Vegard Pompey]

I assume you've started doing the sensible thing and now write your name as "KonRad".

 

[Serjeant Grumbles]

No, but I have written my name in an angular 80's metal band font. Of course, my name is actually spelled with a 'C', so I can make it look sort of symmetrical, like "ConraD".

 

[Omni]

As far as I can tell, my top 2016 album was never even mentioned in this topic.



Legacies Unchain - Satan Is Strong and Always Near

My other favorites from 2016 in no order:

Panphage - Drengskapr
Blood Incantation - Starspawn
Angel Sword - Rebels Beyond the Pale
Eternal Champion - The Armor of Ire
Inquisition - Bloodshed Across the Empyrean Altar Beyond the Celestial Zenith
Mortem - Deinós Nekrómantis
Demon Bitch - Hellfriends
Lethal Steel - Legions of the Night

Honorable mentions would be stuff like Seven Sisters, Horns & Hooves (which I have only streamed once on Bandcamp and don't own), Deströyer 666, Wytch Hazel and Dead Congregation.

I liked the Tarot album more near the beginning of 2016, but it fell off for me right away compared to The Warrior's Spell. The Sumerlands album was the most overrated thing from last year.

 

[Omni]

There was once a time when I liked Korn enough to write my name as "KonЯad," which is just so hilariously cringeworthy in retrospect. However, I only ever bought one album, because I hardly bought any CD's in my neophyte, nu metal days.

Please ask @MetalAges to change your name to KonЯad. It would only be fair.

 

[CiG]

I liked the Tarot album more near the beginning of 2016, but it fell off for me right away compared to The Warrior's Spell.

For me it has been the opposite, simply because I was already very familiar with the material on The Warrior's Spell compilation in the form of owning the individual cassette EPs whereas Reflections has grown on me quite nicely. I just didn't include any Tarot because I'm not so convinced anymore that it is metal enough to belong.

 

[Krow]

1. Eternal Champion - The Armor of Ire
2. Ghoul - Dungeon Bastards
3. Darkthrone - Arctic Thunder
4. Tarot - Reflections
5. Sumerlands - s/t
6. High Spirits - Motivator
7. Destroyer 666 - Wildfire
8. Lord Vicar - The Gates of Flesh
9. Crowbar - The Serpent Only Lies
10. Tygers of Pan Tang - s/t

I feel like I missed a black metal somewhere but I'll need to look through my shit later.

For me, Sumerlands, High Spirits, Crowbar, and Tygers have all fallen off a lot.

Panphage would be on my list now and Wildfire would probably be #2 actually.

 

[Master_Yoda77]

Definitely that Sumerlands album, but fuck that High Spirits is still the best thing they've ever done.

 

[no country for old wainds]

both are boring tho