Metal Reviews

I personally don't blame Maniacs shutdown on the kids. It was us the adults, who shunned their subscriptions. While I never said here that I am AGAINST the internet news, but I don't get it while so many of you guys can even think that for a printed metal outlet to go out of business is a good thing. For me, ANY metal outlet going out of business is a bad thing. Once some of the labels fold over, I never think "they deserved it since their last two releases sucked".

i started exploring music via the internet so i never really got into reading magazines. i've looked through a few and the writing is usually of better quality, but it's even harder to find parts where they're writing about music i care about. i like the concept of blogs because they're focused around stuff the writer likes, and they can write whatever the hell they want about the music. and since it's all one writer i can get a sense of where they're coming from taste-wise pretty quickly.

This pretty much sums it up for me too. There's only three bands I've gotten into via learning about them from magazines: Johnny Truant, The Fall Of Troy (both from Metal Hammer cover discs) and Flagitious Idiosyncrasy In The Dilapidation (mention in Terrorizor). Other than that, the hundreds of other bands I've discovered have been via the internet.

Ah, man, the last time I made that suggestion here I was practically tarred and feathered. Got called a 'dictator' and all! Apparently hinting that donations to support a webzine are more than welcome makes one on an equal footing with Hitler.

And as for the main topic, I'm in two minds. Digital distribution of promotional material is much more welcome to me than getting CDs in the post, since my house is overflowing with the damn things anyway. The other day a Black Metal label sent me their entire back catalogue to review, 10-12 CDs, with the booklets seperate from the CDs, so not only do I have to match up each barely distinct style of pentagram, I have to decipher the unreadable track titles in that awful kvlt Germanic font everyone uses. Compare this to the simple joy of clicking a button on the special sites of wonderful labels such as Season Of Mist, Candlelight and Prophecy, and having the MP3s downloaded.

Yet back when I was getting into Metal at first, it was the magazines like Metal Hammer (at first) and Terrorizer which helped me discover new bands. Fine, Metal Reviews was a colossal help as well, but sometimes there's just too much information on the internet - sites like Metal Archives are definately not geared towards beginner Metalheads, and by following their advice at first I've missed out on lots of great Metal that I'm still catching up with. I'm proud to have a suscription to Terrorizer, for nearly three years now, and I'm proud to support underground badly-spelt fanzines (often with hilariously batshit political leanings) that I send off £5 for now and then. It's all part of the scene; ultimately though, I do think that much of the post-00s explosion of metal is down to the internet, and whilst scene growth may have meant more shitty deathcore bands to contend with, there's more than enough quality there, which physical and online zines can help you sift through.

Re: what is better, print media or the internet? IMO the jury came back in on that one a while ago.

Print media: once a month you get a magazine written by a paid clique of industry insiders telling you what is hot and what's not. They rely on advertising and being on good terms with labels to survive, not to mention actually being able to sell off newsagent shelves. (Ok, so this is a caricature, but reading something like Metal Hammer it doesn't seem that far from the truth).

Internet: you get a continuously evolving, continuously self-updating stream of a virtually limitless range of opinions and a virtually limitless depth of obscure knowledge. (where are you more likely to find out about obscure death/grind band x from Paraguay? a magazine or an internet forum?) The people that contribute to it overwhelmingly do so on their own time and off their own backs without financial reward.

As reɡards writinɡ quality, ɪ donʼt ɡet this admiration of full-time music journos. So they write well. ɪMO ɢoat writes well, Mintrude writes well, Adam writes well... hell, even Charles manaɡes to strinɡ one or two sentences toɡether without his brain explodinɡ. A democratic internet "scene" does not have to be dominated by illiterate "spoiled kids", not in the sliɡhtest bit. ɪ donʼt see why we should have to defer to the cultured wisdom of some journos that are put on a pedestal.

ɪMO what is best for the metal scene is more people discoverinɡ more new bands. That is first and foremost the thinɡ, and the internet is way better at it than print media. ɪn my experience it is, anyway.

Those lack of work ethics carry over to the music. It used to be bands would spend years perfecting their craft. They had to have to goods to get attention and a album deal. A producer would then be there to give his critic's ear on the album. Now, it's more like "hey I came up with a cool riff" and it gets recorded and released. No revision, no refinement, no road testing, no nothing. Just "I want this and I Want this out now."

That's why there is a sea of samey, below quality debut and sophomore albums that are everywhere. The concept of self critique is gone.

Last night I heard some guy rant on about how my guitarists friend / vocalist and bassist tell them they don't need a drummer "Just record a You Tube video of you guys, record two acoustic songs, put them on a USB, charge ten dollars for it and get your name famous! You wouldnt know how many people can get famous from You Tube!"

I asked so what happens when a label or fans want these guys to play live, to tour?

"Oh by that time you'll be so famous that you can get whoever you want."

This guy wasnt a kid, he was 26. But that mentality is what scares me to death. AND HE"S IN THE GODDAMN MUSIC INDUSTRY WORKING FOR YEARS and this is how he sees things. No.

Hey, what works for Metallica...



I agree up to a point, but there are genuinely good bands out there that have releases that are worth listening to. It's not like labels wouldn't be pushing metalcore/etc on peoples' ears without the internet...

i'd agree with this but record labels are biased to stuff that's marketable, which punishes originality because not fitting comfortably into a subgenre makes a band's music harder to sell. and, like Goat pointed out, putting a lot of time and effort hardly guarantees positive results. i agree that stuff like bedroom black metal is pretty lame, but it's easy enough to ignore. lastly i'd guess that stuff like Das War, Chimp Spanner or Animals as Leaders has just as much thought put into it as any other metal, despite being only one or two dudes and a computer.

what you're saying just bugs me on pretty much all levels.

Loads of awful bands used to get record labels, I'm sure. The entire idea of a music business is just that; a business. Bands succeed that are marketable.

The fact that there is a lot of music made in people's bedrooms that sucks floating round the internet honestly doesn't bother me in the slightest. There were always wannabes who were never going to produce anything worthwhile, it's just that now they have youtube or whatever to show their stuff on. Does that really matter?

On the other hand, those excellent bands that are on the musical cutting edge, without a chance of being put on the front of a magazine, can reach an audience with the very same tools. The positives of that far, far outweigh the minor negatives of a load of chancers pushing their stuff on youtube.

Maybe there were a million bands better than the Beatles playing in the 60s that would have got heard if the internet had existed back then.

One pretty pointed specific question - did you ever read an issue of Maniacs, the journal which demise I mourn, or do you generalize about that particular mag's uselessness by reading other journals you mention (Metal Hammer)?
It seems to me you have not read the Maniacs, because they do introduce you to the obscure X band from Paraguay in Fast Forward and Apocalyptic Raidz sections. In the last issues they had superinteresting series of articles on how some labels came to be in existence. Do you know how Peaceville came to be? It was absolutely wonderful to understand Peaceville's founder philosophy as to why he introduced the Peaceville 3 (Anathema, Paradise Lost and MDB) to the world then, and why he is disappointed in metal music now. Care to point where I can find this story on the internet? And then, this argument again, "they are cozy with some labels, because they take their ad $$ from them, so they are giving glowing reviews to these labels' releases". Someone said it already, I question to please point out the specifics and got silence in return. Could it be I am in bed with every band I gave a good review to, maybe they sent me $25 each for giving them >80 quote?
I think you guys often speak off the cuff. I know personally many of the writers who worked for the Maniacs mag. Just like what you said the internet enthusiasts do, they worked getting absolutely little compensation in return. They weren't on staff, but free-lancers. And I appreciate those writers from MR you listed who know how to write, but you guys are no Liz Ciavarella, with all due respect.

On a much more general scale, not only metal, I will never be convinced that internet is good enough to replace printed media. This is a dangerous argument, debunked by many more qualified people than yours truly.

This. Alas, Metal Reviews is not as big as (I assume) Maniacs or Metal Hammer or Terrorizer, so labels don't take out big adverts with us because not as many people read us. I'm not saying either you or Rio are wrong here, because I think there's a validity to what you're both saying.

And kudos, Alex, this is the most interesting discussion here for a while...

Nope, never read Metal Maniacs, apart from a few times on the shelf and it never looked that interesting IMO.

I've brought pretty much every edition of Terrorizer for the last several years and would be very sad if it went down the pan, so I didn't mean to give the impression that I have nothing but disdain for the magazine form. Terrorizer also uncovers obscure bands, all the time, but in nothing like the same volume as the internet does. And if you actually want to hear those bands, rather than read about them, where do you have to go? The internet.

And sorry, you're totally twisting what I said. I never said these magazines were corrupt, taking money in exchange for good reviews. But yes, as an outsider to the print media world, it seems very much to me like the pool from which cover interviews and big features are drawn is pretty limited.

And on your more general point, IMO formal media has done an utterly wretched job over the years.

Anyway, like I said, I'm not happy at all that MM is dead, although I was never into it. I just don't accept the idea that the shift from formal music print journalism to informal internet zines etc. is a bad thing.

I agree with this, i dont think is a good thing at all im just trying to explain why web metal sites like metalreviews are helping metal more than printed magazines these days, but of course is sad to see some fellow metalheads going out of bussiness.

Nostalgia is obscuring your vision Ben, the lack of work ethics and all that stuff your complaining has been present in music business forever, its just that a business how many bands got signed in the 80s simply because metal was "cool" regardless of quality, talent or work ethics? many bands jumped the metal wagon like that.

The internet has hurt metal and music in general a lot with illegal downloading and by giving a lot of untalented bands their 5 minutes of fame, but it has also helped metal a lot too metalreviews is proof of that, you should not worry that much for the metal scene or the industry, metal is far too strong for all of this shit because it has always been sustained by fans, not mags, not labels but fans.

I'm sorry for hijacking your thread Alex, I just think this is a sign of everything I am fearing will happen.

People that know me say I hate change. I think I don't but perhaps they know best. Bonfire has a line in their song "Don't Go Changing Me" that says "It takes a whole lot of courage to be a little bit old fashioned." I believe it.


Look at people like Bob Dylan, Steve Harris, Nikki Sixx, Blackie LAwless, Jon Schaffer, KK Downing, NEal Schon, Steve Vai. These are all people that are great at what they do. These are people who have created art that will inspire until the end of time. Jimi Hendrix WAS the fucking blues, when Bob Dylan sang about Blood on The Tracks and hardships, goddammit he meant it, he was living them. KK Downing left home with no familial support and went on to lead Judas Priest. The fact that these people gave it their all, their soul, their being, comes across in the music.

How does that passion and fire translate to a You Tube video? This isnt an outlet for bands to get seen its for people and bands to get noticed and there is a difference. Why should I care about what random comments cunts make on my song? Do I need that validation?

One should craft thair art and make it quality. Using Iced Earth for example, their Enter The Realm demo tape was amazing for the time. A five track tape done in a real studio with full art and lyrics. Not a goddanmed 2 track shit recorded USB drive.

Argh

I'm done now.

Metal Maniacs 4 Eva!

No problem Ben, you had to vent.

One of the premises of my editorial was the presumption that quite a few people here are subscribing to MM, or at least are very knowledgeable about the mag. The fact people are not is both a little surprising, and actually rather telling why the mag could not field enough subscriptions to survive. While I knew that the discussion will be a lot about printed media vs internet, I also thought the thread would make a high enough funeral pyre to the Maniacs. Of course, if you are not familiar with something, if you only browsed through its pages a few times while at the local bookstore, I can see why it ain't a big loss for you. What you did not love and did not get to know, you are not likely to miss much at all.
For me, of course, it is also an issue of something I got used to since 1999, to read every single issue, from top to bottom, so it is absolutely a habit which is now going to be forcefully broken. All of you internet fans, imagine you can now only get your connection from some satellite, and it is only available for 1 hr a day to only some of us. You'd be mourning the loss of your plug-in just as much.

Then I should say that I've been a long time reader of Metal Maniacs too. I remember when Helloween did their Coney Island show back in the day after Better Than Raw that got reviewed. I still have that issue somewhere. I had a list of writers whose tastes I trusted or at the very least wanted to read their opinions and cool interviews. Matt Johnsen, Chris Alisgou, Chris Black, Mark Gromen, and a whole lot more. While not a subscriber, I bought about one of every two issues that came out.


So yeah, it was a sad day for me too when I read that Metal Maniacs was going kaput.

I have been subscribed to the same 2 magazines a few years now and I never felt it was a waste of my money. They have very good interviews what i find lacking on the internet + The reviews are alway good written. I'm not saying that their are no sites on the internet who are probably as good as well; But reading a long text on a pc screen is always more difficult then reading it on paper.

1. I like Magazines. I also like the net.

2. Donate? Nope.