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Know about heavy metal music? HELP ME.
guildnavigator:
Hello Friends
I am working on a project and need to know who the top ranking and the heaviest metal bands are that are putting out records and touring.
If you live in Europe, your opinion is extra valuable to me.
back to left field now
Avi:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/2011_in_heavy_metal_music is a link to a Wikipedia article which lists 2011 news for almost every conceivable type of heavy-metal (thrash, death, speed, etc.) band, FWIW. Metallica is still going strong, even inspiring a Finnish cello ensemble, Apocalyptica:
Apocalyptica - Enter Sand Man
Another Finnish ensemble in active performance (I think they've had some success here, too) is Nightwish:
NIGHTWISH - Nemo
The Scandinavians kind of have their own, I don't know, Goth-style metal, which usually features a female vocalist. The Dutch version is Within Temptation:
Within Temptation - Stand My Ground (Embedding disabled, limit reached)
Synergia is the number one metal band in Israel:
סינרגיה - מרגיש אחר (Embedding disabled, limit reached)
Avi:
Oh yeah, I meant to say that "top ranking," in Europe and elsewhere, is quite different than in the USA. A 'gold' record in the USA means that one has sold 500,000 copies. In countries with smaller populations, "top ranking" may mean they've sold 25,000 copies. Of course, all hope to make it big on this side of the pond.
For research purposes, it might be useful to subscribe to a service like Pandora or Last.fm. When you type in the name of a band, say Metallica or Bad Religion (punk metal), you will hear many groups that the recording industry thinks are up and coming in that genre.
Bad Religion- American Jesus
Silent:
--- Quote from: guildnavigator on October 30, 2011, 12:22:35 AM ---
I am working on a project and need to know who the top ranking and the heaviest metal bands are that are putting out records and touring.
--- End quote ---
Top ranking and heaviest are pretty subjective terms but I don't think one can do a project on active metal bands without mentioning Iron Maiden. They're probably the most popular metal band in the world. Some may not even consider them metal though, so again it can be subjective.
Other current bands off the top of my head with big followings to look into:
Children of Bodom (Sweden I think)
Iced Earth (US)
Manilla Road (US)
Megadeth (US)
Motorhead (UK)
Mastodon (US)
Dragonforce
There really are very few bands which would be considered great by a majority of fans. Part of the metal culture is to buck trends and find new and obscure bands, so any band which begins gaining a moderate following almost always feels a backlash among fans. As counterproductive as that seems it's just the way things are in that music. I could name a hundred bands with moderate followings but the only ones I can think of (active bands at least) which most fans will agree on are Iron Maiden and Motorhead, who are hardly the heaviest by most definitions.
I followed a lot of metal community sites for a while but don't anymore. In some ways metal fans represent exactly what they claim to hate about popular music. Many care more about their image than the music itself which becomes obvious after a while. That's a generalization of course but surfing around a few message boards will prove that the most vocal metal fans usually care more about fitting in and appearing 'metal' than they care about the music itself. Ironically, because of this, bands have a flavor of the month shelf life that is often seen in pop music which is supposedly the antithesis of metal.
To keep my sanity I had to distance myself from internet metal communities and just listen to the music.
A good place to find band info is http://www.metal-archives.com/ They'll have a bio and info on almost any metal band that has ever existed. There's also forums there to maybe gauge what bands are currently popular. Just look for threads like 'DRAGONFORCE IS THE WORST BAND EVER!!!!' to figure out which bands sell the most records.
Eddie Coyle:
I was a major headbanger from 15 to about 25...
The usual suspects, with some obscure acts thrown in
Black Sabbath/Ozzy/Dio
Deep Purple/Rainbow/Gillan
Judas Priest/Halford
Iron Maiden/Bruce Dickinson
Mercyful Fate/King Diamond
Slayer
Metallica
Megadeth
Overkill
Motorhead
Nevermore
Deicide
Bathory
Venom
Death
Morbid Angel
Manowar
Candlemass
Savatage
Witchfinder General
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