...work? (Edit: Don't know why the title is cut off)

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Actually, I'm envisioning a cross between the programs American Idol and Making the Band.

You get a producer with some talent, influence, and knowledge, like a Rick Rubin, or Bob Rock, or Mutt Lange (maybe all 3?), and they sort through auditions for musicians and vocalists and try to assemble a band like Diddy has done before. Hopefully it would spawn spinoff/related projects and get some kind of minor industry sparked.

It would have to be younger, fresh guys (and girls), not old dudes that have been around like in that Supergroup show with Sebastian Bach and Scott Ian.

Could you get behind something like that? Would you watch (even just to scoff)? Would you buy and support the music if it were good? Or are rock and metal fans too cynical and opposed to anything corporate/commercial/above-ground?

This idea floated through my head because I have been very disappointed with the state of rock and metal in the mainstream for a long time. We have declined from the respected level we had in the late 80s to where we are today.

There are no decent groups at a major level anymore. No new blood is taking over. While I respect legendary groups like Judas Priest and Slayer, they have outlived their prime and are basically just coasting on their fame now. This has been allowed to happen because no one new and great is coming along to knock them off the top of the hill.

The only area to continue to flourish is extreme metal...death and black, and we all know that is not going to occupy a spot in the mainstream. Where are the bands that are going to fill the space formerly ruled by Guns 'n' Roses, Motley Crue, Ozzy Osbourne, Dio, Danzig, Iron Maiden, etc.? The vast territory between Nickelback and Immortal?

Something or someone has to come along to kick this genre(s) in the ass and make some change. It has to be someone with some money and power behind them. With rock/metal record companies dead or slowly withering away, it sure as hell isn't going to come from there. We could all be dead and gone before a band creeps up from the underground by themselves, the old traditional way. Even those guys used to have "powers-that-be" (industry moguls) who would take them under their wing and bring them to higher and higher levels, people who seem to have disappeared in rock and metal today.

Didn't they attempt something similar with Rock Star Supernova? Turned out to be a miserable failure.

I present to you White Wizzard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfnIBnz2_zw

That was another "supergroup" with Tommy Lee, Jason Newsted, and Gilby Clarke. I'm not surprised that went over like a lead balloon.

Holy shit. Those guys have distilled some pure 80s cheese. That's like everything that was wrong with the era and none of the good. :/

White Wizzard are indeed awesome. I actually love how they don't take themselves too seriously and are so purposely over the top, they are fun. What I've heard from Holy Grail I don't like as much, though. Might be the vocals.



What's wrong with summoning an ancient giantic axe-wielding viking with an awesome beard to slay your enemies? I tell you: nothing.

If anyone's going to become mainstream metal it's them, they're practically the only real metal band the mainstream can take, if you know what I mean.

EDIT: Fucking sigged dude, that's the most awesome way to put it XD

Except, you know... Iron Maiden, Metallica, Slayer and all those other chart topping bands.

Except for the fact that the OP was talking about "new blood"...

No, I don't. Elaborate.

For the OP, there are actually some new kickass non-extreme metal bands. There's Enforcer, Early Man which are more speed-metal. There's also Crystal Viper and Crescent Shield, both of whom have released new albums last year, according to the archives.

And Cauldron.

I'm not sure if it's what SpyreWorks was thinking of, but I guess White Wizzard have a good chance of being accepted by the mainstream mainly because of two things. Rather than being all grim and evil (which isn't bad at all, just non-mainstream-friendly) they go for being fun and cool. That and their choruses are catchy as hell.

Then again, I guess Cauldron could also become popular

Anyone remember when Cauldron were Goat Horn and way more interesting?

Ehhhh. None of those bands thrill me. To tell the truth, I don't see any of them gaining much success.

They come off as a joke to me. Call me a stick in the mud, but I don't like humor (intentional or not) in my horror, and I don't like it in my metal.

Metal is already a joke to a lot of people. Playing along and being a Spinal Tap is pathetic to me. It's like a dork allowing himself be the butt of the jokes just so the cool kids will let him hang around.

OP, you don't get it. The only reason metal had a "respected place in the mainstream" is because 80's kiddies decided metal was cool and listened to it a lot. Of course, MTV capitalized on this, hence all your successful 80s bands. But then grunge came along in the 90s, and all the 90s kiddies decided grunge was way cooler than the metal their big brothers and sisters listened to, so then MTV abandoned metal and capitalized on that.

Metal has always been an underground phenomenon, simply because the mainstream isn't willing to deal with what metal deals with. The only reason we had some recognition in the 1980s is because we became "cool" at the time.

Now with all the extreme sub-genres, it's more unlikely than ever that metal is going to become #1, especially with all the screamo bands occupying the scene kids who would otherwise listen to metal bands and make them popular.

And seriously dude, if you don't like humor in your metal, I don't see how many metal bands you can actually enjoy. Practically all of metal can be taken as a joke in some way, White Wizzard just choose their way to be campy 80s-ness.

I love humor in metal but I dislike parody of metal. If a band wants to put funny sexual innuendo in their lyrics that's fine, but please no jokes about metal and its culture.

Why did the chicken cross the road? Because metal and its culture are fucking lame! Hahaha! I made a funny...

That's basically the level of humor found in 90% of parody metal bands. The other 10% aren't quite that clever.

How about Wolf then? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsiNSovDvMI

Anyway, Im not very fond of the idea of manufactured metal bands whose only purpose is to make money. Feels like something boy bands are for.

Great Wolf song.

Anyway, I agree that the idea of assembling a metal band through a game show is stupid. It's not theoretically impossible that something great will come out of it, but the odds are so incredibly slim and the non-artistic methods of assembling the band actually hurt its chances of being good compared to a random metal band formed in someone's garage.

I used to watch the show SuperGroup, with Sebastian Bach, Ted Nugent, Scott Ian, Jason Bonham, and Evan Seinfeld. It was pretty funny, but at the same time, it pissed me off. They were trying to mold them into this marketable, "modern" band by making them change their appearances and play cheesy songs. Honestly, the only reason I watched the show is because I find Ted Nugent hilarious.

Agh, double post...

Of course. Saw them many times as Goat Horn and even played with them once or twice in the early days of Demontage as a real entity. I think Decay was pissed because we were very sloppy.

I think Cauldron still has their hearts in the right place, but well...something is wrong. I think it's the singing, sadly.

I read somwhere that Scar Symmetry was put together by a record label.

Have you heard White Wizzard's music? They rock, the only place where they even remotely make fun of metal is their music videos, which are fun as hell anyway.

Sure it'd work. There's lots of interest in metal these days, and lots of interest from TV networks in making money from it, and lots of interest from fans to watch that sort of thing and even be on the show.

I also like the idea of making it a contest to create a band with a big corporate sponsor. That way, they will be sure to sell lots of records no matter what, the be all end all of metaldom. The old way of regular guys getting together and making metal for the joy of it has stopped working, so it's time to start throwing out the bath water and etc.

This is a great idea and would undoubtedly kick start a new rennesiance of metal where metal finally became high cultural art accepted as such by the upper eschelons of society.

I wasn't directing that to White Wizzard, who I personally think are pretty cool. I was just commenting on my general taste in humorous metal.

Ah, alright, I think I may have mistaken you for Fred! Either way, this is never going to work simply because of two problems:

1. Even if you even manage to make a show about metal bands and get enough viewers that it stays on the air...

2. ...practically all the bands that go on it would be considered sell outs and poseurs and would defeat the purpose because then they wouldn't be true metal anymore.

Metal's all about breaking conformity, reality shows are a conformity, there's now way it would work.

No, lol, it just so happens that all the members were in bands that had the same label, got together and Scar Symmetry (in other words, the embodiment of awesome) formed. They weren't a manufactured supergroup, came about just like Bloodbath.

WAT? That's the most insulting statement to be made about metal that I've heard in a long time. Basically what I'm hearing from you is that metal really has no worth as a genre and was a passing fad that was exploited and thrown away once the next fad came along.

MTV "exploited" pop, hip-hop, punk, plain rock, and other genres in the 80s and continues to do so today. They still "exploit" grunge with Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Foo Fighters, and Soundgarden (or its incarnations). Country has been around forever and even has its own channels. It makes crossovers to regular MTV all the time.

Are all those other genres that much better than hard rock and metal, or did hard rock and metal fall on its collective face and never recover fully since? My argument is the latter.

Society has come a long way since metal's heyday. I think we can handle controversial subjects. Plus, Slayer was singing about serial killers and Nazis in the 80s and still got video airplay.

There is a large contingent of fans who reject emo/screamo/core/scene music and want something else. There is also the possibility of genre cross-pollination of fans. Some of those scene kids might listen to some regular hard rock or metal, or may abandon scene music entirely if there is an alternative.

I was thinking about it some more, and S.O.D. was a humorous metal act I liked. But they were making fun of others, not themselves or metal.

That exception aside, I don't see how you can like humor in your metal. Metal bands goof around a lot off stage, but I really don't see them being clowns when playing. Are Slayer or Metallica being comedians up there, or are the serious?

Are members of other genres taking their music seriously? I watched the Grammies the other night and none of those acts were being "campy". I think it's a mistake to let others make fun of us or to make fun of ourselves. We should demand the same respect afforded to everyone else. Don't we deserve it?

And speaking of the Grammies, there are still "Best Hard Rock" and "Best Metal" categories. They're just occupied by old and/or crappy bands. So clearly there is still a place for us in the mainstream, we just need some bands to step up and take it.

Well, the idea is to make good music. Good music makes money if it's given a venue to be heard.

The metal infrastructure has been destroyed. Metal magazines, metal music programs on TV, everything that puts metal in people's faces is non-existent. Unless you are already a dedicated fan who is willing to scour the internet, you're not going to hear good stuff. As far as the type of music I'm discussing in this thread, even doing that scouring isn't turning up much.

Hyuck! I'll mark you down as a "no".

Agreed,

this isn't campy at all.

And while the metal category in the Grammies is quite bad, you just can't deny the awesomeness that is Judas Priest. Then again, you might find them too cheesy for singing about a half-machine messiah who rides a dragon shaped motorcycle that has deadly sawlike wheels and breathes smoke and fire. (He is also faster than a lazer bullet).

That attitude is so stupid. It's self-defeating. As if achieving some kind of success discounts the quality or credibility of your music.

It's a very "Beavis and Butthead" view of things. They're another metal parody that metal fans embraced. Metalocalypse too. We must be a bunch of battered wives because we love people who abuse us.

Metal is about a lot of things. Breaking conformity isn't really one of them. We are united in our non-conformity through our uniform, like other groups.

Unintentionally. You think they were trying to be a joke? In any case, Immortal are outside of the hard rock and heavy metal realm.

Judas Priest gets my eternal respect for what they have accomplished and the music they have made, but as I said in my OP:



There has to be new bands that are going to take their place when they finally give it up.

I wouldn't use Priest as an example, really. As pretentious and bloated Nostradamus was, they're at least trying something new. Considering most people know them as that "Breaking the Law" band, doing a concept double album is fairly risky.

And I can see why White Wizzard might annoy someone. That video made it seem like they're ironic metal musicians. It sounds somewhat unnatural. Like the singer doing falsettos because it's the metal/campy thing to do instead of singing that way because he likes to like a Halford or a Gillan.

I'll take your word for it. I haven't been interested enough to check out anything they have done since Ripper Owens took over (maybe before?).

Nostradamus is a concept album about...Nostradamus. Damn is thing bloated as all Hell with interludes and symphonic influences out the wazoo and an almost 2 hour playing time. Very different from Painkiller or Defenders of the Faith. If they cut it down to an hours worth of stuff, it'd be a really cool album.

It's what I would expect comedians to do if they were spoofing 80s metal.

With the song title "Over the Top", it's like: *wink wink* *nudge nudge*, "Let's see if these stupid metal heads eat this shit up."