Still excited?

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But I think those days are pretty much over with.

For me too...I used to buy up everything within a genre I could get my hands on...Prog Metal, for example...around 1997-2001, I bought up everything on Inside Out, Magna Carta, any Prog Metal I could get...got burned out as a result. I don't do that anymore...I try to concentrate on artists that really sunk in, in some way.

I agree shawn. I really only want to get stuff that I enjoy. That may seem silly but I used to buy stuff hoping it was really good. The days of blind buying are, for the most part, over for me. Its too $$$ to do nowadays. I also think for myself, pursuing music of all types helps prevent burnout. I used to listen to only metal and after awhile i couldnt stand to look at it.

I'll only blind-buy a proven band...for example, U2, King's X, etc...bands where I've hardly ever been let down and still look forward to. Even bands I used to absolutely worship, like Journey and Queensryche, don't get the blind-buy from me anymore.

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

I'll only blind-buy a proven band...for example, U2, King's X, etc...bands where I've hardly ever been let down and still look forward to. Even bands I used to absolutely worship, like Journey and Queensryche, don't get the blind-buy from me anymore.

me too. I bought Queensryche OMII as a blind buy and boy was I sorry. I really tend to research stuff a lot more these days.

Actually talking about Heavy Metal, I prefer underground bands than the last works of the big band (gods of war, a matter of life and death etc...).

I've heard good stuff like solitaire from finland or hellhound from japan for example.

TheButcher wrote:

Actually talking about Heavy Metal, I prefer underground bands than the last works of the big band (gods of war, a matter of life and death etc...).

Totally agree. Aside from a handful of bands, the underground is where it is at.

I listen to everything between hard rock and black metal, like that it never get boring to me. Also i buy music all the time, and always on the hunt. I never stopped doing this since i am 14. TOTAL METAL DEDICATION THATS WHAT I BELIEVE IN 100%. Not only playing the music, but also living the music walking like a metalhead on the streets with my denim/t-shirts/long hair etc..!!!! PROUD TO BE A METALHEAD, thats what i am all about.

After I stopped confining myself to a box of what other people might consider acceptable I found myself loving music alot more. Its funny because it even reflects in the music my band writes, we have elements of metal, grunge, punk, hard rock, blues rock, psychadellic, death/black metal in any given song because all three of us listen to alot of different music.

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

For me too...I used to buy up everything within a genre I could get my hands on...Prog Metal, for example...around 1997-2001, I bought up everything on Inside Out, Magna Carta, any Prog Metal I could get...got burned out as a result. I don't do that anymore...I try to concentrate on artists that really sunk in, in some way.

Have you heard the first MERCURY RISING album? That was my favorite from that era/genre.

The blind buys, from the classic bands, it's always perplexing how they get so many chances and so much discussion from the fans still.. other bands put out a good 3-5 albums in a row that are great by any standards and get little mention, but a higher-up band can be mediocre for years and still be interesting to metal fans... yeah, I don't know of anything recent that has come out of that park that I liked. I didn't like 'A Matter of Life And Death'. Most of it sounded way too much like other parts of other Maiden songs glued together and infected with 'Virtual XI' syndrome.

The big surprise for me this year was how much I like Kiss' "Sonic Boom" album. AC/DC's "Black Ice" was the best thing they've done in years IMO but that Kiss album totally blew me away.

Usually when one of these "classic" bands releases something new after a lot of time has elapsed, it ends up being disappointing. But I really liked those 2 from 2009.

Some of the "Old Guard" still "got it" IMO.

Temple of Blood wrote:

Shawn Of Fire wrote:

For me too...I used to buy up everything within a genre I could get my hands on...Prog Metal, for example...around 1997-2001, I bought up everything on Inside Out, Magna Carta, any Prog Metal I could get...got burned out as a result. I don't do that anymore...I try to concentrate on artists that really sunk in, in some way.

Have you heard the first MERCURY RISING album? That was my favorite from that era/genre.

I'm sure I heard it at some point...I don't remember it.

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other bands put out a good 3-5 albums in a row that are great by any standards and get little mention

Such as?

I hated AMOLAD too, but that doesn't mean I like Euro-flower metal band X any more.

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I think my biggest problem is my overspending/overbuying. I own approx. 3000 CD's, and new ones comes in almost every day. If I'm lucky, I get to listen to 1 or 2 CD's a day. So it will take me close to 10 years to listen through all of my CD's!!!!! And still I keep buying way more than I get to listen to. So my listening habits have become a little "frantic" and stressed. I also think I've pretty much heard all the great bands in the genres that I like. And now I have to dig so deep in the underground to find new stuff. And frankly, the bands that weren't signed back in the day.. well, usually there was a reason for that! But I keep buying all the reissues, compilation demos and whatnot, thinking: "one of these bands might be the long lost gem I'm looking for". You see, that used to happen when I first got online some 10 years ago. I discovered "new" old bands that I never knew about al the time. But I think those days are pretty much over with. And the age thing also means that my memory is shot, so new music doesn't stick to the memoery as well as those old classics did back then. A lot of "good music" relies as heavily on nostalgia that it does talent within the band, if you ask me.

Overall, I think what you said here may very well be the problem- overbuying and not having enough time to truly appreciate it all, whereas back in the day you didn't buy NEAR as much, therefore having much more time for an album to really have a part in your life. You may have given a quick, gloss-over listen to a bunch of truly awesome albums lately and not even realized it, since you didn't give them the real time of day to sink in, so to speak. This, in my opinion, is something I see that can very easily, if not unavoidably, happen to someone who buys as much as you do. There simply isn't enough time in the day, the week, the month...to listen to it all and really appreciate them beyond 3 or 4 listens before moving on to the next batch that just showed up in the mail.

That's the catch to being an avid metal collector...sensory overload occurs and true appreciation tends to go out the window. I guess it may depend on the person, too, to an extent, but logic tells me that it's unavoidable.

I've succeeded in listening to sufficient amounts of new metal by eliminating all other forms of entertainment from my life.