why was the 90's so bad?

Underground metal still existed, but other than that, metal was totally killed off by the grungers. All the music became serious and it wasn't about partying anymore... of course, some bands still released some solid albums in 90s. Two that come to my mind are AC/DC and Judas Priest. And of course, a lot of thrash bands released excellent albums at 1990 or 91.

the only thing grunge killed off was the fluffy hair bands. underground metal still lurked.

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I think for me it was so bad because I did not
have the internet and had no idea what bands like Blind Guardian,Gamma
ray,etc. sounded like. I expected all music to sound similar to what
was popular then. Once I got the internet,found sites like
nolifetilmetal.com (thank you Scott !)

Another good point!! I kept up with the Christian underground but I had NO idea about those bands mentioned above or others like them. If it wasn't at the mall music store or on the radio, I was clueless. The internet, Tri-Rock, Nolifetilmetal and places like that really caught me up with the times...my only problem???? $$$$$$$

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the only thing grunge killed off was the fluffy hair bands.

Absolutely untrue. NO metal band was selling millions of albums any longer. I know people don't like to do it, but if you face facts, hair bands outsold 99% of all "true metal" bands 2 or 3 to 1 during the late 80's and early 90's. Grunge pretty much took over all media outlets, from radio to MTV to even supposed "metal" magazines, which killed the entire hard rock/metal industry. A lot of "true metal" bands really struggled and suffered without this exposure. Was there a metal underground? Sure. There is also a hair metal underground now, and a sleaze movement again in Europe...but that is not the point. All hard rock/metal really suffered when the grunge wave swept through music.

If you want a really good perspective on this, pick up the book "Bang Your Head". It has a TON of related information in it.



Arttie

if you are only referring to commercial success, then yes you are right. however, underground metal never had that success. nor the mainstream media attention. at the same time grunge was starting & hair bands were fading into retirement, the Norwegian black metal scene was breaking out. that was the scene i was into at the time & grunge had no impact on it at all. did it "outsell" black metal? without a doubt, as hair rock still did at that time i'm sure. it still made no difference to those in the underground.

I meant commercial sucsess with metal bands for the most part. Of course, you all know the deal with Metallica and Megadeth, among other bands, seeking a more commercial sound in the 90's. And underground metal never had that sucsess because that was the point of it... underground. Those were still undiscovered bands playing at local joints and clubs. And Arttie(that is how you spell it, right?) is right, I believe... true metal bands did suffer without some exposure, considering a lot of them released mediocre albums during the 90's, but that's all a matter of opinion. The best time in the 90's was 1990 or 1991... that's when some great thrash was being released.

Even if i am a 80s guy and realy loved the 90s too. Of course their was GRUNGE, and Alternative smurf poo but bands like RUNNING WILD, SAXON, SCORPIONS, MOTORHEAD, GRAVE DIGGER etc...were still making increible good records and we had many new bands like HAMMERFALL, OCTOBER 31, STORMWARRIOR, PREMONITION, GOTHIC KNIGHTS, SHADOWS OF STEEL, RHAPSODY, SKYLARK,etc...kicking ass. No, the 90s were cool in many ways(the early 90s were also BLACK METAL and DEATH METAL heaven with so many great records coming out).
Also it was great to see who were false and who kept fighting for metal in those days. Many of my friends (ex-friends today) started listening to other music from 92 or 93 on and they betrayed our movement by doing that. I kept the movement alive together with many people from all around the world in those days and we should get some respect for that i think.

mc666 wrote:

there were so many damn good albums in the 90's. you must've been asleep. you "old school or nothing" guys crack me up.

Exactly. The 90s were pretty damn good for metal—and music, for that matter.

The 90's were good you just had to do a little searching is all. Yeah Grunge was the music of the 90' and rap or hip hop reared it's ugly head and took over.

Look at todays youth or most of them they all listen to hip hop crap and I see more white boys wearing their hats like the black hip hoppers do.

It's a shame white boys lower themselves to crap like that!

Wargod48

NP: Chris Caffery - Pins & Needles

skin color & fashion are not really relevant.

Well, the 00s has another disease: The "old school thrash mania" - lots
and lots of new bands, of course with obligatory "old school
production", which is probably their only good attribute - the rest is
normally just the third copy of the third copy of some thrash band from
the 80s. And, yes, at least one song with insipid title like "Thrash
Again" or "Thrash is Back!" is neccessary as well. Violator and
Municipal Waste are the only two "old school" bands that I can remember
of right now which brought something of their own in the music.

uuhhhhh. . . I can barely relate because I became a metalhead in 2001.

those were the days when LINKIN PARK and LIMP BIZKIT were at the top of the nu-metal heap and all over the music channels

my conversion came in the form of several cassettes from my cousin's collection, namely, Metallica's black album, GNR's Appetite, Aerosmith's Pump and Skid Row's s/t debut. . . at this point my life changed.

Almost everything I bought in the 90's was Scandinavian or Euro (Amorphis, Tad Morose, Lefay, Memento Mori, Rough Silk etc.) I thought the mid-late 90's were great for the power-prog revival. But about the only thing domestic from the 90's that I still like is "Only Living Witness"; even despite the fact that it's somewhat sullied by a Grunge-Nu-metal vibe. I like it anyway though.

Yeah most of mine was European also. But I've always liked European metal best!

The two domestic CD's that really kept the flame burning for me in the 90's were Anacrusis, "Screams and Whispers", and Zaxas s/t. I took a lot of ridicule from the cool for listening to those two. Solitude Aeturnus was domestic, but thier sound was so Euro that I almost considered them as such. But it's true, there was a lot of cool stuff out there, but it wasn't selling very well.

Though I started the decade thinking that the 90s were going to be the Dark Ages as far as metal was concerned, it turned out that things weren't all bad for metal. The problem was that it wasn't being served up on MTV and radio every day like it had been in the late 80s, so you had to know where to look for it. Metal basically went back underground, which IMHO is where it really belonged anyway.

I spent the first part of the 90s in a bit of a fog, I bought a lot of back-catalog stuff from my favorite 80s bands and upgraded a lot of cassettes. By the mid-90s I started reading a lot of different metal magazines (both pro mags like Metal Maniacs and underground 'zines like Sentinel Steel and Battle Helm) which pointed me towards a lot of the European bands that were still thriving overseas, even if they had no U.S. presence. (Fortunately I was still single and childless at the time so I still had plenty of $$ to piss away on expensive imports from Europe and Japan, hahaha!)

I started to notice things turning the corner around 1996 when Iced Earth's DARK SAGA came out. I think that was the first CD I bought in a couple of years that I didn't have to hunt down as an import. (Iced Earth have since become one of my all time favorite bands.) By 1997 we had Dickinson's ACCIDENT OF BIRTH (still the best Maiden album that Maiden never made) and HammerFall's GLORY TO THE BRAVE, to name just a few, and the underground in the U.S. started picking up again. I was suddenly able to find a lot more CDs in stores again without having to pound so much pavement.

All of this taught me that metal will never die, it will just drop below the radar every once in a while...

Some of my fave 90s metal CDs....

Fight - WAR OF WORDS
Bruce Dickinson - ACCIDENT OF BIRTH
Radakka - REQUIEM FOR THE INNOCENT
Rage - THE MISSING LINK and XIII
Warrior Soul - SALUTATIONS FROM THE GHETTO NATION
Iced Earth - BURNT OFFERINGS, THE DARK SAGA, SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES
Gamma Ray - SOMEWHERE OUT IN SPACE
Iron Savior - S/T
Overkill - FROM THE UNDERGROUND AND BELOW
HammerFall - LEGACY OF KINGS

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Fight - WAR OF WORDS

Best thing Halford EVER did! ......