Metal IS more than just music and anybody who thinks otherwise is downgrading it, first and foremost. Secondly, I distinctly note a Master's Hammer logo in the background of this site, as well as Parabellum, so I think I'm good there as well. Finally, you're right that 'classic' does have a definition, but it's unfortunately not the one that you suggest. A classic is defined as something that possesses the quality of timelessness and epitomizes the area in which it is regarded as a classic, so it doesn't matter when it was released. A classic for 2010 could've been released in 2006 (
Watching from a Distance). I'm sure you're also familiar with the term "modern classic" as well. I'm sure there was a sense in 1983 that
Melissa was something special.
Anyway, you yourself said that your irrational fondness for 80s bands over 00s bands is ignorant, so what exactly is the problem? On the other hand, I apologize for mistaking your
fondness for some bands over others for your judgement of superiority. I myself generally prefer the bands that I judge to be superior to others (regardless of the year their album was released). I would be interested in conducting an experiment by which I randomly take bands from the 80s and bands from the 00s who sound like they're from the 80s and strip them of all identifiers and see if we don't come up with some interesting results.
For future reference, by the way, black, death, and 'folk' or 'viking' metal existed in the 80s, or "the early days" of "ye olde metall", so by your classification, they
would merit discussion on this forum. And there HAS been discussion of those genres here. There has been discussion of grindcore as well, though noise is a different matter.
Now on to the "quality versus quantity" discussion again. I'm merely using 1985 and 2005 as representatives of their respective decades as a whole. I think both years are fairly representative of a median output for their decades, wouldn't you agree? Again going back to metal archives' advanced search, you will yield more results for 'heavy metal,' 'power metal,' 'speed metal,' and 'thrash metal' for the year 2005 than you will 1985, in every one of those categories. So again I suggest to you, there are still more bands in the 'modern' era that fall under the lighter end of the spectrum than there were in 1985. But honestly, this isn't even an important point and I think we both can agree with that. The 80s had both less and better bands, even in the 'traditional' genres, than are present today. Hopefully we can agree on that now?
On your final note, I assure you that I've 'argued' or debated with far more than the 4 people known to you, if you choose to classify this as one of those arguments. The only ones I think are idiots are the ones I mentioned (note that I didn't mention you). The trends that these three people had in common were an unwillingness to listen to anybody else's arguments without lacing a response with profanity and not even addressing the argument put forth, attacking people for listening to 'extreme' metal genres for no other reason than for the fact that they listen to music they don't like, and having a completely belligerent outlook on just about everything. If you think I go around flippantly throwing about insults, then you are evidently not familiar with the people that I mentioned, but I'm sure they're known to others who post here who can at least account for the way that they carry themselves online even if they disagree wholeheartedly with my evaluation. The vast majority of people that I have debated with on various issues on here and on other boards have been relatively civil and level headed and displayed the ability to induce logic and reasoning into their arguments, so unfortunately they don't stick out as well in my memory.
My final comment on this entire subject will be this: The conversation for about the last page or whatever didn't need to happen and serves no purpose, not to mention derails the thread, and I'm sorry for having sparked it, though it wasn't my intention to do so. I just meant to point out something that I saw as somewhat hypocritical to a degree, naming your questioning of why somebody would have a problem with unoriginal bands when you have a problem with contemporary bands, a trait that I find has less value and merit. I was hoping first that you would see things my way and, failing that, that you would take it light-heartedly and brush it off, and I should have pointed out that no ill-intent went into my comment earlier on, but it's already carried on well beyond the length of its deserved shelf life, so here's to the death of a worthless argument I in which I wish I was not a participant.
