The Future of Metal

A few of us at AATR Towers have been chatting about the usual stuff….porn, boobs and of course music. We got to the conversation which has had us pondering ever since – Is the current state of the metal scene as good as it should be and more importantly, who would be able to headline Download in 10 years time?

At the minute we seem to have set bands on rotation – Iron Maiden, AC/DC, Kiss, Slipknot, Rammstein and of course Metallica but what happens when these bands call it a day? At the minute the metal scene doesn’t seem to be promoting bands to legendary status. Back in the good ol’ days of Monsters of Rock there was a plethora of legendary bands that produced some seriously shit hot music and choosing headliners would have been no problem.

There are undoubtedly legions of great bands out there, but question marks hang over their staying power and ability to produce amazing, listenable albums.

In a decade’s time, if we’re being brutally honest, great bands like Motorhead, Metallica, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath may well have hung up their leather for the final time and moved in to the world’s metallest retirement home. Bands like Slipknot and Rammstein may have had a bust up and split up.

Can anybody seriously take their place? Who would be able to pull in a crowd of 110,000+ with ease?

Evile,Gama Bomb and Municipal Waste are worth a mention as bands who are recreating 80s-style thrash and have an impressive but not huge following. Sooner or later there is a risk that they’ll go through a ‘Load’ phase and the whole retro-thrash scene will collapse like a house of cards.

Steel Panther’s Spinal Tap-esque, tongue-in-cheek sexism schtick is something that can’t survive for much longer and has to be ruled out. Even though it’s a joke – and an obvious one at that – it’s right up there with blacking up in terms of wrongness.

Pop punk bands must also be discounted. A genre that started with the Ramones and gave us the likes of New Found Glory along the way has become so watered-down that it’s way more pop than punk now. Part of the appeal of being into rock music is you feel like you’re a member of a kind of secret society where the rest of the world are oblivious to what you listen to. The radio-friendliness of Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco has spoilt that and pushed the genre’s boundaries too far into the mainstream.

Overuse of samples or synthesizers cannot be allowed at a metal festival. Fundamentally, any band playing any kind of rock event should be primarily guitar-driven. I know they have a huge following amongst rockers, but sorry, Prodigy, you’re out of here.

A band like System of a Down has proven longevity, if you discount the time they have spent “on hiatus”, and nu metal (although technically not so “nu” anymore) could well be the genre to carry the torch into the future. This would only work if they can somehow remain friends and keep their avant garde-ness from spiralling out of all control.

There is still no natural successor to the headliners of yesteryear, when it was still the good old Donington Monsters of Rock. Perhaps the days of truly great bands are numbered? Perhaps the days of 3 day festivals with 3 stages each day and 100+ bands playing are numbered? Some people (including most of the AATR Team) think that the traditional one day festival like Monsters of Rock used to be is the correct way to do it. It used to be one day and one stage with 8-10 amazing bands playing – the atmosphere was brilliant, the beer flowed and good times were had.

Let us know what you think, who could headline in 10 years time? Should it go back to being a one day one stage festival?