# Public interest in metal is falling



## Conservationist (Apr 5, 2007)

http://www.google.com/trends?q="black+metal"










http://www.google.com/trends?q="death+metal"










http://www.google.com/trends?q="underground+metal"










http://www.google.com/trends?q="heavy+metal"

It could be we're going to finally get a break from the crowd. When there's too many metalheads, quality material gets drowned out by the herd, and most of those "metalheads" are johnny-come-lately kids hiding Nas CDs under the Blasphemy. As they all fade away, the times of qualtiy metal return -- which you can see by the resurgence in the old school death metal and black metal bands now touring and releasing new albums.

http://metal-blogs.com/death/2009/07/31/public-interest-in-metal-falls/


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## nickgray (Sep 28, 2008)

Conservationist said:


> Public interest in metal is falling


Nobody cares, you know. Especially at the classical music forum. Still, if you're so worried about the originality and popularity of metal, then you're way too late, since the downfall of it began at ~mid-90's.



> qualtiy metal return -- which you can see by the resurgence in the old school death metal and black metal bands now touring and releasing new albums.


Uh-huh... Quality, yeah, absolutely... Who the hell wants yet another old school death or black metal band? I mean really, there were thousands upon thousands of records made and those genres were fully explored. There's absolutely no point in continuing to play it, nobody's interested in yet another band that plays the same stuff that thousands of bands played before.


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

nickgray said:


> Nobody cares, you know. Especially at the classical music forum.


Well said. I can't help to think that all of these metal threads are a good reason why we're seeing disappearing members on this forum.

When I first joined this forum, there were so many interesting people to talk to and it seemed the discussions were more lively, of course we're all guilty of ad homs, but I think it goes much deeper than that.

I'm beginning to think my own time here has expired. I miss Tapkaara, Airad2, and now Andre. Thankfully World Violist is back. Perhaps Andre was right when he told me things have gone stale around here. I think I'll take my exit now...


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## nickgray (Sep 28, 2008)

Mirror Image said:


> Well said. I can't help to think that all of these metal threads are a good reason why we're seeing disappearing members on this forum.


Nah, that's not that of a good reason, though it might be a minor one. You know, I used to (and still do sometimes) listen to metal and I wouldn't mind talking about it, but with all that serious "anus.com" business going on... it's... I don't know, ridiculous? Idiotic? Arrogant? I'm not sure which word to use here.


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

nickgray said:


> Nah, that's not that of a good reason, though it might be a minor one. You know, I used to (and still do sometimes) listen to metal and I wouldn't mind talking about it, but with all that serious "anus.com" business going on... it's... I don't know, ridiculous? Idiotic? Arrogant? I'm not sure which word to use here.


I guess you haven't noticed that there are a lot members here against these metal threads. Myself, bassClef, Handlebar, Tapkaara are strongly against them.


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## nickgray (Sep 28, 2008)

Mirror Image said:


> I guess you haven't noticed that there are a lot members here against these metal threads. Myself, bassClef, Handlebar, Tapkaara are strongly against them.


I did. You can count me in too, since I really dislike that arguing about metal being superior artistic music, or whatever. Nah, if there were to be proper metal thread the discussion I'd like to see is about current tendencies in that genre and the rock music in general, and I certainly would not like to see the same old story goin' by "metalheads" of that forum about, as I said, insane claims about that type of music.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

Mirror Image said:


> Well said. I can't help to think that all of these metal threads are a good reason why we're seeing disappearing members on this forum.


On the contrary, MI ... new registrations are on the rise - up 13% from June, and up 21% from January this year.

The overall post count usually wanes this time of the year ... vacations and such you know. Same thing happened last year at this time, too.


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

Krummhorn said:


> On the contrary, MI ... new registrations are on the rise - up 13% from June, and up 21% from January this year.
> 
> The overall post count usually wanes this time of the year ... vacations and such you know. Same thing happened last year at this time, too.


In that case maybe I'll stick around.  I guess my initial question why aren't the newer members participating in the discussions? I mean it's great people are registering, but conversations happen when members start participating.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

To add another statistic:

The most popular forum here is: Classical Music Discussion with nearly 20,000 posts


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## Guest (Jul 31, 2009)

Mirror Image said:


> I guess you haven't noticed that there are a lot members here against these metal threads. Myself, bassClef, Handlebar, Tapkaara are strongly against them.


Then why post on them just ignore, [I have unsubscribed from all of them] but was advised to have a look at this one. nothing new it will become just ranting rubbish


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## maestro267 (Jul 25, 2009)

What is up with all the metal threads on this forum?


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## Conservationist (Apr 5, 2007)

Mirror Image said:


> Well said. I can't help to think that all of these metal threads are a good reason why we're seeing disappearing members on this forum.


Here's an alternate theory:

This place is expanding and it's pushing out the clubhouse mentality of people who quite honestly act like dickheads and then wonder why others don't like them.

If you don't like the metal threads, ignore. If you can't handle that, it's time to log off for good -- you don't have control of yourself.

I can't find my "what this forum needs" thread, but that says about all of it


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## Mrs Amys Music (Jul 30, 2009)

I'm new! Man, I thought that the metal numbers were fascinating! Why do you think the numbers have dropped so much?


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## danae (Jan 7, 2009)

Conservationist said:


> Here's an alternate theory:
> 
> This place is expanding and it's pushing out the clubhouse mentality of people who quite honestly act like dickheads and then wonder why others don't like them.
> 
> ...


I'm sorry, *your* "what this forum needs" thread?

Tell you what: take a look at mine and I believe you'll find what you're looking for


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

Mrs Amys Music said:


> I'm new! Man, I thought that the metal numbers were fascinating! Why do you think the numbers have dropped so much?


Because people are starting to wake up to the fact that metal is a juvenile ranting music with no real ambitions of becoming anything more.


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

Conservationist said:


> Here's an alternate theory:
> 
> This place is expanding and it's pushing out the clubhouse mentality of people who quite honestly act like dickheads and then wonder why others don't like them.


There are a lot of holes in your theory: 1. this is a classical music forum, not a metal forum and 2. in one of Tapkaara's polls titled "Do You Like Metal?" metal lost and not surprising since this is a *classical music forum*.

As far as the numbers dropping in metal, I can certainly see why. Metal isn't a serious music with any artistic merit.


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## bdelykleon (May 21, 2009)

Well, don't be that sad, this is a global trend of everything, take a look, there is no diminishing of the interest in metal, only something related to internet searches (googling less since the popularity of say wikipedia?):
Classical Music:









Demosthenes, the great Athenian orator:









Austria:









Vaughan Williams:









Jesus Christ:


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## Conservationist (Apr 5, 2007)

Mirror Image said:


> There are a lot of holes in your theory: 1. this is a classical music forum, not a metal forum and 2. in one of Tapkaara's polls titled "Do You Like Metal?" metal lost and not surprising since this is a *classical music forum*.


It's a classical forum WITH A NON-CLASSICAL SECTION.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

Conservationist said:


> It's a classical forum WITH A NON-CLASSICAL SECTION.


Absolutely Correct!! Give that man a cigar

From the forum main page under Non-Classical:
"Rock, hip-hop, pop, metal? *Any* non-classical genre music discussion."

[red and bold emphasis mine]

Bottom line, this discussion IS being made within the forum guidelines. 'Nuf said!!




Mirror Image said:


> . . . 1. this is a classical music forum, not a metal forum and . . .


Yes, it is a classical music forum *WITH a place designated for Non-Classical discussions*. The Metal threads, which_* are*_ "Non-Classical" discussions, can, and *will continue* to be freely discussed in this forum area.

PERIOD!!


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## Rondo (Jul 11, 2007)

Wow. These trends are pretty interesting. I did a search for "Beethoven" and found a trend not very dissimilar to most of those posted so far (downward slope, with intermittent 'peaks'). It seems, obviously, the news stories are playing a major role in many of these patterns. As far as this being a _reliable_ indicator of public interest...eh.


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## bdelykleon (May 21, 2009)

Rondo said:


> Wow. These trends are pretty interesting. I did a search for "Beethoven" and found a trend not very dissimilar to most of those posted so far (downward slope, with intermittent 'peaks'). It seems, obviously, the news stories are playing a major role in many of these patterns. As far as this being a _reliable_ indicator of public interest...eh.


Yeah, the trends are interesting in themselves. Look at the Jesus Christ trend, it has a major peak arround easter (and incredibly when the Orthodox easter falls elsewhere it also shows it) and then a minor peak arround Christmas.

The Mozart trend is even more bizarre:









The peak arround Jan. 27th 2006 is so unmistakably clear...

Or the Cristiano Ronaldo trend:









A peak arround the World cup, then a peak arround the Champions league 2007-8 final, then a minor peak when he wins the best player of the world and two major peaks: the UCL final and his transfer to Real Madrid. He fails the donward trend, mostly, I think because before 2004 only football buffs cared about a portuguese youngster.


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## nickgray (Sep 28, 2008)

Rondo said:


> I did a search for "Beethoven" and found a trend not very dissimilar to most of those posted so far (downward slope, with intermittent 'peaks').


I think that Wikipedia plays a major role in this "trend". There's little point in googling Beethoven (or any composer, well, actually, not only composer, but lots of other stuff) and going through 5-6 sites 'til you find a good one. Instead you just go to Wiki and voila! A long article about Ludwig's life, a huge article listing all of his works, and many of these works got a dedicated article for them. Really, much easier and productive than going to Google.


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## Rondo (Jul 11, 2007)

What would be interesting is to find a search trend which is not so heavily correlated with the news. Going by those listed so far, "Classical music" (which is a very broad topic) shows different patterns for searching and for news. "Vaughan Williams" is also interesting (funny you should choose that particular composer).

Going back to the topic at hand....

*@ Conservationist:* Did you try doing a search for the names of popular metal bands? That may lead to some different results. Fewer and fewer people may be searching for "metal" or "death metal," etc... but more may be searching for information about a particular band. However, that's only a speculation. Typing in a complete genre of music (metal or classical) may be too broad to get any results that are really meaningful, especially considering the number of _related_ words out there.


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## Conservationist (Apr 5, 2007)

Rondo said:


> Did you try doing a search for the names of popular metal bands?


The really popular metal bands rarely stay that way for long, except the big names like Slayer, Motorhead, Black Sabbath, etc., and many of them have moved into a rock audience and changed their music to reflect that.

Searches for popular underground death metal bands show the same falling, EXCEPT the old school bands (in both spirit and origin).


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## Mrs Amys Music (Jul 30, 2009)

After I read this post, I asked some intellectual metal followers if they thought that maybe in general metal fans tastes were shifting due to the google analytics results------just a note------never ask that question. I'm still trying to make my way back into their good graces. Yikes!


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## Conservationist (Apr 5, 2007)

Mrs Amys Music said:


> After I read this post, I asked some intellectual metal followers if they thought that maybe in general metal fans tastes were shifting due to the google analytics results------just a note------never ask that question. I'm still trying to make my way back into their good graces. Yikes!


That's odd -- not too many people got pissed at me for saying it. Was it defensiveness, or outrage at Google? I've noticed some people are starting to hate Google now in the same way they'd hate Microsoft or Apple.


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## mindsmoothie (Aug 5, 2009)

Wait, are you implying that old-school black metal is good? On a classical music forum? XD

And maybe interest in classical is also falling, explaining the loss of members in the forum.


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## Conservationist (Apr 5, 2007)

mindsmoothie said:


> Wait, are you implying that old-school black metal is good? On a classical music forum? XD
> 
> And maybe interest in classical is also falling, explaining the loss of members in the forum.


I think we're in the middle of a cultural shift so vast that it will be hard to recognize for some time.

On the contrary, I think classical listenership, as well as old school black metal and death metal listenership, is rising.

However, I think these people are less likely to spend time on the social TV network that is the intertard these days


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