Metal Reviews

Just a thought experiment.

Certainly worth a try!

I do keep an eye on the place and clean up bots etc, but have been carried along with the snowball though. I think it is a trend re forums becoming outdated, however. It's not metal's fault especially; my interest in metal has always waxed and waned, just coming out of a waning now and more in a mood to write and discover metal when a week or two ago I barely cared. I know the forum has gone through quiet periods, but this does seem the longest and most significant - sites that seem to be doing well atm are the blog-gier type ones like Invisible Oranges and Angry Metal Guy that are easily shareable on Twitter, Facebook etc, and that offer links to music and interesting thought pieces, and so on. MR lacks even 'tweet this' buttons, sadly...

It could be a phase but that seems unlikely given forums I'm on for a variety of subjects not just metal seem to be dying out. With the popularity of facebook and twitter plus other social media websites it would seem the notion of a forum is somewhat lost or outdated.

I've been posting less because nothing ever seems to be happening around here. Seems a bit pointless to post something when you're probably never going to have anyone comment back.

Duly noted from both of you on the social media thing, but I also recall trapt mentioning how little actual discussion goes on at those places. People just seem to like something or dislike it, without expecting any further discussion.

I lurked a bit over at metal-archives forum, and well, I guess people still talk there. But the discussions tend to devolve into "poster X is a poser/hipster because he likes band Y but hasn't heard of band Z". Those arguments never were that interesting, and seem way less interesting now that I'm older. And I bet a lot of you feel the same way. Since most of us (I know you are an exception RO) have known each other for years, from the idiosyncrasies of our personalities to our individual music taste, there is a feeling that everything has already been said and debated before.

I listed my own waning period of interest in metal/music as my reason for not posting here much anymore, but it is really a combination of a bunch of reasons.

I'm just not as passionate about metal as I once was and that's a shame but it's how I feel. As you can see by my registration date and post count, I never was a big poster anyway... but it was also easier back in the day to find something you wanted to talk about because of how popular the forum was relative to now. So I guess you could say it's a combination of things, but mostly it's just me not having that same fire anymore.

The place has been dead for months. Go to the reviews and hardly anyone discusses what's been reviewed.

Because it's been quiet here I don't post much.

I still check in everyday, there's just nothing going on so I have nothing to say. Not that I was ever taken too seriously anyway, but still...

Remember when we had that popularity contest a few years back and I was voted the most serious behind Holy_Terror. I'm the second most serious person here? Ha. Made me laugh then, still does now.

Less interested in metal so I come for the community. More into jazz, literature, opera, and fashion when it comes to talking about things these days. I still prefer forums to blogs (they're more communal rather than comments on one person or a staff's pieces) or facebook (the community is united around a shared interest).

You, the 2nd most serious!? Hah, indeed.

People like Tompa and Thy Serpent (whom also posted earlier today) were the real lifeblood of the forum, in my opinion. They were more numerous than forum personalities like the rest of us, but they still checked in consistently and regularly commented, mainly on the reviews. It seems like the disappearance of those regular music driven commentators is the real sign of the 'forum as dinosaur' times.

I guess the question is if this trend is reversible, or if it is past reversing, or if we even really care enough to want to reverse it. It does feel pretty weird to have spent the better half of a decade with most of you as fellow forum contributors and have that connection die a slow death. Perhaps the changes in online communication and the changes of our stages in life do make it irreversible. I'm not sure.

People turn out to be fucking faggots and quit listening to metal like noodles.

I don't really post that much because no one really posts about metal I'm into or we just re-hash the same old bullshit.

I still listen to metal all of the time and hit up shows pretty often but if you're honestly going out to jazz and opera shows while knitting with your hipster girlfriend you can kindly fuck off.

But does it really matter what noodles is into? He's been around since the beginning, and thus he's a part of forum history.

But yes I agree with you about 'rehashing the same bullshit' no need for more of that.

Seeing "husker" making fun of noodles brings back memories.

I do miss what this place used to be, but I'm not sure it can be replicated elsewhere - if I added you all on Facebook and posted on there about metal, for example. Posting more here to save the place does seem like a thing worth trying, but I haven't really been a prolific poster for ages. Best thing would probably be if the site format changed to something a bit more up to date...

I'll try and do my part to keep this place active. Might be able to get some new discussions going.

I'd even consider a twitter account if integrating it was one of your modernization plans. A huge sacrifice!

I have just been busy. I never fire my laptop up, unless to watch the baseball game. And then it is usually turned off immediately after that. Damn phone provides all of my internet needs. As school starts and I'm on my laptop more, I'll inevitably post more.

The problem is the lack of discussion of music. I know what everyone likes and I know what I like so the need for chatting about it isn't there. I write reviews that no one comments on, mainly the bands that I listen to these days. I don't really listen to much music these days that I don't know going in that I will love.

music wise i don't hear enough new (to me) stuff to contribute here... and to be honest i don't think i've added a new "favourite band" (like, must-follow act) in ages...

also, like, when i first joined the forum was getting into metal and it wasn't so easy to read about and hear new stuff, so many discussions were about opinions and recommendations and feedback. i think that now with youtube, bandcamp, spotify and the like, you barely talk to other people when looking for stuff.

the topic itself is fairly narrow (the most active metal posting i do is on a portuguese generalist forum with a single, very active, metal thread).

i admit though, i much prefer a forum format than some blog with one Writer and a bunch of Commentators.

what can we do to make it more lively? more people, it's the only way. blogs like angrymetalguy, nocleansinging, metal sucks, etc. seem really popular... do people really prefer that format to this?

maybe a more blog-ish format for content publication (news, reviews, etc.) with the forum format for discussion (of both published items and other stuff, as we do now) would be better.

Which would entail what? Us lagging our updates over time rather than one Monday update a week?

More people, and more of us posting more often. There have been more posts today than there were in weeks, we just need to keep this up. And maybe I should take over the news again... Hm.

NFH, I did actually start an MR twitter account a while ago but haven't done much with it, should change that...

a single feed, for one thing, is what all those websites seem to have in common. it seems disorganised, but with tags you can find what you want. and daily updates do help more than weekly ones, even if they are less (i.e. one review per day vs 6 or 7 on Mondays). fusing news, review and general metal update feeds would help create more content for publishing each day. ask yourself, how many websites do you check on a regular, weekly basis? again not just a weekly, but a regular weekly basis. i don't check one. but i do check quite a few on a regular, daily basis.

instead of a comment section which strongly highlights the Writer's input over the others, as with our 'rivals', though, i much prefer this system, with each review/news piece carrying a link to a wider forum. because popular as they are, none of those other websites carry even a fraction of this website's sense of community, i feel.

then again, Blabbermouth back in the day carried this blog-ish format and many 'regulars' often talked back and recognised eachother... just the conversations were limited to the topic at hand. but Blabbermouth was one of the very first of its kind.

this website certainly has NCS and AMG beat in terms of the depth of the archive, it's about getting more people in.

by the way, googling 'metal reviews' yields this website at the top of the results, but googling specific album reviews you don't even find MR on the first page. some SEO work is also in order. also, i think it's related to a change in the way you feel about information availability, back in the day just metal reviews were hard to come about (for me), so one would google 'metal reviews', these days there's so much stuff out there that when you google for reviews, it's usually for a specific band/album review.

in terms of pure helpfulness/functionality, on the review page, it would be better to post embed youtube/bandcamp/whatever content than to link it, although i don't know to what extent that's allowed by this website's coding. as a lazy 21st century metal fan, i much prefer that to a new tab/window, which is the MR-imposed alternative.

finally, hate the new layout. who's with me on this? i've been using the old one all this time. you should impose your changes, like Facebook does. either way both layouts look too 'early internet' for me.