EphemeralEternity: How do you see metal evolving in the 2020s?

ArsMoriendi 03.27.22	Didn't rock die in like 2010, including all its subgenres
zaruyache 03.27.22	there's gonna be more cowboy-oriented black metal for a little bit, that's already started (unless it fizzles out rn). I'm hoping the indie bm guys just take blackgaze into surf rock.
GhandhiLion 03.27.22	I can't see where it will evolve. @ars No
GhandhiLion 03.27.22	Perhaps more polystylism recordkings, like those from Brii. As for general trends I have no idea. Dissonant metal has been a healthy meta for quite a while.
kevbogz 03.27.22	add bosse de nage's all fours to the list my brother what a great question. it's difficult to say if something's gonna have an impression on metal like blackgaze. i agree with zaru that bands following suit with wayfarer are gonna be more on the rise, but i think what has the highest possibility of becoming oversaturated and popularized is rap artists dipping their toes into extreme metal/rap extreme hybrids. i don't have many examples, but ghostemane has two eps that are strictly -core/grind, etc, and i think someone with that platform, esp with the cringey fanbase he has, can easily hook line n sink. oh, also SOUL GLO outta philly. fast hxc punk/skramz/pv with H.R. styled vocals that has a lot of rap influence and a handful of rap songs
kevbogz 03.27.22	i know it's not the same genre, but MGK is another crossover example
Cimnele 03.27.22	wanna hear more about metal bands who reincorporate interesting funkier beats without tipping into nu-metal. pretty sure we're hitting the horizon on how meatheaded a drummer can be
el_newg 03.27.22	you have to trade it while holding a metal coat
MO 03.27.22	It won't. It's stagnated since the djent craze and nothing has really been introduced besides going super dooper fast!1 ala infant annihilator or that other shitty Russian band
GhandhiLion 03.27.22	lol
CottonSalad 03.27.22	Ulcerate. Portal. Then someone finally capitalizing on all the questions Blut Aus Nord has asked to varying degrees of success (the most interesting ones being partial flops...) - maybe his new one will help. Somewhere along the way we'll get back to Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music. Otherwise, I dunno...waiting for a good metal collab with Tim Hecker tbh
IsisScript80 03.27.22	The longer a musical style exists, the less likely innovation is going to happen. There’s only so many combinations of tempos, notes, barks, growls, screams etc. that can be made before it all gets covered in the end. Probably more genre fusion, till that all gets dried up.
DavidYowi 03.27.22	wanna hear more about metal bands who reincorporate interesting funkier beats without tipping into nu-metal. [2] I think the way metal "evolves" in the same way most music does is that it katamari's its way over different subgenres and tries to arrange its influences in a way that no one has really heard before
CottonSalad 03.27.22	lol "katamari's its way" - yes please.
AlexKzillion 03.27.22	Kinda hard to answer in terms of "underground" stuff but I think in popular culture trap metal could potentially be huge at some point this decade. There's already tons of artists doing that sound, just needs that one viral hit to get the masses attention.
TheNotrap 03.27.22	Interesting topic. It will continue the hybrid approach of the past decade, at least during the first half. Hopefully the second will bring some stylistic surprises, especially in extreme metal, which will remain the most relevant genre.
IsisScript80 03.27.22	It’d be interesting to see if anything at this stage could have traction to transcend “gimmick” and actually bring something new of substance to a 50+ year-old mainline genre.
Pikazilla 03.27.22	Metal is dead tbf, evolution-wise. The last "big" iteration was djent and we all know how badly that went.
Sinternet 03.27.22	lotta war metal revival atm that and black metal that takes from non-european folk and traditional music, such as all the native american black metal bands popping up
TheNotrap 03.27.22	That’s a good call. Regarding the former, do you think it is due to the invasion of Ukraine?
Egarran 03.27.22	All we know is it's gonna be good. Nothing boosts metal like some good global crises.
hangth3dj 03.27.22	Blackened nu metal.
IsisScript80 03.27.22	Future innovation—Metal sub-genre generator: Open dictionary, select a random prefix (noun, adjective)… [ ] Metal. Make music to fit.
twlight 03.27.22	I think we'll see metal become more "blackened". It seems that black metal is gaining more traction in general and I think people will stop being scared of blast beats and dissonance in the coming years
Hyperion1001 03.27.22	nu-metal revival is coming get ready
Gnocchi 03.27.22	I want to see where Atmo black metal is going to go. There's a lot of bands riding the wave at the top of the genre - but they've kind of plateaued[?] They can't just throw "more atmosphere" into the mix, but they've more-or-less stopped evolving.
Gnocchi 03.27.22	-wanna hear more about metal bands who reincorporate interesting funkier beats without tipping into nu-metal. [2]- Just jam some early Skindred and be happy.
Pikazilla 03.27.22	nu metal should've stayed dead tbh
budgie 03.27.22	metal evolved from black sabbath to kodama and then abruptly died
Egarran 03.27.22	Hippie bm is on the rise
Pikazilla 03.27.22	examples?
budgie 03.27.22	i dont want to be involved with anything that has hippie as a descriptor
porcupinetheater 03.27.22	death metal will get so old school that it won't exist
budgie 03.27.22	death metal is just thrash metal for virgins
Pikazilla 03.27.22	thrash metal is just heavy metal for virgins
budgie 03.27.22	no thrash metal is heavy metal for alcoholics
Hyperion1001 03.27.22	i have personally known 3 alcoholics who own judas priest t-shirts so i will refute your claim sir
Hyperion1001 03.27.22	"death metal will get so old school that it won't exist" ive been waiting for the inevitable band who releases a demo that has 200 wishlists on discogs and literally no one can find it. a metal archives holy grail if you will.
porcupinetheater 03.27.22	Priest on the shoulders, Destruction in the ears Can't upgrade the wardrobe, that money's gotta go to the liquor
Pikazilla 03.27.22	yeah and hello kitty on the crotch
porcupinetheater 03.27.22	Parallel evolution
porcupinetheater 03.28.22	"ive been waiting for the inevitable band who releases a demo that has 200 wishlists on discogs and literally no one can find it." The line between hyper brutal underground and social media influencer is getting thinner by the hour
Senetrix666 03.28.22	prolly yet another decade where CoL dominates the post metal scene
tectactoe 03.28.22	bro Hunter Hearst Helmsley wrote an entire book on this already
SitarHero 03.28.22	"I'm hoping the indie bm guys just take blackgaze into surf rock." Isn't black metal already just surf rock with worse production?
SitarHero 03.28.22	The real evolution is probably Machine Gun Kelly switching from Blink-182 influenced pop-punk to Pantera-influenced groove metal, and thereby reviving it in the mainstream while completely alienating sputnikmusic.com
zaruyache 03.28.22	yeah but i want to see them actually do indie bm surf rock, not just spooky "vaguely surf rock with blast beats."
budgie 03.28.22	pls stop putting ideas out into the world
SitarHero 03.28.22	Never! I want to watch it all BUURRRNNNN!
Itwasthatwas 03.28.22	Am I just getting old or is metal also way less popular than it used to be? I see way less random references in mainstream pop culture and movies for example. I remember when I was younger and it was like an international brotherhood where I was traveling around the world and would see someone in a band shirt in a cafe or on the street or whatever and would be able to have a great conversation with them. I’m way aged out of wearing band shirts but I don’t really see young people who are either, or ever really hear about metal unless I deliberately seek it out. Whenever I do seek it out, people want to talk about the same bands we were all talking about in the 00s
IsisScript80 03.28.22	^ I don’t think it’s about getting old as such, more like pop culture is massively disseminated through the internet. The way we consume things is remarkably different now, and the idea of “influencer” or “YouTube famous” is a thing where randoms who wouldn’t be considered household names, could have a dedicated following of over a million people and several million more just watching/listening to their shit. It’s very much moved away from record labels and such, controlling output and directly governing who is popular; this I believe, is the reason why genuinely famous celebrities that still get massive press coverage are now in their mid-50s—a legacy holdover from that time, in what was a mass culture of promoting and venerating youth. Attention spans and focus is just very nebulous and it’s very rare that any one thing gets significant cultural traction in the way it used to.
Egarran 03.28.22	Yeah sometimes I look for some obscure BM on youtube only to see it has 300.000 views. So not less popular, but less visible. Nobody is wearing battle jackets anymore. But this will obv change under a new cold war.
TheSpirit 03.28.22	this is a great prompt. as far as i can tell, it's evolving by attaching itself to even fringier genres and sounds.
nightbringer 03.28.22	I dunno, might be cool to see metal play around with satanic themes or negative feelings.
Cygnatti 03.28.22	I don’t
Cygnatti 03.28.22	Would be down wit some indie surf bm 🤔
Groundking 03.28.22	@itwasthatwas It's because there's fuck all happening to get kids into imo, it's been a long time since the mid 2000s metalcore/scene kids phase which was the last movement that got young people down the rabbit hole. Who do we have left advancing the gateway into metal now? Bring Me? People saying that there's good stuff going on in Black Metal means nothing when Black Metal may as well be the bottom of the hole and most normie metalheads aren't going to discover it. EDIT: FWIW I think a LOT of genre's are struggling for new directions right now, rock has done nothing for years and many electronic genres are riding on the same tropes that got them traction in the early 2000s (particularly dnb)
DavidYowi 03.28.22	“Who do we have left advancing the gateway into metal now? Bring Me?” I’d say the big gateway bands nowadays are the more hardcore oriented metal bands like Knocked Loose and Code Orange. Like them or not they’re arguably in the best position for it considering they’re opening for like Gojira and Korn. Like I bought a Knocked Loose shirt at a Hot Topic, it’s kind of already happening
Meridiu5 03.28.22	Don anderson gave a pretty good lecture on youtube - basically said that because of the internet nothing is original anymore. Each band brings its own personality and level of skill, but everything is just a fusion of your favorite band’s styles now. I expect maybe more stripped down, live tailored bands maybe. But who knows
budgie 03.28.22	the internet ruined the world
Sinternet 03.28.22	"many electronic genres are riding on the same tropes that got them traction in the early 2000s (particularly dnb)" this is just not true though? electronic music as a whole gets way more experimental and boundary-pushing by the year
Ryus 03.28.22	"FWIW I think a LOT of genre's are struggling for new directions right now, rock has done nothing for years and many electronic genres are riding on the same tropes that got them traction in the early 2000s (particularly dnb)" this is not really true tbh, tons of new subgenres and ideas cropping up these last few years edit: sniped by sint
Cygnatti 03.28.22	Electronic has been doing a lot of new things recently yea Rock sux atm rip
ItsTheSquirrel 03.28.22	Gerard Way is gonna drop an emo black metal album and it'll become the new Sunbather
z00sh 03.28.22	i'd be down for some grindgaze tbqh
chemicalmarriage 03.29.22	Hopefully there is some young kid out there who has the talent and doesnt care about trends, just plays some true shit that's badass and from the fuckin heart that slays hard. Then hopefully that person meets 3 or 4 other people with the same mindset so I can sit back and critique them on their music lol
JeremiahBullfrog 03.29.22	more and more of the "post" stuff unfortunately.
Janster 03.29.22	Subgenres of metal still to be discovered? I have some in my head, but SERIOUSLY. There's infinite novelty in the universe. The computer age just started and you think we've done every style of meyal instead of music evolving forever as everything does. I don't know who you are chilling with that have growth that stunted.
naughtcturnal 03.30.22	AI-generated trap/progressive grindcore/post-punk edit: also waiting for someone to create depressive suicidal power metal
Egarran 03.30.22	We need more all-female death metal bands. This could be their year.
TheSonomaDude 03.30.22	it'll basically be imagine dragons but brutal
Egarran 03.30.22	There is a definite niche for militant feminism in metal.
wham49 03.30.22	I see bands getting really big hair, then start wearing pink and purple spandex and lingerie and then play really bad songs with terrible musicianship
EphemeralEternity 04.11.22	Well that was certainly an interesting note to end the discussion on. I know it's easier to critique than create but I hope we get the well-executed genre hybrids we deserve this decade I also just realised that my city has no hard rock or metal oriented festivals as it did in the 00's and early 10's and my younger cousins haven't even heard any metal, so perhaps it has gone dormant.