My answer to the question from the title, asked on Reddit
A Redditor with the username “unknownuser383” asked the question “Are new(not nu) metal bands/music as popular nowadays as opposed to back then?”. They then went on to say that they’d been watching documentaries and wished they were there back in the “90’s – 00’s”, also saying “(ik Woodstock 99′ was a disaster, but I kinda wish i was there front row watching Korns set)”.
As someone who got into Metal in the late 80’s and never got out of it, I had some wisdom to impart…
The new bands/music never really get a chance to be as big, thanks to the fracturing of the scene back in the early 2000’s, just after the period you’re talking about, at least partially due to the advent of the broadband internet. It increased choice of how someone found out about bands, but it also focussed it, thanks to algorithms.
Speaking from personal experience as an example, back in the 80’s and 90’s, here in the UK there were two radio shows on national radio (the Friday and Saturday Rock Shows), a handful of magazines (including Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, RAW) and one single 1 hour TV show at something like 2:30am, shown in some regions.
That was it for mass media.
Everything else was done by groups of fans buying CDs, vinyl and cassettes and going to nights at venues and pubs like (in my area) Bradford Rios, Bogey’s in Huddersfield, The Black Tulip and later, The Old Turk (where I DJ’d for a while on a Friday and then Saturday night) in Dewsbury and a few others.
What happened was that people at the time had wider tastes than they do now because they were exposed to more different bands and styles of Metal. With the algorithms guiding what we see on social media, the cancellation (worldwide) of the TV shows, radio shows (entire stations in the US… you were lucky bastards!) and the closing of magazines in favour of websites that only catered to a specific audience who listened to a specific subgenre. That also gives power to the terminally online “that’s not metal” brigade. In a venue, they could be ignored, since there would only be a few of them in a corner, sneering. In a magazine letter column, their letters wouldn’t get printed since they’re a small minority, but in a web forum or in social media, they can (and do) carpet bomb and attack anyone who disagrees, which drives people away, increasing the fracturing.
It also didn’t help that the venues were closing. Rios became an Indian wedding venue (as if there weren’t already loads of those in and around Bradford) because the owners of the building were made an offer they couldn’t refuse. Other venues had their buildings bought out from under them by property developers for the likes of student housing, or were closed because of noise complaints from people who moved into the luxury flats next door because they couldn’t afford the level of soundproofing required (or some local councillor received a backhander the developer).
A longstanding problem in the live scene is that people aren’t going out as much anymore, and would rather go see a tribute or cover band for free than pay a small amount to see a new band.
So unless things change, it’s pretty unlikely that any new bands will scale the heights of the likes of Iron Maiden, Metallica or Ozzy Osbourne, headlining arenas across the world. Sadly, Korn and Slipknot are probably among the last that will manage it.
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