Best decade for heavy metal.

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From it's humble beginnings in 1968 to it's dominance through the 80's, heavy metal has stood the test of time and is still going strong. Which is your favourite decade for metal?

For me, it would have to be the 80's. You had the emergence of the NWOBHM in Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, Venom leading the early black metal charge, Metallica starting out as a little-known thrash band, and most of all, the moral guardians outraged at the subject matter of bands like W.A.S.P and others.

Easily the late 90's to the present after a quick look at my library. Allot of great avant-garde metal, and quality bands in general.

can't really pin down a specific decade as the best. Each one had its good ones and pure s**t.

80s for sure. Then again, pretty much the only metal I like is 80s glam metal and power metal.

You're all wrong, but it's understandable. You've all probably never really heard the REAL roots of all metal, except for Sabbath, Zeppelin, and MAYBE, just MAYBE, MC5.

Metal from the eighties on did nothing but become commercialized, over-structured, formulated, and "dumbed down."

NOTHING that came later was anywhere near as innovative and fresh as what I used to find in the cut out bins during the seventies. Yeah, there were a lot of bad crap out there too, but for a dollar (expensive) or less (I bought a lot of albums in perfect condition for 25 cents), it was well worth the exploring and weeding through the bad stuff, because I ended up discovering tons of incredible music I'd never heard of before, that not too many people know of today.

Captain Beyond
Armageddon
Cactus
(early) Judas Priest
(early) Scorpions (pre-Tokyo Tapes)
UFO


...and many, many others, you may or may not have heard of. Nothing that came later compares to what was being produced, but not selling well back then. And the only reason it didn't sell well was because radio stations wouldn't play it. Today, you can find almost anything being played somewhere. There's far more stations and online resources to find what's coming out now than there was back then. Consumer access is far better today with online downloads and band web sites.

The eighties may have been the golden decade as far as metal becoming more accepted by the mainstream, and selling far better than ever, but by the Nineties, it all started to sound like someone had dumped various metal styles into blenders. I can't think of one single band in the Nineties that didn't sound like at least twenty or more other bands style-wise. The second a band would come out with a unique style on the radio, suddenly there were a plethora of other bands coming out of the wood word that sounded JUST like them. I have heard SOME good stuff during the last decade, but none of it really strikes me with the "wow factor" I used to hear regularly. It's not just nostalgia either. I've met many others, my own age, AND people not old enough to have heard it all when it came out, but managed to discover it later, who agree whole-heartedly.

Nothing will EVER compare to the newness of everything, the many unique styles, and the unbelievably and truly NEW sounds that kept popping up month after month, not just in metal, but in all of rock during the Seventies.

I'm not really a metal person. I prefer 70s metal as it's still rooted in hard rock.

80's hair bands and thrash metal - not really my thing
90's - 00's death/black metal - don't like inhuman sounding growled vocals

Honestly I cannot say I have a favorite metal decade......I would say the 60's is my favorite music decade because I really like all the psychedelic rock and the fact metal was born in the 60's. But yeah there has been lots of very great metal in every decade since the 60's and beyond even today there is some amazing metal but now you have new bands playing older styles or combining older styles with new styles.

Like there are some modern doom metal bands that sound simular to bands like Black Sabbath and Pentagram.

Sepultura peaking the 90s. Napalm Death. Primus. Godflesh. For me it was the 90s.

Sorry MrXxx, i'm going to have to disagree with you. Has it slipped your mind that the short-lived punk rock movement was seen as a real counterculture to the bloated dinosaurs of some rock music in the mid to late 70's? Do you remember KISS releasing the disco-infused turkey called "I was Made for Lovin' You" which nearly killed off metal altogether? Guess not.....

As for early Judas Priest, i have heard some of their old stuff and Rob Halford was nothing more than a long-haired hippy. Needless to say, the leather and studs look definitely put the band on the right path when Killing Machine was released.

Metal has been evolving since it started, the 80's was the golden age. The 90's saw grunge kill off hair-metal completely, but you still had the likes of Pantera, Machine Head and White Zombie keeping the genre alive in the states, along with death metal in the underground and the Norwegian black metal scene as well. The UK introduced grindcore pioneers Napalm Death and the death/doom fusion of Paradise Lost and My Dying Bride, and the power metal scene in Europe continues to grow, so it's not all bad.

There's some good metal around these days too, just got to look hard enough.

Nope. I disagree. And you missed my point about the seventies. I wasn't talking at all about the bloated dinosaurs. Read the list. None of them were dinosaurs, other than the two that became dinosaurs AFTER their early days. I didn't like any of their crap after they became huge.

I'm talking about the true roots of metal. A lot of bands most people have never ever heard of. Many of them could be seen mentioned on the shirts worn by acts in the eighties. Metal was a totally different animal then. It was far more creative, far less formulated, and far less geared toward radio play. None of the bands I'm thinking of (I'm not going to list them all), cared one bit about getting on the radio. It was pure, it was rough, it was highly creative, with less "rules" and far more unexpected stuff happening.

By the eighties, it had nearly all become formulated, shortened for radio, and predictable, or had taken a sharp turn away from its true roots (which were actually more firmly rooted in jazz, which the vast majority of metal fans don't even seem to realize).

Of course it's all a matter of taste.

BTW: I've never, ever considered KISS a metal band. To me, they were never anything more than a loud, hard rocking Rock and Roll act, but never "metal."

As far as Punk being "seen" as counter-culture to dinosaur bands, I've never bought into that story, but have always dismissed it as a made up fairy-tale written by the music industry's own media machine to infuse the music with credibility and sell records. (That didn't work out so well at first.) As far as I am concerned, Punk came out of nothing more complicated than a bunch of "musicians" who couldn't play more than a few chords, and weren't interested in learning anything more than that. The idea was to play it louder and faster than anyone else, but to dispense with technicalities and virtuoso musicianship in favor of writing music and songs that any dip stick like myself could play anywhere, any time, with little to no learning curve. I do admit though, that Punk did develop into much more than that once some actual musicians with a bit more playing ability jumped into the game.

Don't get me wrong. I like punk. Some of it anyway. In fact, truth be told, I consider the music I write and play to be "Punk" in spirit, for the very same reasons I believe Punk came to be in the first place. It's so easy to play, almost anyone who's learned to play a few chords within the last six months could probably play it. Sound-wise though, it doesn't fit the popular conception of Punk, so I usually just call it Rock, or "Other."

80s. Things were GREAT back then. The Cold War was still going strong. Metal bands were still partying in LA and Hollywood. People still SMILED. We had fun. And there were one or two good grunge bands from Seattle.

And then there was Nirvana. Kurt Cobain. Life sucked and we all wanted to kill ourselves. People at least just started cutting themselves, since if the killed themselves they'd still be cool, but then they wouldn't be around to enjoy it. And then, like a bunch of idiots, EVERYONE started wearing flannel. Even in the deep south where I'm from, in the middle of summer, wearing long-sleeved flannel. What's friggin WRONG with you???

Anyway...

I just got so sick of people being all depressed all the time, and it was directly related to the music. There really was no in-between. You were either suicidal or completely vacant back in the 90s. And I mean it really came down to Nirvana (who else was there?) and boy-bands like N-Stink, Backstreet Ho's, and a few others. It was an utterly forgettable decade.

A lot of the 80s sound has really come back, too. For a long time I didn't like Nickelback, but then after a while they started sounding like Metallica, only with a click track. And yes, I'm aware that Metallica/Nickelback is sad, depressing music, but at least they rock! Everyone else just sounds like they're on their way to the methadone clinic after watching the latest episode of "My So-Called Life." Meanwhile, I'm at a party drinking Jack from the bottle and headbanging to Van Hagar.

You know, as much as music has seemed to improve in the last decade, I have to wonder when they're going to bring back epic guitar breaks. Maybe when they bring back epic guitar PLAYERS? I dunno... I saw that there's now a console game that actually teaches you to play a real electric guitar. Maybe we're not so far off from truly good music coming back to the mainstream.

[OK, I recognize that there are some exceptions, such as Orianthe, but she's far from the norm in today's top 40 radio. But if people can learn to do that kind of thing by playing video games, it's only a matter of time before it comes back into fashion. I've really given up mainstream radio in favor of CCM, ambient electronica, and New Age. Maybe the 80s sound will come back in a big way some day. And then, maybe, MTV will actually start showing videos again. lol Maybe. But I'm not holding my breath.]

Nickelback are not even remotely metal, they are horrible MTV-appearance driven poser rock. When grunge killed off hair metal and did serious damage to others, death and black metal remained strong in the underground.

Poser? Oh please... If you want to go there, then I'll have to add that ALL of it, even the hair bands back in the 80s, are commercialized music and gimmicky. A lot of people abandoned Metallica when they updated their style. So much for loyalty. There's nothing wrong with changing with the times, but new Metallica and old Metallica are not fundamentally different. Nickelback represents a mild shift in style.

There are a FEW recent groups I can tolerate and even enjoy. Linkin Park is one of those, and I generally like nu-metal. As long as commercialized groups exist, they'll all be posers in some sense. You might as well say G'N'R are wannabe Led Zepp sellouts.

If you say black/death underground is the only "true" metal, then I say you're a hypocrite. I'm not trying to be a db about it, just calling it like I see it.

And it's not dead, anyway. You just have to move to Japan or Sweden.

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Guess i'm mistaken, AGAIN. I have nothing against nu-metal or Linkin Park for that matter. And it's true, Nickelback are terrible and nowhere near metal. And death metal's name is now associated with the pig squealing deathcore bands. For me it's traditional/thrash/death/black/doom/progressive/neo-classical and power as the best metal genres.

Nickelback are on the wrong end of the spectrum, just saying.....

LexingtonDeville, Do you like Carlos Santana?