- Encyclopaedia Metallum
-
Encyclopaedia Metallum 
URL http://www.metal-archives.com/ Commercial? No Type of site Music database, reviews Registration Optional Owner Morrigan, Hellblazer Created by Morrigan, Hellblazer Launched July 2002 Alexa rank 8,164 [1] Current status Active Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives (commonly known as Metal Archives per the URL or just MA) is a website which lists bands from various forms of heavy metal music.[2] Encyclopaedia Metallum was described by Matt Sullivan of Nashville Scene as "the Internet's central database for all that is 'tr00' in the metal world."[3] Terrorizer described the site as "a fully-exhaustive list of pretty much every metal band ever, with full discographies, an active forum and an interlinking members list that shows the ever-incestuous beauty of the metal scene".[4] Nevertheless, there are exceptions for bands which fall under disputed genres not accepted by the website.
Encyclopaedia Metallum attempts to provide comprehensive information on each band, such as a discography, logos, pictures, lyrics, line-ups, biography, trivia and user-submitted reviews. The site also provides a system for submitting bands to the archives. As of April 2011, the site had 81,000+ bands listed, 186,000+ releases, 1,350,000+ tracks, 61,000+ reviews and 255,000+ registered users (185,000+ of whom are "currently active").[5] The website is free of advertisements and is run completely independently.
Contents
User interaction
As an incentive to get people to submit data, the site uses a "point" system, in which registered users gain points and move up ranks with the amount and value of data and information they submit. When joining as a member of the site all new members start off with the ranking of "mallcore kid". The more valuable and complete the information, the more points are awarded. Also submitting reviews of band releases is another way to gain points on the site. Typically though, the website offers more points to those who submit info about a band itself. The most points are given to users when actual bands they submit to the site are accepted.
Accepted bands
The site has extremely strict rules, especially those which mandate band submissions. Encyclopaedia Metallum only accepts bands which it deems metal, but many bands that once were rejected were accepted later on, and vice versa. The only exceptions are: side projects of members of metal bands that have a release on a label with worldwide distribution, bands that are no longer considered to be metal but were in the past, and grindcore bands that bear close similarities to death metal.
Traditional heavy metal genres and eras, such as the NWOBHM have stringent rulings; users are warned in the rules section to consider bands submitted under these classifications as "ambiguous", in the sense that if a band is submitted with these terms as their genre, the music will be extensively reviewed by the moderators before they decide whether or not to accept the band onto the website.[6] This is because in the past, some submissions labeled with those genres have turned out not to be metal, according to the site's guidelines. Some bands which are commonly referred to as traditional heavy metal and NWOBHM, such as Def Leppard and Stryper, are on the website due to only one or two of the bands' albums meeting the website's specifications.
Additionally, there are some non-metal bands featured on the site that are considered to be part of the metal scene despite not being metal themselves (usually dark ambient and folk bands, examples being Mortiis, Elend, Nest, :Of The Wand & The Moon:, Autumn Tears, Stille Volk, etc.). These bands are selected by the moderators "in an admittedly arbitrary fashion," and their submission by normal users is discouraged.[7]
Bands excluded by the website
Genres that are sometimes associated with extreme metal, such as grindcore and metalcore, are also absent as they are seen to have more in common with punk than metal. Some grindcore bands are accepted if they are more associated with death metal (e.g. Napalm Death, and Pig Destroyer). Many users believe that metalcore bands have been completely banned from the website since a bulletin was posted that simply stated, "Please stop submitting -core bands. Please."[8] However, this is false; many metalcore bands appear on the archives and many more have been added since the bulletin was posted, but the moderators have become more strict on what metalcore bands can be added and generally work case-by-case rather than saying all, or zero, metalcore bands will be accepted. Glam metal is rejected if the website owners consider the band more hard rock than metal. Industrial metal is only allowed if the site's staff consider it "more metal related than industrial", for example; the band Rammstein is not allowed, while industrial rock pioneers Ministry were accepted in March 2006. Another recent accepted band once blocked by the administration is the industrial group Pitchshifter, based on their first three metal-influenced albums.
Bands that are associated with the nu metal label are completely forbidden and have been since the website started. However, certain bands which are commonly regarded as nu metal were also accepted, if the moderators considered certain albums "metal" enough, what happened with Extrema and Synthetic Breed. This particular loophole was exploited to comedic effect on April Fools' Day 2009 by the site's staff when popular nu metal band Korn was briefly added to the database, whereupon a series of staged arguments between moderators appeared throughout the day on the site's forum.
The site runners have standards which exclude some bands that are considered by some sites (such as Allmusic[9] and others) as founding and definitive heavy metal acts, such as Led Zeppelin and Blue Cheer; the website's runners consider these acts as hard rock. However, there are some websites specializing in rock and metal music that, like Encyclopaedia Metallum, also exclude Led Zeppelin[10] or just mention Led Zeppelin as "hard rock".[11]
In fact, many of what are often viewed as the original 1970s rock / heavy metal bands are missing from the website, such as Blue Öyster Cult, Uriah Heep, Vanilla Fudge, Cactus, Dust, AC/DC, and Van Halen. A small amount of users have questioned these exclusions on the website's message board in the past.[12] On the other hand, other 1970s bands such as Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Scorpions, Sir Lord Baltimore, Rush, Rainbow, Thin Lizzy, Budgie and Pentagram are accepted.
History
The Encyclopaedia Metallum was founded in July 2002 by two Canadians from Montreal using the pseudonyms HellBlazer and Morrigan. They have been interviewed three times about their site. The first interview was given to the now defunct MetalGospel.com site. The second interview was given to the Finnish magazine Miasma during May and June 2005,[13] and the issue was published in mid-October of the year. The last to date was given to the Québécois magazine Arsenic during December 2007, which was published in June 2008.
On 9 April 2011, version 2.0 went online.
See also
Notes
- ^ Encyclopaedia Metallum at Alexa
- ^ Miers, Jeff (June 13, 2008). "Club Chatter". The Buffalo News. http://www.buffalonews.com/entertainment/gusto/story/369201.html. Retrieved 2009-05-05.[dead link]
- ^ Sullivan, Matt (December 22, 2009). "The indie-fication of metal, 2009". Nashville Scene (City Press LLC). http://www.nashvillescene.com/2009-12-24/music/the-indie-fication-of-metal-2009/. Retrieved December 31, 2009.
- ^ "A Decade in Downloading", Terrorizer's Secret History of... the Decade, December 2009
- ^ Encyclopaedia Metallum' statistics
- ^ Websites "rules"... heavy metal/hard rock to be considered "ambiguous"
- ^ Encyclopaedia Metallum's Guidelines
- ^ Encyclopaedia Metallum's news archive
- ^ Allmusicguide.com naming Led Zeppelin "the definitive heavy metal band"
- ^ Metal-rules.com does not cover Led Zeppelin
- ^ MusicMight classifies Led Zeppelin as "hard rock"
- ^ 1970 Heavy metal
- ^ Miasma magazine #10
External links
Categories:- Online encyclopedias
- Online music and lyrics databases
- Heavy metal publications
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