Greetings and felicitation, children of technology!
We have something good to announce - going forward, we're focusing our efforts on only the good metal bands.
We have grown the database to 128k bands, 362k albums, 680k artists, 34k labels, and 102k reviews, thanks to contributions from 85k users. We have adapted our rules to accept digital releases, which are being released at a faster rate than ever. What hasn't changed much is the size of our staff, who have been listening to every single band we accept, assessing every genre we list, and overseeing the whole operation. We are tremendously proud of our work, but we're all getting burned out. The greatest challenge in moderating the site is that the majority of bands on the site are, well... not good.
We, the staff, have decided that we're not going to give up on what we love, but we're going to give up on what we don't like. The current staff have started to curate Encyclopaedia Bonum Metallum: The Good Metal Archives. In this day and age, we're finally comfortable coming out as elitists. We're sick of accepting metalcore bands because they stole enough In Flames riffs. We're sick of In Flames, too, so we've reverted their discography to how it was when the site started, back in 2002. We're cutting off some classic bands when they should've cut themelves off, like Metallica and Slayer. We've got a blanket exclusion on bands with tribal tattoos, white guy dreadlocks, and oiled beards.
We debated how to manage the existing site, and we found the answer from the same place which killed our passion for running it - artificial intelligence. We discovered a series of atmospheric black metal albums that were made by neural networks, which had a fanbase consisting primarily of other robots commenting on YouTube. It felt dehumanizing. We later found some of the code behind it had been made open source on GitHub, and we eventually started working on developing automated assistance for moderating the archives. We also experimented in the potential sabotage of false genres, which led to converting ASCII data from the text of reviews on the archives down to binary, then into synthesized 'djent' music - this project was nixed when the script caused the web server to hang and every song it created sucked. That's not the only type of work we're going to leave to other people, though. The plan is to automate about 95% of current moderator work, while allowing our loyal userbase to continue adding and editing information on their favorite bands, which probably suck.
Encyclopaedia Bonum Metallum will be publicly viewable starting today. Existing non-staff user accounts have been migrated and banned, because we don't want you f*cking this up. Over 500 bands have been migrated, and we are starting to focus our attention on curating the pages and implementing sweeping qualitative improvements on them. At this time the public-facing frontend of the site has been borrowed from the old site, but our agile software development team has made strong improvements on a beta version, and our first six sprints of 2019 have been a learning process, but nonetheless led us to complete our objective of a public release at the end of Q1. We slept on it, we had a meeting this morning, and the site is ready to go.
We still have some work to do on the site, such as removing the no-longer-needed "metalcore/deathcore" section under "browse bands by genre" as well as deleting reviews with incorrect opinions, and making a new logo once we confirm the Latin in the new name is correct. The search still utilizes the old site's database, because we're working on developing a script that redirects you to a calculatedly similar good band when you search for and click on a crappy band (apologies for this feature not being live, but the current beta version redirects every link to the entry for Carnivore, which, while it fits our proselytizing modus operandi, is not by design.)
We are proud to present Encyclopaedia Bonum Metallum: The Good Metal Archives.
"We never ever will die 'cause Heavy Metal is life
And not eternal hell"
-Manilla Road, "Crystal Logic" (RIP Mark Shelton)
FAQs
For the uninitiated, Encyclopaedia Metallum is a webiste that offers quite a good insight on all metal bands from literally all around the world. However, their requirements for what is and isn't metal are rather vague.
What are metal archives? ›
Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives. http://www.metal-archives.com/index.php. “The purpose of this site is to grow the largest and most complete database regarding heavy metal bands as possible.” Each entry contains information regarding various bands, their discographies, members, and links to more information.
What is similar to metal archives? ›
The other five competitors in the top 10 list are darklyrics.com (305.6K visits in March 2024), sputnikmusic.com (1.2M visits in March 2024), blabbermouth.net (5.1M visits in March 2024), bnrmetal.com (48.6K visits in March 2024), and metal-observer.com (12.8K visits in March 2024).
How many bands are in metal archives? ›
Here are a bunch of statistics regarding the site's database, just for fun. Updated daily. There is a total of 178496 approved bands. 98753 are active, 3857 are on hold, 53764 are split-up, 7151 changed name, and the rest (14942 bands) are unknown.
Are encyclopedia sets worth money? ›
Old encyclopedias are attracting collectors primarily for two reasons: scarcity and information. As is the case with all rare books and other collectibles, the more scarce an edition is, the more likely it is to have a bigger spread between supply and demand, and thus the higher the monetary value.
What is the meaning of metallum? ›
METALLUM (μέταλλον). The Greek word bears only the meaning of mine; the Latin means either a mine or its product, mineral or metal.
How do I contact the Metal Archives? ›
If you have any questions or suggestions about our Privacy Policy, do not hesitate to contact us at webmaster@metal-archives.com.
How do you add to your collection on Metal Archive? ›
You can just browse the encyclopedia and click on "add to your collection" for the albums you own. You can also add them to your wanted list for trading purposes.
What is the Djent subgenre of metal? ›
Djent (/dʒɛnt/) is a subgenre of progressive metal, and an onomatopoeia of the guitar sound that characterizes it. Other defining features are its use of complex and heavily syncopated rhythm patterns.
What genre is similar to metal? ›
Grunge. Grunge is a fusion genre of punk rock and heavy metal, with elements of alternative rock, garage rock, noise rock, hardcore punk, hard rock, sludge metal and thrash metal. Grunge typically is characterized by its distorted riffs and angst filled lyric themes such as apathy, social alienation, and freedom.
Pioneers of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, Iron Maiden achieved initial success during the early 1980s.
What is the number 1 metal band in the world? ›
Metallica have been the biggest metal band in the world ever since they released their self titled 5th record in 1991 to universal acclaim.
What are the big 3 metal bands? ›
In the late 1960s, a number of bands began pushing the limits of blues rock into a new genre which would be called heavy metal. In 1981, three of the "Big Four" thrash metal bands emerged (Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax), to be joined on the scene in 1983 by Megadeth.
Who were the Big 4 metal bands? ›
The genre was commercially successful during the mid-to-late 1980s and early 1990s, with the "Big Four" of thrash metal – Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax – being joined by Exodus, Overkill and Testament, as well as Brazil's Sepultura and the "Big Four" of German thrash metal: Kreator, Destruction, Sodom, and ...
Is Encyclopedia com a good source? ›
Encyclopedia.com: Provides reference entries from credible, published sources like Oxford University Press and Columbia Encyclopedia and free access to nearly 200,000 reference entries from sources you can cite.
What is a reputable encyclopedia? ›
Britannica. Highly respected encyclopedia in publication since 1768. Features over 100,000 scholarly articles. britannica.com - Encyclopedia. Catholic Encyclopedia.
Are encyclopedias good? ›
Encyclopedias are considered a scholarly source because the content is almost always written by scholars on the subject. However, the entries are not written for other scholars but for a general audience. Entries are reviewed by an editorial board, but they are not “peer-reviewed”.
