Opinion: A Dirge for Metal Music. Or is it still alive?

A felt every two days or so I hear that Rock and – surely – Metal met their demise. Finally pronounced clinically dead, gone and ashes thrown into the ocean. All of that jazz sacrificed on the altar of those modern pseudo Latino pop and rap sounds that people seem to be so fond of these days.

Those records made for the faceless consumer, comprised of notes devoid of personality, depth or bite. Those that tender to the addicts of notes who do not really care what or who made the tune. Only that the music should suit the listener’s … [...] Click to raid more!

2020 – A disappointment for Symphonic Metal?

RockmusicRaider - Symphonic Metal in 2020 - Delain - Diabulus in Musica - Nightwish - Surma

Once the end of 2019 approached, an interesting scenario around Symphonic Metal emerged. Three biggies in the genre – Nightwish, Diabulus in Musica, and Delain – all announced a release of their newest and – hopefully – best ever concoction.

A stellar prospect that stirred up quite some excitement around the RMR deck crew over here. We started to have fever dreams of new grandeur, of a knock-out punch that would catapult this once great genre to new beginnings and old glories revisited.

Maybe it was a bout of insane positive thinking, because – somehow – Within Temptation[...] Click to raid more!

Unethical? Or pay Music Bloggers their Fair Share?

RockmusicRaider - Woman with money - Unethical, or pay music bloggers their fair share.

A lot of howling and bitching by self-proclaimed moralists lately echoed off the walls of the RockmusicRaider office suite. Deep questions galore about ethics, playing to theories that you should not take money for the work you do. That by doing so, your pure creative spirit as a blogger will grow the infamous mold of corruption. Specifically, in the music industry, this view lately became a problem.

Sigh.

Methinks that this is an age-old question that bothers many a journalist out there1. Is it – yes or no – unethical to take money? And if so, why?

But

[...] Click to raid more!

Thought Machine: Free music for all. Right?

RockmusicRaider - Free Music Picture

Succeeding and – indeed – thriving in the music industry is hard. Real hard. Many bands out there try to eke out a living from the music they create, but very few make a decent amount of cash off their efforts. 

And we are usually not talking bad quality music neither, mind you. Often this is really good stuff coming my way from little known bands. Amazingly good.

The same goes – by the way – with reviewers and other providers of added services. So here many of them often find themselves between a rock and a hard place as far as paying the bills is concerned.

First: Break down this wall!

[...] Click to raid more!