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Exequator April 26, 15:31
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Link AI generated music / 2024-04-26 12:53

Recently, there has been a noticeable uptick in the number of bands being submitted to the site which have AI generated music. We want to make it clear what our position is on these bands, and how we plan to move forward in assessing them.

It went without saying, at least up until now, that when we imagined growing the largest and most complete database of metal music, part of that vision was the preservation of art and human expression through music. Until AI, that was a given. The music described on the site is, in some way, played, programmed, and composed by a human being. That still remains an important criterion for us, and it is our belief that AI generated music does not satisfy that requirement.

With the above in mind, we won't be accepting bands with AI generated albums, and we will scrutinize more thoroughly submissions suspected of having AI generated music.

For those users submitting bands, if you have a band suspected of having AI generated music, we may call upon you to provide evidence to prove otherwise, whether it's behind-the-scenes material, statements from the band or its label, evidence the band played live, promotional material showing the band is genuine, and so on. The more evidence we have to show that such a band is real, and its music composed by a human being, the better. Our goal isn't to make this harder on you, or anyone for that matter, but we do want to stay true to our vision for the site.

This policy isn't perfect and is a work-in-progress which may evolve over time. We know there will be some bands with AI generated music mistakenly added to the site, and we also know mistakes can be made and bands without AI generated material may be flagged for having AI generated music. With your help, we hope to avoid this as much as possible.

Thank you. \m/

-Derigin

Link The Album of the Year Poll 2023 - RESULTS / 2024-01-01 22:15

The results of the Album of the Year poll for 2023 are now available here.

-Derigin

Link The Album of the Year Poll 2023 - VOTING / 2023-12-03 10:37

Well, with December now upon us, it's time for the Album of the Year poll for 2023!

How does it work? Select your top ten metal albums of the year; they have to be metal, they have to be new, original material, they have to be on MA, and they have to have been released in 2023. Put your list in order, with #1 being the album you liked the most. Once you're certain you have your list, send it to BastardHead by private message (pm) on the forum. You have until 12:00AM EST on January 1st, 2024 to submit your list to him - once the year changes, the polls are closed!

You get one ballot, and your account on MA must've been registered before November 30th, 2023 in order to participate. Please read the first post here for more details on the way the poll works.

The results of the poll will (ideally) be announced on January 1st, 2024 or shortly thereafter. In the meantime, feel free to discuss the poll in the thread located here.

Have fun, and look forward to your participation. \m/

-Derigin

Link 12th Diamhea Memorial Review Challenge / 2023-11-19 16:50

Greetings, all! It's almost that time of the year again - time for our classic reviews challenge!

This challenge is a time-honored tradition among our reviewers here. Every spring and autumn, reviewers are encouraged to spend a week writing and submitting as many quality reviews as possible. The challenge is focused on virgin albums: those with no reviews so far.

Every day, the reviews submitted and accepted are tallied, so that participants can see how they compare with one another and whether or not, altogether, we've been able to surpass previous challenges' totals. There's no prizes or rewards except knowing that you've given a review to an album that didn't previously have one. There's also bragging rights for the most reviews, if that matters to you. Please read this thread for the rules and to discuss the challenge!

The challenge is named in memory of our friend Diamhea, a long-time contributor to the challenge and staff member here at Metal Archives, who sadly passed away on May 21st, 2018. He was the first person to have ever written 100 reviews for a single challenge!

The challenge will start a week from now at 12:00AM EST on Monday November 27th and will run until 11:59PM EST on Sunday December 3rd.

Everyone is welcome to participate - all you have to do is submit reviews as usual during that week.

Looking forward to your participation! \m/

-Derigin

Link Band research list / 2023-08-12 08:52

Harkening back to a news item from over 7 years ago, the band research thread now comes with a neat and shiny list in HTML table form. This list has already helped us tremendously in getting a better overview as well as resolving many entries from that gargantuan and ever-growing thread. If you know anything about any of the listed bands or you're just really into sleuthing work for old forgotten stuff, we'd be grateful for any help in thinning out the list and contributing to the Archives' completeness. Or who knows, maybe you are even so graciously inclined and willing to purchase a release in order to get our collective aural mitts on some crucial piece of music.

See the thread's opening post for more information. If you have any questions, requests or suggestions for the HTML list in particular, feel free to post in the thread or email me directly.

Cheers!

-Azmodes

Link Donations for Apollo Theater Victims / 2023-04-02 00:49

On March 31, 2023, a severe storm caused the roof to collapse on attendees at a metal gig in Belvidere, Illinois. One man was killed, while another 28 people were injured, including five with severe injuries.

If you would like to provide support, a GoFundMe has been set up for the family of the man who was killed, to help with the costs that come along with losing a family member:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/fred-livingston-jr

Donation pages were also created to help with financial relief for severely injured attendees:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/financial-relief-for-michelle-il-roof-collapse
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-paul-rojas-after-apollo-roof-collapse
https://www.gofundme.com/f/dylans-recover-from-the-apollo
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-metal-mark-apollo-theater-roof-collapse
https://www.gofundme.com/f/daniels-recovery-apollo-roof-collapse
https://www.gofundme.com/f/financial-relief-after-roof-collapse-for-victoria
https://www.gofundme.com/f/vmq5j6-medical-and-monthly-bills

If there are additional official donation pages, we will add them. Our thoughts are with the victims, their families, and all those affected by this tragedy. The metal community is here for you.

-Derigin

Link April Fools / 2023-04-01 21:17

Hey gang,

I've got a couple bad news. Firstly, there is unfortunately no magic AI that will help us manage the band queue. That was just a bit of April Fools Day wishful thinking. Who knows, maybe one day!

Secondly, black metal will remain on the site.

-HellBlazer

Link MA and AI / 2023-04-01 02:05



Hello everyone,

There are some big changes coming to the way we do things here on MA. I'm sure most of you have noticed the recent rapid advances in AI technology, such as the amazing results that software like ChatGPT and Midjourney can produce. So we've begun to think, could something similar be used for the betterment of MA? One of our main jobs is of course to evaluate bands for inclusion on the site. This is a very time-consuming process, often leaves people dissatisfied (both mods and submitters), and while we do our utmost to reach an impartial consensus on our decisions, the human element means that there is always a degree of subjectivity involved. Would it be possible to use AI technology to develop an entirely unbiased and scientific way of determining if a band is metal?

As it turns out, yes. Yes, it is. We've spent the last couple months training an AI algorithm on hundreds and hundreds of songs of every genre and have ended up with a very solid model for predicting whether a band is metal or not to a high degree of accuracy. This means that in the near future, we will be able to evaluate band submissions completely objectively based on sound wave analysis and cold computer logic. For the moment, we will be using this AI model manually to double check the results, but we hope to eventually be able to simply let submitters give a Bandcamp or Spotify link, and the automated system will do the rest!

Now, there is one small issue. Algorithms like this create their own way of "thinking" about things, so to speak, and this can sometimes find patterns and details that escape human beings. As such, one very surprising result about metal subgenres came out of our experiments. See, if we throw, say, doom metal at the model, sure, that's fine. Death metal? No problem. Traditional heavy metal? Of course! It's even quite good at determining if the more borderline genres are predominantly metal or not. But... Black metal? It was quite a shocking discovery, but it does appear that when analyzed scientifically, it turns out that black metal isn't actually metal. I know! We were taken aback, too! We even spent a good amount of time redoing the tests while tweaking the parameters and such, but the results remained very consistent: scientifically speaking, black metal is false.

Now, what shall we do about this? Remove all black metal from the site? Well, it sounded crazy at first, but the more we thought about it... It might actually make sense. MA has always prided itself on its accuracy, and now that it can be scientifically proven that a good number of bands on here aren't metal, it stands to reason that they shouldn't be here at all. It's not completely unprecedented either, since there have been purges of some niche subgenres in the past, though on a much smaller scale. In the end, we think that the opportunity to be 100% consistent and objective in how we do things trumps the inconvenience. Besides, let's face it, I think deep down we all know that black "metal" has always been the worst subgenre. This move should also cut down on at least 70% of band-related drama on the site. Overall, I think we can consider this a win-win.

This is why, in the next few days, we will begin to remove BM bands from the site. This will be a gradual effort since every band needs to be evaluated again. Of course, many black metal bands also incorporate elements from the true metal genres in their sound, and these will be allowed to remain if they are determined to be predominantly metal. This way, you can at least rest assured that the better bands in the genre will stay on MA.

Thank you for your comprehension, and we hope this new technology and classification can usher in a new age of enlightenment for the metal community as a whole.

-HellBlazer

Link The Album of the Year Poll 2022 / 2022-12-02 09:09

The end of the year is nearly upon us, which means it's time for the Album of the Year poll for 2022!

How does it work? Select your top ten metal albums of the year; they have to be metal, they have to be new, original material, they have to be on MA, and they have to have been released in 2022. Put your list in order, with #1 being the album you liked the most. Once you're certain you have your list, send it to BastardHead by private message (pm) on the forum. You have until 12:00AM EST on January 1st, 2023 to submit your list to him - once the year changes, the polls are closed!

You get one ballot, and your account on MA must've been registered before November 30th, 2022 in order to participate. Please read the first post here for more details on the way the poll works.

The results of the poll will (ideally) be announced on January 1st, 2023 or shortly thereafter. This news post will be updated with a link to the results when available. In the meantime, feel free to discuss the poll in the thread located here.

EDIT: Results can be found here!

Have fun, and look forward to your participation. \m/

-Derigin

Link Merch is here! / 2022-10-24 10:41

It's here!


Yes, we are finally doing site merch, largely to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Metal Archives (sorry, bit late in the year I know, but it took time to get all of this set up...). We've commissioned artworks and designs by Misanthropic Art and Annick Giroux and they look pretty darn awesome if I may say so myself.

The store focuses largely on shirts, but we also have wall art/prints, flags, buttons, stickers and other cool stuff, and most items are fairly customizable. You can choose among the proposed items on the store homepage, or browse through the Collections or the menus to pick what you want. Make sure you select the right size/colours/options (back print or not, fabric, etc).


Here is the store!
https://metalarchives.threadless.com/





30% of proceeds go towards the Eden Reforestation Projects, a non-profit that work in developing countries to combat deforestation, poverty, and climate change and rebuild biodiversity.

We hope you like what you see, and we thank you for your support.

- HellBlazer

&

-Morrigan

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