Has your metal taste been changed by Metal Academy membership?

I have been a member for nearly six years now and I think my metal horizons have been broadened significantly since joining. Prior to my membership I couldn't get into death metal at all, but it has become one of the genres I now enjoy most. I remember a thread where we voiced our unpopular opinions and my main one was that Death were overrated. Since then they have gone on to become one of my favourites and sit at #1 on my rated discographies list I have on RYM. 

Similarly sludge metal and in particular atmospheric sludge were not much a part of my listening habits, but have become staple listening for me over the last five years.

I have also found that there are quality albums in virtually every genre that I can enjoy, even metalcore which I used to avoid like the plague, but I have even been able to write positively about several Revolution releases.

Most recently, thanks to a review from Vinny which intrigued me enough to check it out, I have even discovered that I absolutely love the new Ulcerate album - who would have thought it?

The mixture of monthly features, clan playlists and reviews from other members whose recommendations I have come to trust have greatly widened the breadth of my metal music knowledge and enjoyment, so membership of Metal Academy has certainly paid off for me!

So has anybody else had a similar experience, or does the community have no impact on your listening development and enjoyment?

I would say that overall my time here at MA has helped to develop my metal tastes.  In summary:

1. Like Sonny, I have found myself more engaged with the "core" elements of metal music and in turn this has also led me to some neat finds in the alternative metal category.  I will not pretend to have any extensive knowledge (or indeed tolerance) across the whole sub-genres but for someone who had at one point in my life taken the elitist standpoint that "all core was shit", this has been a big change for me.
2. My exploration of The Fallen to replace The Guardians as one of my clans was made so much easier by having challenges that called out key releases.  There's an argument to say that I never really enjoyed traditional heavy metal now looking back at my formative years and that epic doom was more my palate at the time.  I am still going to go on record as saying that The Fallen is my most neglected clan but I even have a death/doom release on my end of year list this year.

As with everything else, finding time to listen to as much music as I want to is increasingly hard to come by and my heydays of reviewing all of my clans feature releases/playlists to pick up new favourites are well and truly behind me but I still continue to find the odd release from here that makes me smile (or at least nod my head appreciatively).

A lot has changed throughout my 5 and a half years as a Metal Academy member. When I first joined, I was in the metalcore/progressive/melodeath zone, hence my initial Horde/Infinite/Revolution clan lineup. Back then, I had already dumped my earlier interest in the more epic melodic power/symphonic metal for those heavier modern metal genres, but I was motivated to revive that melodic side of my metal palate, switching from The Horde to The Guardians, along with The Fallen as I started to explore some gothic metal/death-doom/post-sludge. Sometime later, I faded out from The Fallen/Guardians genres (again for the latter) and switched from those clans to The Gateway and later The Sphere, since the playlists for those clans included some songs that sparked up my interest for alt-/industrial metal. In fact, I've barely heard of industrial metal until around 4 years ago, and now that I'm in The Sphere and have been assembling that clan's playlists for two and a half years, my industrial metal knowledge has expanded quite vastly and sealed that genre as one of my favorites. And I have a lot more to find there, like its overlooked yet underrated subgenre cyber metal. So all these special features, reviews, and recommendations have changed my metal path for the better, and my time in the site has paid off as well. I'm so grateful to be here all these years....

Honestly, I don't think my experiences with running the Metal Academy site with Ben have resulted in my metal taste being expanded as much as other people because I always felt the need to keep abreast of all parts of the global metal scene. What there can be no question it has done though is keep me focused on metal when I might otherwise have ventured off in some other musical direction for extended periods of time like I have in the past. I feel somewhat of an obligation to keep the forum content moving which may sound like a bad thing but has ultimately resulted in me enjoying metal as much as I ever have. Despite what some people may have you belief, I honestly think that the metal scene is in a golden age right now & I'm always discovering something amazing that I was previously unaware of. I know it might appear that my review focus tends to be on older releases but, contrary to how that may appear on the surface, I spend just as much time with new releases. I just don't tend to give them the attention required for a full review or rating, instead just enjoying the listening experience & pushing my agendas to the side for a while.

As far as my taste profile goes, I've definitely found that I don't enjoy the modern side of The Gateway all that much in recent times & there's only pockets of The Revolution that I get much out of too. I'd suggest that Metal Academy has resulted in me discovering more power metal bands that I quite like though. Ultimately, my long-term preferences are still my preferences today although there's a now a case to say that sludge metal is one of my favourite genres when that wasn't always the case. I don't think that the Academy is responsible for that though. I think I probably would have gotten there anyway. The same can be said for my fairly recent interest in blackgaze.

All that said, it makes me feel really great that the Academy has had such an impact on others. I can't tell how much I appreciate all of our regulars who make my life a better place to be by sharing in my metal experience. The site may not have grown as much as we'd like to date but, if it never grew any further, I'd still be happy with the result.

I completely agree that metal is in a very healthy state right now, Daniel. Only the future will tell if it is a golden age or not, but there sure have been plenty of top-tier releases over the last several years. This year alone has seen a fistful of albums that have pushed the boundaries of metal with Oranssi Pazuzu, Ulcerate, Blood Incantation and Monolithe all putting out amazing records. Along with high quality releases of a more conventional nature - the dominance of South American thrash, the resurgence of Darkthrone, a plethora of OSDM and black metal and the continuing high quality of several progressive metal acts all suggest that metal's blood is still strong and likely to remain so for some time. We are definitely a long way from the early 2000's doldrums now and long may it continue.

I can say with the utmost confidence that my appreciation for alternative styles of metal have grown a lot since joining the Metal Academy. Reading back on my earliest extreme metal album reviews, I realize just how sheltered I was; I was unable to appreciate those styles of music due to 1. my age (lol) and 2. the sheer amount of content that was readily available. Spending most of my time with progressive metal, all of this in hindsight must sound like I'm not really appreciating my own genre specialty, but now that I can listen to black/death metal and "core" genres with a new perspective, the quality of those genres opens itself up. Bands like Spectral Wound and Ulcerate, whom I never would have dreamed of listening to "for fun" five years ago, are now regular listening when I want to hear some pummeling metal.

One thing that I would like to change in 2025 is to revisit the dreaded thrash metal. I know I've been delaying this return long enough, especially since 2024's output of Pit releases that I heard (which was very limited) wasn't very strong. But now with a foundation that has been set in place, I know where do start looking. From South America, to the blackened thrash variety, these were styles found through Metal Academy and I couldn't be more thankful. 

I don't think it's been that drastic a change, but I have spent more time in general on an album before moving from one these days. Sometimes a bit too much. I feel like it's helping my appreciation of things, even if I know I have a very, very, very, long way to go.

That said, I have been noticing some of the newer doom releases I've spent time on have left me with the same feeling that a lot of modern power metal has, that people are running out of interesting things to do and do half-string imitations of stuff from the past. I suppose it was always there with doom, I've just now noticed it.

I think the only major change is how much power metal played into writing my debut.  My second book had nothing to do with power metal, but as I was proofreading the final stages, I played Type O Negative's Paranoid a lot.

I think in little ways, the clan system got me interested in exploring other areas for conversational purposes, which is likely why I like TON so much now, as well as Septicflesh.