Monthly playlists
PS: Sonny, I'm sorry to hear that your clans have a shorter time limit for your song submissions, but I wish the best for your songs to be worth those 24 minutes in each clan!
I'd better make them count then!
Here are my overall ratings for the playlists I've reviewed this month (April):
1. Fallen playlist - 4/5 (number of songs commented: 7)
2. Guardians playlist - 4/5 (number of songs commented: 12)
3. Horde playlist - 4/5 (number of songs commended: 7)
4. Infinite playlist - 4.5/5 (number of songs commented: 9)
5. Revolution playlist - 5/5 (number of songs commented: 10)
6. Sphere playlist - 5/5 (number of songs commented: 2)
Another rewarding playlist month for me, though this time it's more about the quality than quantity. The ones for my clan list that aren't the ones that I've had with me since the beginning (Fallen, Guardians, Horde, Infinite) have a decent average 4/5. The Infinite playlist has a better amount of tracks I've commented with an average total of 4.5 stars. The amount of tracks in the Revolution playlist (by average) and the Sphere playlist are perfect, though the latter is only two tracks I've commented. Yep, good month! My submissions for next month's playlists coming soon...
I'm sure I'm not the only one who's interested to know this Andi but am I to understand that you have listened to a full SIX two-hour playlists within the first two days of the month? Do you listen to them in full? What makes a track qualify for comment exactly?
In all due respect Andi, how does that place you in a good position to provide an informed rating on a playlist like the April ones for The Sphere or The Horde where you've only commented on a small percentage of the overall tracklisting? I would've thought you'd need to at least have heard the whole tracklisting before commenting on its overall quality. I mean the true value of these playlists is that they help us all experience new music that we've never listened to before in order to open us up to new styles & sounds within the clans & 90% of your comments are on tracks that you're already familiar with so I'm not sure you're getting the true value out of them. Am I wrong here?
Well I admit that the amount of Sphere tracks I've commented was a very short amount, so that proves my lack of familiarity with the clan besides those two bands (Godflesh and Strapping Young Lad). Until I find more industrial metal bands that appeal to me, I'm gonna take a break from submitting one track per month submissions to Sphere playlists and listening to Sphere playlists. I'll also listen to a couple more tracks from the Horde playlist to level up its value a notch and see if there's one more death metal band I can tolerate before I start moving out of the rest of my death metal arsenal (official announcement coming tomorrow). Stay tuned for a couple more comments...
I am not saying any methodology is wrong for listening to and rating the playlists (and as someone who often puts in 12 hour days at work I get the time limitations challenge) but for me personally I have to sit down and listen end to end to the clan playlists. For this reason I never catch all of them each month. In fact, being off work this week gave me a great chance to sit down with the Horde playlist and listen to it in two halves. For me the playlists are opportunities. Whether it is the opportunity to learn new bands/sub-genres or simply appreciate some established tracks that I know well, there’s always something I take away to check out or revisit.
Given that Daniel takes the time to put together such a varied and expansive snapshot of music (and I am not ass-kissing here) I feel it’s only fair I take the time to give the whole of the lists - for my clans usually - a full listen before rating/commenting. This may take me weeks in some instances and I won’t pretend I comment every month but I see the lists as a whole entity, not something I can break down into individual parts. That’s just how I work.
I think the flow of the lists is fine to my ear and when I am putting my own lists together in my streaming services I use a variety of methods such as eras of the genre, tours of continents as well as simply shifting pace and tempo to hold my interest.
I must admit that I tend only to listen to the playlists I'm interested in (North, Pit, Fallen, Horde - usually in that order). I would never be able to take 2 hours of the Gateway or The Revolution in all honesty and I find the Guardians tough to get through with so much symphonic and power metal. Those I do listen to I tend to listen to in two one-hour sessions as my listening time (especially streaming) has become fairly limited recently. Nice long weekend this week though, so managed to have an uninterrupted listen-through to The Pit playlist on Friday which felt like a real luxury!
Here's the guidelines for playlist submissions for June 2021:
THE FALLEN: 24 min each clan member, no track limits
THE GATEWAY: 30 min each clan member, no track limits, one track for non-clan members
THE GUARDIANS: 30 min each clan member, no track limits
THE HORDE: 30 min each clan member, no track limits
THE INFINITE: 30 min each clan member, no track limits
THE NORTH: 24 min each clan member, no track limits
THE PIT: 30 min each clan member, no track limits
THE REVOLUTION: 30 min each clan member, no track limits
THE SPHERE: 30 min each clan member, no track limits, one track for non-clan members
Essentially I've just increased the time allowance for The Pit after Ben decided not to contribute & I've removed the option for non-clan members to nominate a track for The Revolution after Theo Wyoming became a second contributing member which will give us a good half of the playlist coming from the clan members.
In my honest opinion, the playlists have been getting better & better over the last few months which is mainly due to the increased contributions of the various clan members & my growing experience in programming them over time. I'm sure you all know a few people that might be interested in checking them out even if they're not too keen on the website so I'd encourage all of you to help us promote the Metal Academy brand by spreading the word & publicizing the quality of our playlists. This might be through word of mouth, sharing links, on other websites or on social media. It all counts towards building a steadily increasing membership which makes for a more interesting & fun experience for all of us. Ben & I don't consider this to be solely our website. We don't make any money from it & you all contribute to the way it looks, feels & functions. If we can collaboratively work to grow our playlist following then I feel that this will subsequently filter into our website membership numbers too, particularly once people realise that they can make personal contributions to the playlists (Hint: underground bands & labels will find this an attractive option). Growing the playlist following is probably a little easier than growing the website membership too as there's no expectation of any sort of commitment from the user. New followers get to listen to an outstanding selection of music that's well tailored to their tastes for zero effort on their part. I'd also encourage everyone to follow our Metal Academy Spotify profile & like all of our playlists (at least during the associated month) because the total number of follows/likes does provide encouragement for some casual Spotify users. Good luck & let us know if you end up being responsible for bringing any new members in.
So, on the Metal Forum (imaginative title I know) I have kept a Promo thread going since Dec 19 albeit intermittently. Currently at over 345 views in the thread but not sure if anyone (other than Ludo) has found the place from that link.
That’s fantastic. Your support is greatly appreciated Vinny.
I've recently noticed that our Spotify playlists don't tend to come up in Spotify searches & a little research has seen Ben & I discovering that it's most likely because they don't have large quantities of followers. This is primarily due to the fact that we create a brand new playlist for each clan every month which essentially starts the follower count again from scratch. So in order to combat this & make everyone's lives a bit easier, I've decided that from next month we'll keep a single current playlist per clan & I will change the tracklisting at the start of each month so that you'll never have to look for the latest lost. That should see us accumulating followers over time & you'll still have access to our past playlists as I'll keep creating new lists for the previous month's material so that they can be accessed at any time in the same way they are now. Does that make sense? Any concerns with this approach or do you think it'll be a positive move?
I've recently noticed that our Spotify playlists don't tend to come up in Spotify searches & a little research has seen Ben & I discovering that it's most likely because they don't have large quantities of followers. This is primarily due to the fact that we create a brand new playlist for each clan every month which essentially starts the follower count again from scratch. So in order to combat this & make everyone's lives a bit easier, I've decided that from next month we'll keep a single current playlist per clan & I will change the tracklisting at the start of each month so that you'll never have to look for the latest lost. That should see us accumulating followers over time & you'll still have access to our past playlists as I'll keep creating new lists for the previous month's material so that they can be accessed at any time in the same way they are now. Does that make sense? Any concerns with this approach or do you think it'll be a positive move?
Makes sense. Anything to get the attention levels up will be of use.
Here are my overall ratings for the playlists I've reviewed this month (May):
1. Fallen playlist - 4.5/5 (number of songs commented: 6)
2. Gateway playlist - 4/5 (number of songs commended: 4)
3. Guardians playlist - 4.5/5 (number of songs commented: 13)
4. Infinite playlist - 4.5/5 (number of songs commented: 9)
5. Revolution playlist - 4.5/5 (number of songs commented: 10)
Another rewarding playlist month for me, this time my playlist ratings for all my 4 clans are each an average total of 4.5 stars. The amount of tracks in the Gateway playlist (by average) aren't as excellent as the rest, but still a great month! My submissions for next month's playlists coming soon...
Here's the guidelines for playlist submissions for July 2021:
THE FALLEN: 24 min each clan member, no track limits
THE GATEWAY: 30 min each clan member, no track limits, one track for non-clan members
THE GUARDIANS: 30 min each clan member, no track limits
THE HORDE: 30 min each clan member, no track limits
THE INFINITE: 30 min each clan member, no track limits
THE NORTH: 24 min each clan member, no track limits
THE PIT: 30 min each clan member, no track limits
THE REVOLUTION: 30 min each clan member, no track limits, one track for non-clan members
THE SPHERE: 30 min each clan member, no track limits, one track for non-clan members
If any new members are interested in being added to the contributors list then please let me know as I'll have to make adjustments to the submission guidelines listed above.
Here are my overall ratings for the playlists I've reviewed this month (May):
1. Fallen playlist - 4.5/5 (number of songs commented: 8)
2. Guardians playlist - 4.5/5 (number of songs commented: 9)
3. Infinite playlist - 4.5/5 (number of songs commented: 12)
4. Pit playlist - 4.5/5 (number of songs commended: 5)
5. Revolution playlist - 4.5/5 (number of songs commented: 14)
Another rewarding playlist month for me, this time my playlist ratings for all my 4 clans plus one are each an average total of 4.5 stars. And yes, I enjoy my Gateway suggestion.
What does everyone think of us trialing an idea whereby each of us selects at least one track that's drawn from our home city's respective local metal scenes for each of the monthly Spotify playlists for our clans (i.e. not the clans we're not a part of)? I really like the idea of each member helping to promote their local scenes & think it might encourage us all to dig a little deeper too. As an added bonus, I figure that if we all then communicate these inclusions to the associated bands then they might voluntarily help us to promote the Metal Academy brand too while also giving each of you a little bit of healthy interaction with the scene. It's just an idea at this stage so I'm keen to gauge your interest. Thoughts?
Here's a list of bands I can find that are in my home-country Malaysia...
3 hard rock/heavy metal bands: Candy, Masterpiece, Search
And 3 thrash metal bands: Brain Dead, Cromok, FTG
However, I've barely heard of any of those bands, except for a few songs by Search that my mom likes (she likes classic metal ballads, but not the heavier modern stuff). I know someone who is from my country who's a metal artist. Remember my YouTube buddy Danny Ultrawiz? Well even though his music is in Spotify, he's not in RYM so it might be difficult to add him into this site or one of the clan playlists if we don't know his exact style. But I say his music has potential in The Guardians and The Pit as primarily heavy metal and thrash metal with secondary genres groove metal and melodeath. And it's still hard for me to communicate with him since he started his hiatus from YouTube, but never say never! I plan on making a Spotify playlist compiling his full available discography, so stay tuned for that...
I'm willing to try it but it's going to take some digging, at least for me. I never really delved into any local metal scenes because I didn't grow up close to a city and I don't really have a big connection to the city close-ish to me now. Not sure if I could make it a monthly thing for each and every clan, I sometimes struggle with playlist inclusions some months to begin with.
Hhhmmmm..... might not be as good an idea as I first thought. Carry on.
Same really, barring Conan I am not aware of any bands round here. Certainly none who are more underground anyway.
I think the success of such an endeavour would very much be dependent on where the members live. For people like yourself Daniel who lives in a major city like Sydney it wouldn't be too difficult I imagine. Although my city (Stoke-on-Trent) did birth Lemmy and Slash, both left at a pretty young age and the only other bands of note were the mighty Discharge and NWOBHM band Demon. The city's most famous musical son is Robbie fucking Williams ffs. The actual metal scene here is small to non-existent. The only bands I know anything about are Sludge/Doom outfit Space Witch and goth band Lesbian Bed Death. Maybe a forum thread for promoting local acts would be better suited than as part of the playlist. How about a monthly feature like "Unsung Metal Hero" of the month similar to the feature release where the site showcases an act that has very few ratings/reviews (either here or on other unnamed sites) but deserve more? Doesn't have to be shackled by geography then either. For example, I've put together an unpublished list on RYM for doom albums I've rated 4/5 or better that have less than 100 ratings and it has over 200 entries. Just a thought.