Monthly playlists

Or, how about a New Bands thread where we post new releases from bands who are putting out their first record and might appreciate a bit of exposure? I guess the question is how interested would the site's members be in such a feature? I think it's interesting that most of the overrated/underrated threads (which I guess is a similar theme) seem to garner little traction. 

But I think Daniel's slant on this has to be that there's some marketing of Metal Academy in return for the exposure it gives to any bands.  Look, harsh reality is that there's about 5 or 6 regulars here who post.  Everyone has lives, work, commitments blah, blah... and so that's not a pop or a criticism but my point is plucking unknown acts out of the ether that is the internet is too random a process even if we all even had the time.  The example of Cryptic Shift is not relevant to an "unknown" act thread/feature as they are already well known.  The concept of "uknown" is too loose also.

I would suggest instead:

• Reaching out to a few labels who have a predominantly underground roster and seeing how MA and they could become mutual partners for the furthering of their band's music through our features and/or the Spotify playlists (I don't know how that would work though - I am a software salesman, not a partnerships manager)
• Do some specific marketing for "band/artist" accounts on the site.  Like there's a fan and a band, artist login for Bandcamp the same concept could be deployed here - but at some point you run the risk of the site moving away from a hobby and becoming more of a business/commercial interest and I don't know how Ben & Daniel could commit to that
• I can see Twitter is in use already from a marketing perspective, ever thought of extending this out to Instagram etc just to maximise the opportunity for growth ( I hate most social media platforms so this leaves a bitter taste in my mouth to even suggest it but at the end of the day they do work - algorhythms permitting of course).

I ain't no guru, just throwing out some ideas for thought/shooting down in flames/consideration.

I'm sorry but I'm not really going to be able to provide much help with marketing etc. for several reasons, not least being I fucking hate advertising/marketing and one of the reasons I like MA is it's lack thereof. I don't use any social media platforms, I don't have a smartphone, I'm mostly anti-social and have a very small social circle, none of who are into metal. Anyway, I've started a new bands thread for The Fallen, which I hope to update regularly as I do listen to a lot of new music. If anyone can use it to the site's benefit then go for it.

Okay, I get it. Tetchy bunch today Metal Academy aren't we?

...not at all, merely stating a matter of fact. I'm all for the site getting it's promotion, I'm just saying I'm unlikely to be much help in that regard.

• I can see Twitter is in use already from a marketing perspective, ever thought of extending this out to Instagram etc just to maximise the opportunity for growth ( I hate most social media platforms so this leaves a bitter taste in my mouth to even suggest it but at the end of the day they do work - algorhythms permitting of course).

Quoted Vinny

I've actually been using Instagram to promote the site for years now & interestingly it's proven to be by far the least effective of the three major social media platforms. It takes a lot of time to prepare posts given that I can't do it from my laptop & it doesn't even allow me to include clickable links within my posts so I've recently decided not to bother with it. Twitter really should be the best medium for advertisement of websites & that seems to be the common consensus in the market however I've found that boosted Facebook posts are the best way to bring people to the site in recent times. It all costs money though.

Reaching out to a few labels who have a predominantly underground roster and seeing how MA and they could become mutual partners for the furthering of their band's music through our features and/or the Spotify playlists (I don't know how that would work though - I am a software salesman, not a partnerships manager)

I have bands & labels contact me in regards to a mutually beneficial arrangement all the time but I've found that I just can't trust anyone in this industry. What generally happens is that I promise to bring a band or label free advertisement in exchange for them advertising our site through their own social media platforms & bringing long-term contributing members from their bands/fanbase to the site. This is all agreed to, I'll see one or two new members register (usually the person themselves) & make one or two posts/ratings, I'll engage some of you to do some unbiased reviews without telling you why & then as soon as soon as these reviews are posted the bands/labels drop off the face of the earth. I've even had some of these people contact me again months later to ask me to do the same thing for their next release & I've subsequently told them to go fuck themselves. I don't think it helps that I'm determined to maintain the integrity of the site so I won't bring them positive ratings simply to push our cause but these people have proven to have absolutely no respect.

Yeah, I don't think that will ever really work. Marketing companies are only ever interested in pushing their own product (that's their job after all). The integrity of the site will always be important to me, so there'll be no signing contracts with the devil (as metal as that sounds).

I certainly don't want to dissuade Daniel from his efforts to draw in more people, but my focus will always be on improving the product. There's an audience out there and I have confidence that if we keep making Metal Academy better and more complete, then they'll eventually find their way here.

I should add that even if we never have a large community here, I'll keep doing this for my own personal enjoyment (and sanity).

Back on the playlist topic again gents, I'd just like to provide a little bit of feedback on some recent submissions.

Firstly, can I please ask that you stick to studio material rather than live material? I made the decision not to include live tracks pretty early on in the piece after noticing that these tracks disrupt the flow of the lists. I also received feedback from a couple of people who said that they don't really enjoy live recordings all that much in comparison to studio work so I decided to draw the line there.

And secondly, can you please make sure that your selected tracks are a part of the associated clan? I've had a couple of recent submissions that weren't & used my judgement as to whether to include them or not but in general I think we should be focusing entirely on the clan.

Andi, the only one of those you mentioned that I questioned was the Children Of Bodom one which is clearly a divisive selection for The Guardians given the vocal style. It obviously sits more comfortably under The Horde however the release it's drawn from is technically a member of The Guardians & until such time as that is no longer the case I felt that it's not my position to deny it's inclusion.

The Isis one is interesting as we've had people submitting the same sort of tracks by post-sludge artists in both The Fallen & The Infinite. I've never felt completely comfortable with that but we've never come to an agreement on what's appropriate so I've just chosen to go with it. You may have noticed that you can only select Atmospheric Sludge Metal as a Release's subgenre if it's got Post-Metal as it's primary genre i.e. you can't choose it as a subgenre of Sludge Metal. That's because Ben & I had to make a call on which direction we'd take given that a subgenre can't be a part of two main genres in our database. What does everyone think about that situation? If you had to choose one clan or the other for post-sludge releases, which way would you go? I'm inclined to want to limit post-sludge Playlist submissions to the one clan to be honest so I'm keen to hear what everyone thinks.

OK, Daniel, I'll just focus on making the judgement submission for the Children of Bodom release, then wait until everyone else comments on the post-sludge situation before getting to the Isis one. The other bands' releases I mentioned I will leave alone. And I'm still up to following these two new rules (studio material only and single-clan only).

For the post-sludge situation, we've discussed this before, but the debate keeps spiraling off course and we're torn between the situation the genre should settle on. Like I said, while it makes sense for Sludge Metal to be a Fallen genre because it's basically a more hardcore doom metal, Atmospheric Sludge is quite different as it focuses more on the experimental atmosphere of Post-Metal. We've put that discussion on hold because I kinda tried to force the decision by making multiple judgement submissions at once (I know how to do that better now by making separate submissions, one per day, and keeping the connection subtle), but now based on a couple submissions I made ever since, for Solstafir's Svartir Sandar and Rosetta's The Galilean Satellites (the latter you gave me the idea for, Daniel), I now see that I believe atmospheric sludge is solely a post metal subgenre, with the only sludge element being the vocals. Not only that, I don't think I've ever been interested in a sludge metal band that's NOT in the Infinite. Even Mastodon is considered regular sludge metal in their first few albums, but progressive metal all the way. So yeah, I think atmospheric sludge metal is a post-metal subgenre that should stay in only The Infinite. Though we might have to change the name so it doesn't still seem like part of sludge metal. "Sludgy Ambient", anyone?

And I'm still up to following these two new rules (studio material only and single-clan only).

I think you misunderstood me Andi. I never said anything about "single-clan only". All I'm saying is that if a track doesn't come from a release that's a) already in The Sphere or b) would qualify for inclusion in The Sphere if was added to the site, then don't nominate it for inclusion in The Sphere playlist. You can feel free to do what you'd like with your Hall submissions as that's completely unrelated to this topic.

Also, the playlists should remain strictly one track per band as they're intended to be a compilation.

When you mentioned The Sphere, I realized that you were also talking about my Celldweller submission. I thought the "Into the Void" track would be accepted because it has the Industrial Metal tag in RYM, I didn't realize that the release actually has be in the site, but it isn't because it's a single. I'll keep that rule in mind along with a couple others (studio material only, must already be in this site, no album-less singles (LOL a "single" rule to replace another "single" rule!)). Once again, 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.

Did I actually say something about more than one song per band? I don't think so, but I know that rule already.

Now you're just making shit up at random Andi. I have no idea what you're referring to regarding Celldweller & never said anything about any rules regarding singles or releases that aren't already on the site. None of that's the case.

So to get back to this month's playlists. Time has been short this month so I've only listened to the playlists from my three clans, The Fallen, The North and The Pit. So my take on those three:

The Fallen was very much back-loaded for me. Started off well enough with Solitude Aeternus, but Crowbar ain't my thing and Moonspell, KYPCK and Lake of Tears were horrible. Divide & Dissolve and Black Sheep Wall are new to me and both kind of piqued my interest without being earth-shattering. Apostle of Solitude and Esoteric were the best two tracks on the list and I enjoyed the Officium Triste way more than I expected to. So a list of two halves for me. 3.5/5

The Pit was a damn good list and my favourite this month. Another slow starter though. Even though it was my own selection, I'm still not too struck by the Evile track, Lamb of God were as annoying as ever and Exciter have never done it for me, so three duds in the first four tracks. However from Nuclear Assault onwards this was a killer playlist, the only letdown being the Cryptosis track (guess I shouldn't believe the hype). Plenty of quality unfamiliar stuff to check out too - Speedwolf, Inculter, Evoke and Paranorm all require further exploration. 4/5

The North was a fine list also and although I was familiar with quite a few, there were again some less familiar artists that seem worth checking out further - Bal-Sagoth, Arkona and Diabolical Masquerade for example. For me, obviously, the highlight was the WitTR track and it was probably a good idea to put the lists two weakest tracks either side of it. 4/5

The Fallen was very much back-loaded for me. Started off well enough with Solitude Aeternus, but Crowbar ain't my thing 

With you on Crowbar.  Never understood the hype around them, their sound is so unnatural.  The vocals in particular aren't all that great.  A few decent riffs but really not that amazing at all.

I've always liked Crowbar, particularly the vocals actually. The only thing that I find disappointing is that they've been cursed by the production gods for most of their career.

Here are my overall ratings for the playlists I've reviewed this month (July):

1. Fallen playlist - 4.5/5 (number of songs commented: 6)

2. Gateway playlist - 4/5 (number of songs commended: 13)

3. Guardians playlist - 4.5/5 (number of songs commented: 10)

4. Infinite playlist - 4.5/5 (number of songs commented: 8)

5. Revolution playlist - 4.5/5 (number of songs commented: 11)

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. I still haven't thought of a good Gateway suggestion for next month's playlist (August), but I still have a week left, so no rush...

Hi guys. I don't mean to be difficult but I'd just like to reiterate that I need your playlist submissions in by the 15th of each month (Sydney time). I know I've accepted late submissions on several occasions over the last few months but this has meant that I've had to rework playlists that were already completed which adds an additional challenge when I'm already so time poor.

In that case I'll forego this month to start fresh on the 1st of the month from now on, I always held off until the 15th because it felt weird submitting "last month's music" for next month's playlist, but I wasn't aware of how they were made. Thanks for letting us know. 

In all honesty, I usually have my suggestions lists written for the coming month as I submit the current month's list.  There's always stuff that I can't fit in to the current month that inevitably falls over and I am constantly finding stuff so find I am always in excess of tracks when I get to submitting my monthly lists.  In a hectic working week I find myself listening to a lot of other playlists or individual tracks from bands when I need to take five or ten minutes breathing space away from my laptop so it serves me well for building a solid choice of tracks for the monthly playlists.