MMA Best of Year 2020 Discussion Thread

To that end, Metal Related will instead be called Metal Related Rock in the future. Metal Related Rock will be a parent sub-genre on MMA and will have child sub-genres of its own. Currently planned are Grunge, Post-Grunge, Noise Rock and Proto-Metal will be placed beneath it as well. The current parent Metal Related Genres (which we don't add anything directly to) will be scrapped, as will Heavy Alternative Rock under Hard Rock. Non-Metal will sit stand-alone outside of this new sub-genre tree.

The goal of Metal Related Rock will be to gather rock music albums that are deemed to be 'of interest' to fans of metal music. While this is not going to be a catch-all on the site for every rock album that doesn't fit into Hard Rock or Hardcore Punk (Non-Metal will still contain rock albums), it is going to be less strict than the current Metal Related system that requires some reasonable actual metal elements. We're partly making the change because it just takes too much time to manually verify a lot of albums over whether they're really okay, since we can't always take other sites like RYM at the word on this.

To this end, there are going to be three reasons why a rock album might be acceptable to include on MMA as a Metal Related Rock release. Which are in order of likelihood:

The release is a primarily non-metal release by a metal band we have accepted to the site. The current tag on such a release might be Metal Related or Non-Metal, but both could be acceptable under these new guidelines as Metal Related Rock. There will be exceptions. There are many forms of rock music and some are more far removed from metal than others. We intend to come up with a list of rock genres to be wary of in due course, but we're talking about things like pop rock and AOR to start with. Note that this system only applies to Metal bands. Unacceptable releases by Hard Rock and Hardcore Punk acts would use Non-Metal unless they pass the second criteria, which also details other releases by acts who pass for Metal Related Rock for any part of their output.

The second criteria for Metal Related Rock will be the most familiar – rock music that has some metal relevance through being heavy. This may be through metal elements like the classic definition of Metal Related or they might be a general heavy rock act that isn't strictly considered to belong to the Hard Rock genre. We already expanded this way a bit with Heavy Alternative Rock, but those bands will now instead be moved to Metal Related Rock with Grunge and Post-Grunge called out in their respective sub-genres. Only acceptable releases from such acts will use the Metal Related Rock tag (or child sub tags), we won't be blanket tagging artists who get in for only a couple of releases with the Metal Related Rock tag. Just the albums deemed to be of interest. We have already added the band Spock's Beard under this criteria as a sometimes heavy progressive rock band.

Finally Metal Related Rock will now also allow non-heavy rock bands that have been accepted to be included on the site due to being part of the metal scene and thus of interest that way. Transatlantic is usually the band we use as an example of this. Previously such an act could be here but strictly as Non-Metal. Non rock acts added for the same reason (such as acts from black metal's ambient/neoclassical darkwave sub-scene) will still use Non-Metal.

The changes will also see some releases currently in Metal Related be switched to Non-Metal, because they are not primarily rock music releases. The artists that I personally can think this will apply to include Tina Guo, whose Game On! album is primarily classical music, the act Les Chants Du Hasard who plays black metal influenced classical music, and Cypress Hill's MR material, as they are primarily rap/hip-hop. Bottom line is you won't be able to use Metal Related Rock any anything which is not rock music - regardless of metal elements - and that will count for the current Metal Related sub as well, which we wait for changes to be made. Likewise, new additions in the Grunge, Post-Grunge and Noise Rock genres can be added now, the former pair to Heavy Alternative Rock (which needs emptying of acts that don't fit under those terms) and the latter to Metal Related.

So to summarise, we are adopting a three type Metal Related Rock system:

Type1: Misc rock releases by metal bands (example: Opeth's prog rock releases, including Damnation & Pale Communion). Misc rock releases by acts in Hard Rock, Hardcore Punk, or Metal Related Rock child subs must pass for Type 2 on their own merit or use Non-Metal.

Type 2: Metal influenced rock albums / heavy rock albums that don't fit into Hard Rock (examples: Spock's Beard, Arena, Porcupine Tree), Hardcore Punk or Metal Related Rock child subs. Artists added as Metal Related Rock with no other tags will, as always, be subject to admin approval. Acts added to be moved to planned child subs need not get admin approval. All Type 2 will use the 50% rule as with a metal sub. Hard Rock and Hardcore are also returning to this rule. 

Type 3: Rock bands who are not heavy but part of the metal scene (example: Transatlantic). This is also determined by the admin team and will be rare inclusions. 

There will be exceptions to this system, at least for Type 1. Acts where the metal release is the odd one out will instead use the isolated metal tag with Non-Metal being featured elsewhere regardless of being rock or not, unless they pass Type 2's definition. This is usually true for artists who weren't metal to begin with. Likewise acts that have long abandoned metal will also continue to use Non-Metal, representative of the act having 'left the scene'. For example, Ulver released an art rock album amongst a long stream of non-rock/metal releases, which would be best left as Non-Metal.

Regarding the removal of Heavy Alternative Rock, while most of that will ultimately default to Metal Related Rock / Grunge / Post-Grunge, it's possible that some releases could instead be put in Hard Rock, in cases where it equally descends from alt rock / hard rock styles. The default on the current system has been HAR as a child sub of Hard Rock but under the changed system it will be an either/or situation, depending on what is the better fit. 

Any questions/concerns, please drop them there.