 |
| Click to enlarge by Cosmo Lee |
Metal-archives.com, metal’s great database, has interesting search capabilities. I did searches for the total number of metal releases, full-lengths, and demos per year for the past 30 years. “Releases” constitute all media formats: full-lengths, demos, box sets, DVD’s, and so on. Above are the results as a graph (click to enlarge).
Notice that from 2001 to 2006, the total number of releases rose more much quickly than before. The number of demos roughly rose in proportion, while the number of albums rose, but not as steeply. I would guess that this is due to the increasing affordability and availability of home-based digital recording.
Here is the data in table format:
 |
First, note that 2009’s numbers are much lower than those of previous years. I would guess that this is because Metal-archives’ users are still inputting the year’s data, which will likely take a year or two to settle down after peer review. (The site is sort of a wiki.)
Second, note that the number of demos peaked in 2005 and has decreased each year since. I would guess that digital recording is allowing musicians to “convert” demos into full-lengths. Since hard drive space is trivially cheap now, the only real cost of home recording is time. Instead of making a three-song demo, why not make a 10-song album?
Finally, note the general increase in numbers over the past 30 years. It is absurd. In 1986, what I consider metal’s best year ever — see what came out then — 458 full-lengths came out. It would have been possible for someone to hear all of them, at a rate of 38 per month. Last year, over 10 times as many full-lengths came out. One would have had to listen to over 400 albums per month to hear everything.
Such multiplicity means that consensus is likely impossible to reach nowadays. Year-end lists show much less overlap because people have many more choices. This comports with Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail
You should perhaps factor in though that stuff from more recently will be more comprehensively covered due to the technology of the internet. I daresay there are many albums and especially demos missing from years gone by.
Agreed- the highest release years are the recent ones people have invested time to enter into the DB.
there are lots of "missing" releases from back in the day. Just like some of the 2001-2008 titles that will be forgotten in 10 years.
I've found that (much like dating the demise of real punk or hardcore) your age determines when you believe the 'scene' became over run with too many bands. There are always tons of bands.
But yes, I expect "demos" to drop off – if you have one or two songs most bands will just put it on myspace, a smaller number of bands will do a demo or 7".
that is why, i believe good reviewing sources and labels are becoming more and more important aggregators of music.
Doesnt matter how many releases come out or how well it is promoted or reviewed. The quality releases will always rise to the top.
While there may be an increase in album count over the years, has there been an increase in the number of great albums? Not to say that the past was a golden age, but while there may be vast numbers of average, poor, or even good quality albums released in recent years, I don't think the amount of really great music is increasing equivalently to the overall volume.
So, year-end lists are more relevant now than ever before; the task of separating the wheat from the chaff is both larger and more necessary.
Hmm…. mathematical proof why Metal has sucked more these past ten years? Maybe.
The possibilities with this stuff would be endless–you could cross reference this data with just about any cultural, economic, social and political reference point you could think of–and every genre of music–wow. A saturated market indeed. It's interesting to note that this kind of information seems to be appearing more and more these days–with the release of Freakonomics a while back ( part 2, Superfreakonomics, just got released) I've noticed, and read, alot more books on statistical trends and how they shape our culture. Fascinating stuff.
Additionally, metal-archives is a great resource, bar none. Kudos to those guys, and thanks for illuminating us once again, Cosmo.
I didn't know Freakonomics had a sequel. Thanks for the heads-up, Jason. I'll add that to my reading list.
Wow, that's fabulous data. I don't at all calculate that the number of metal releases has risen, though. Four-tracks were cheaper and easier to operate than computers, so your metrics tell me that the 1980s are way more underreported on metal-archives than I had noticed. I mean, I'm pretty sure Iron Maiden alone had 441 releases in 1981.
Your chart indicates that the skew is towards reviewers in their mid-20s. Which tells me something about the non-chartable qualities of the written contributions to the M-A. Or it could, anyway, if necessary…
And what about reissues of older releases in 2008 and 2009? Feels like a good chunk of the output this year, they'd be reported under current year.
How to cross-reference search in music genre vs. search in year? I'd love to see it.
By the way, 21 search results for "Cosmo" in Lineup. Trending…UP if you include former Guy-Mann-Dude's bassist Brent Oberlin, ex- of Cosmosquad.
http://www.cosmosquad.com/
IAN
Ian – You're probably right in that older releases are under-reported. However, from what I've seen on the site's forums, users are doing their best to scour their collections and old zines to fill in the gaps. I would guess that older data is fairly reliable. It's not like there's any better data out there!
You're also probably right about the mean age of the site's reviewers. Whenever I click on a review to see who wrote it, 9 times out of 10, it's someone in their teens or early twenties.
Reissues get mentioned in annotations on their original entries, which is the way it should be, I think. Melissa has been reissued 3 or 4 times – there's no need for each instance to be a separate entry.
The advanced search feature on metal-archives allows filtration by genre and year. Maybe at some point I (or someone else) will mine that data.
"My squad" is a serviceable prog/fusion band
Interesting. I wonder how many albums sold,compared to how many individual Mp3 sold, as it's claimed that iTunes is killing the industry more then Joe Schmo downloading Death Magnetic whilst spiting on a picture of Lars.
Thanks for the data though, checkout 206 and I's top 1o for this year, you might learn a think or two =P