Your Prime Years

[Paul keohane]

I still go back to 97/98,.metal was at it lowest point imo, Nu metal had got hold.Loads of the old guard were releasing very poor material.The Original death metal bands were either broken  up, on a break ,or releasing shite.

I genuinely thought it was fucked!

[Ducky]

I got into metal in 1998 and the prevalence of nu made me wonder was I making a mistake, and the few good bands I'd heard were a fluke as all the older metal was deadly.

Which makes this a good place to ask as they were a very important part of the floodgates opening for me - the shoebox full of rock/metal goodies my BIL gave me when first getting into it all had a bunch of sampler/magazine CDs. They were usually the shiny CD with one colour streaked on them (there was a blue one, green, yellow). From the early 90s.

Seemed to go for quality over quantity with the tunes. Some of the tracks spread across them include;

Voivod - Psychic Vacuum.
Kreator - Winter Martyrium.
Coroner - Paralysed/Mesmerized.
Alice In Chains - Would?
Soundgarden - Slaves and Bulldozers.

Pretty neat samplers for young and intrigued ears to get hold of.

Has anyonen any idea what discs these were?

[Circlepit]

I still have moments when I hear something and get that goosebump holy shit feeling.
It might be new band, an old band that delivers something wild or something like that.

It's far more of a rare thing to happen nowadays but when it dies it's equally as z brilliant as the days of yore.

[Ollie]

87-95 I think.
It started with Thin Lizzy & GnR (didn't go the Iron Maiden route) before expanding quickly to the big 4.
Then it was a short hop to Sepultura -> Obituary, Death, & Morbid Angel.
Everything went to shit in the late 90s.
Then when the internet really took off after 2000, I discovered all the cool stuff out there, and finally got to grips with BM (before that I thought it was shite)

I think the peak moment was seeing both Holy Wars and Thunderstruck on the same episode of the Beat Box with Simon Young in 1990. They were quickly recorded on to VHS and worn out over time. They were eventually overwritten by an episode of Home & Away, I still haven't forgiven my younger brother.

[Mooncat]

I would approach this from a slightly different angle and say my main metal years were about 2000-2015 because that's when I was heading out to metal shows, rock bars, and had the most metal friends. I was listening to stuff like Black Sabbath and Zeppelin in the early 90s, but metal really solidified for me as a social sport.

This would have been my main metal band playing years as well so my social life revolved around local metal shows and club nights. RocKD every Sat afternoon in the Limelight, The Venue for nights out, local shows all over the city both playing and attending, catching whatever touring acts came through, Meltdown and Ragnarock at the union or Voodoo, peak MetalIreland era and community etc etc. When you grow up in the local scene like that you tend to know everybody, so every metal event is a big gathering of friends. Even drinking nights in with friends were spent drinking and listening to metal.

2015 is the cutoff because that's when I moved to Canada so I just don't have a metal social circle here in the same way. Still go to the odd metal show with one of the guys in my band, and sometimes we'll hang out and listen to a bit of metal after practice (we're not actually a metal band ourselves).

My own personal metal listening has always fluctuated, but I'd guess the peak of it was around 2000 until about 2006 when I was really voraciously catching up with all the classic.

[Mooncat]

Just as an aside, archive.org has an absolute ton of old Headbanger's Ball episodes for anyone looking for a nostalgia trip. I've been enjoying all the early 90s ones of late because you get grunge, plus still a side dose of glam and thrash (triple thrash treat etc). Great to have on in the background while you're fucking about doing stuff, but many times I've also just sat down with a carryout and watched them. Great times! Cheesy as fuck adverts in between

[Thorn]

Early nineties were the prime years for me, discovering the thrash bands, very much guided by Mowerliberationfront on here, never did take to Lawnmower Deth though, still very much energised to hunt out bands and albums, virtually no interest in going to gigs these days, partly due to a near 8 hour round trip to Dublin , partly being middle age with work and family and all that entails, I'd say my major buzz is just going on distro sites each week and adding to the collection, also like watching some YouTube folk with large collections and knowledge. Still exciting for me to have some disposable income these days to actually buy albums weekly that I couldn't have done in my years spent in pubs.

[Anvil]

Got in metal in the late 80s early 90s, but I had a few other obsessions in my teens that were always competing for my time and what little pocket money I had.  So really my prime in terms of discovering new music, going to gigs, getting into new bands etc would have been in the 00s after I finished uni due to the internet and actually having disposable income. 

Still love discovering new music. Will still buy albums based on band name and/or artwork.  Though the thought of going to a gig, makes my knees and back ache...

[The Butcher]

My era wouldn't be seen in the same light as the classic ones posted above but it's all relative. One by Metallica was the song that really got me into metal around the age of 12 in 1998 so my years were formed during the height of nu-metal which to me felt like a metal version of grunge at the time. Seeing my bro playing Coma by GNR on his acoustic was one of those moments where I wanted to pick up guitar eventually when I was 14. Moved on from my brothers love for GNR, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Metallica etc to Manson/Korn/Deftones/NIN seemed like a natural enough progression so 1999-2005 was the teen obsession stage, Iced Earth, Maiden, Children of Bodom, In flames, Opeth were all the rage for me along with the nu-metal stuff shipped in, MTV as time went on started to stop showing metal/rock and in general were moving into the reality show side of things by the mid 2000s so I was recording any decent music video I could find on VHS tapes.

It was only when I got into a band in 2006-2012 did I get into the black/death/doom genres and also into the local Irish scene. I remember seeing A Distant Sun when I was 16 sneaking into gigs, seeing the keyboards and thinking how cool that was to blend it with the guitars. Old Season in the voodoo was another moment was a teen thinking wow we've got some gems right under our nose. Gigging during that time too - seeing the mini thrash revival take shape in the mid 2000s was cool from a local perspective with the likes of Mass Extinction.

I usually buy stuff on bandcamp to support nowadays, most of my CD collection now gone, some tapes scattered somewhere. I do miss the random purchases in a physical location based off artwork alone, finding some gems like Anathema, Paradise Lost, MDB and then some absolute flops like Hammerfall  Gigs are still a social outlet - chat to a friend or two throughout the year, look at the bands coming and pick which ones suit to go to.

[Don Gately]

For me it was from 1985 to 1992. I first heard Iron Maiden at a youth club, a lad had number of the beast on vinyl and I was mesmerised by it.
Of course at that stage I was into Gary Moore and Thin Lizzy also as they were on TV and radio a bit.
Then my cousin moved here from New York and had Ride the lightning along with early Priest stuff and that for me was that.
Got heavy into thrash hardcore and death metal as the decade proceeded , went to college got exposed to loads of stuff amd metal kinda ended for me as really nothing good seemed to be happening and grunge was where it was at.
Fell out of love of metal until I heard Formless by Mourning Beloveth in 2013 and steadily getting hooked again.

[Barrytron]

Think it's all relative too, 1998 had Formulas Fatal to the Flesh and Sound of Perseverance, both super duper albums to me. I was also partial to a bit of nu metal or that groove stuff like Mindset and Stuck Mojo etc. I remember watching and loving that Korn VHS and laughing at the gear that Maiden were wearing on the inlay of Live after Death around that time. When I wasn't watching Home and Away and calling my pals with a callcard etc etc

[ochoill]

I had tried posting in two of these threads several times in the past few days and got distracted each time, let's see how this goes

I have posted it here before but thanks to my brothers, there has always been metal present in my life.  While very young I knew tons of bands and songs but my own personal foray into it started with Strapping Young Lad's "City" in 1999, being absolutely mind melted by it, then diving backwards for years into loads of stuff I already knew I enjoyed, and finding tons more to love in it - FNM, TON, NIN, Mr Bungle, Neurosis, etc etc etc.  Obvious unironic Korn, Limp Bizkit and Fear Factory love too here, given the age of me .  Also remained into electronic music the whole way through, trance and the like.  Don't even know where to begin listing what I was into or was carried through to today.  I remain obsessed with music.  Peak discovery happened in spells for different subgenres but for my own genuine focus on it to setting the foundation of what I love today - '99-'09.

Wildly mixed because I also gave time here gigging, then time away from it, then years out of the country, then back and formed Third Island and back into gigging and local scene.  Each of those triggered a new round of music discovery each time too.  But yeah I will put some of that in the other thread later