Alright, it's time to rip into another publications award thing. Well try to anyway. It seems this year Metal Hammer, unlike it's U.S. counterpart Revolver is trying for more legitimacy this year. While Metal Hammer does it's own voting for the bigger categories, fans have an opportunity to vote for the rest of them. And you can do that here.Let's look at the nominees shall we?
It's that time of year again kiddies when Revolver puts together it's award show exclusively for metalheads and rockers. A long haired Image Awards if you will. This year the endorsement cup overfloweth with the categories reading like a college football bowl game. Conspicuously gone this time though is the douchey hottest chick in metal category which is a plus. And it's still painfully obvious that this is a readers poll based on the nominees as you will soon see. So once again let's take a look at the nominees and my overly critical comments after the jump.
Last year Revolver did it's first ever Golden Gods Award show and it appears that they decided to mature it up a bit based on most of the category names. True, hottest chick in metal is still there and wasting space but the retarded category names like Most Awesome Drummer have at least been reduced to Best Drummer.
But for the life of me I can't figure out where in the hell they get the nominees for each category from.
Come on people we're used to the Grammys being a bunch of clueless douchebags but this is where we as knowledgeable metalheads get it right. Right?
Apparently not.
Here are the nominees for this year with my comments sprinkled in.
Best Guitarist:
* Kirk Hammett (METALLICA)
* Tony Iommi (HEAVEN & HELL)
* Tom Morello (RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE, STREET SWEEPER SOCIAL CLUB)
* Dave Mustaine (MEGADETH)
* Slash (VELVET REVOLVER, GUNS N' ROSES)
* Zakk Wylde (BLACK LABEL SOCIETY)
Obviously this has nothing to do with the past year as most of these guys haven't released anything for at least two years. I've got respect for some of the nominees but honestly none of them are my favorites.
Best Drummer:
* Chris Adler (LAMB OF GOD)
* Brann Dailor (MASTODON)
* Dave Grohl (THEM CROOKED VULTURES)
* Gene Hoglan (DETHKLOK, FEAR FACTORY)
* Dave Lombardo (SLAYER)
* Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan (AVENGED SEVENFOLD)
Some pretty good talent listed here. But come on, would the Rev honestly be listed here if he hadn't died? I'm so tired of the pity votes.
Best Vocalist:
* Jonathan Davis (KORN)
* Ronnie James Dio (HEAVEN & HELL)
* Neil Fallon (CLUTCH)
* Lzzy Hale (HALESTORM)
* Serj Tankian (SYSTEM OF A DOWN)
* Corey Taylor (SLIPKNOT, STONE SOUR)
With all of the vocalist in the world this is what comes up for nominees? Dio is a given and unlike the Rev would have probably been nominated regardless of the cancer story. But Clutch? What the hell have they done since 1995? Halestorm? They just got a record deal. Korn's been on hiatus and Serj isn't really metal without SOAD.How about Chuck Billy,Mikael Akerfeldt,Blitz Ellsworth? Be consistent please.
Album Of The Year:
* ALICE IN CHAINS - Black Gives Way to Blue
* HEAVEN & HELL - The Devil You Know
* MASTODON - Crack the Skye
* MEGADETH - Endgame
* SLAYER - World Painted Blood
* THEM CROOKED VULTURES - Them Crooked Vultures
Some strong nominees here.Hopefully Alice in Chains won't get screwed here.Heaven & Hell's album kind of bored me sadly.Slayer's album was an improvement over past releases and is a toss up with Endgame.I can't get into Mastodon and believe me I've tried and I haven't listened to Them Crooked Vultures yet though I should.
Best Live Band:
* THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA
* LAMB OF GOD
* METALLICA
* MOTÖRHEAD
* ROB ZOMBIE
* SLAYER
I saw Metallica in their heyday and they were pretty awesome. I understand their show is still pretty good though I don't want to hear Hetfield's vocals on the old stuff now.I've seen Rob Zombie and his show is pretty good too though he forgets the words to his own silly songs.I've seen concert vids of LoG and they look like a cookie cutter live hardcore band.Same goes for Prada.I'd have an opinion on Slayer if I could have seem them on time this year.And I've never seen Motorhead.
Best Underground Band:
* BEHEMOTH
* BETWEEN THE BURIED AND ME
* THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER
* CONVERGE
* THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN
* OBITUARY
Again like I said last year. Metal for the most part is underground so this is kind of redundant from the redundancy department. I'm not a fan of any of these bands but if I had to pick it'd be Behemoth.
Most Metal Athlete:
* Josh Barnett (MMA fighting)
* Marc Colombo, Cory Procter, and Leonard Davis (NFL football)
* Chris Jericho (WWE wrestling)
* Mike Piazza (MLB baseball)
* Jason Ellis (Pro skateboarding)
* Jolene Van Vugt (Pro motocrosser)
What is the criteria for this? Seriously.I'm a Cowboys fan and since Colombo and the boys actually do have a metal band I'll go with them.Oh wait I forgot about Fozzy. Which was a joke band incorporated into a WWE storyline years ago when Jericho had long hair and now they're trying to be legit. (Yes I'm a recovering douchebag that watched wrestling on and off again for years)
Hottest Chick(s) In Metal:
* Pearl Aday (PEARL)
* Maria Brink (IN THIS MOMENT)
* Lzzy Hale (HALESTORM)
* Lacey Mosley (FLYLEAF)
* Alexia & Anissa Rodriguez (EYES SET TO KILL)
* Cristina Scabbia (LACUNA COIL)
Not bad on the categories so far until now. They kept this on here. For Christ sakes, these girls shouldn't really be proud of this. How is the acceptance speech going to go? "Uh thanks guys for thinking I'm hot, but I'm in a band and so ...what do you think of our music...hey...eyes up here please". And Flyleaf isn't even metal.Lacuna Coil barely is. Utter fail here.
Comeback Of The Year:
* AC/DC
* ALICE IN CHAINS
* ANVIL
* FEAR FACTORY
* HEAVEN & HELL
* KISS
AC/DC gets points for being gone for 8 years then making millions of dollars from really strong cd sales and concert tour. Anvil's documentary made the world go..."Oh yeah ..I remember those guys" and the new cd's sales still stink.Fear Factory would be a dark horse here. Heaven & Hell? That should have been last year. If there is a God don't let it be Kiss. Alice in Chains should get this hands down.
So when I was pissing and moaning about the Grammys I mentioned metal maybe should have it's own awards show and ignorantly was not aware that in fact that was going to be the case. The Epiphone Revolver Golden Gods award show was on April 7th.
To say this is a mixed blessing would be spot on. First of all it was being broadcasted on MTV2. Oh MTV...how I still loathe you. Only MTV could put up a false front by honoring and inviting some of the heaviest metal acts of the last 20 years and still turn it into a cartoon festival with skits and asinine category names.
You see apparently up until last year England's Metal Hammer magazine sponsored this award and last year you had some normal categories like best album and best shredder.
This year let's see what we have:
Most Awesomely Good Drummer: Because American metal fans are retarded illiterate jerkoffs that say this kind of thing all the time.
Best Underground Metal Band: No problems with this category except isn't metal still pretty much underground for the most part except for radio hit bands like Disturbed and Papa Roach? Unnecessary category.
Metal Industry Award: What does this even mean? The Rainbow Bar & Grill won so.....venues get awarded here?
Best Album: Normalcy finally...cool.
Honorary Headbanger:Pandering to non musical celebs that are into metal and are fucking someone from Motley Crue is not acceptable(Kat Von D won this).This kind of shit is why grunge took over in the 90's,MTV,thanks to you.
Golden God:I still don't understand the point of this versus the lifetime achievement award.
Best Riff:This kind of category is something some douchebag on a forum site would post just to start some kind of debate.
Most Viral Video:"Let's be cool and incorporate something from that internet thing to attract more viewers".
Most Metal Athlete: See honorary headbanger. Snowboarders are extreme just like metal, so lets give this to a snowboarder. Baseball or football players being metal? Yeah right. (God you suck MTV)
Best Live Band: Who does the voting for this shit? Oh wait it must have been a poll in a issue of Revolver magazine....now I get it.
Best New Talent: Why does this sound even more gay then just keeping with Best new Artist? Call it Best Debut or something if its a newly signed band. Talent makes it sound like American Idol or something.
Lifetime Achievement:There you go and this by itself has more crediblity then the Rock Hall of Fame or the Grammys.
Best International Band:So every band not part of the country hosting this is an international band. Last year in England Avenged Sevenfold was in this category.News Flash! Metal music is worldwide now and more popular outside of the U.S then ever before.Take out this category.
Reader’s Choice Award:Something Nickeleoden would have.
Most Mind-Blowing Guitarist:See the drummer category.Or at least be consistent. Where is the individual vocalist or bassist categories? Pissing contests like this are stupid.
Hottest Chick In Metal:Seriously.....enough with the godamn stereotypes. This is why metal still does not get any respect or recognition.
On the plus side there was some seriously cool people that showed up for this thing. Guys that normally would not even be invited to a music awards show like Slayer, Testament,Hatebreed,Lamb of God...etc. And the performances were supposed to be really good as well. And getting Brian Posehn to host is pretty cool. He's like a normal giant nerd metal fan even in his stand up performances and seems like somebody you'd hang with even though he's kind of famous.
So anyways I'll still punish myself and on May 2nd on MTV2 I'll be watching this and hoping that it actually turned out better then first impressions. Just because it's about metal. I love the music but I hope to hell MTV doesn't screw this up. I crack myself up.
