Nickelback has taken over the metal thread.

I always thought a lot of the lighter 80s metal (such as the sunset strip stuff), wasn't much more than pop music shoehorned into a "metal" jacket.

Similar cycle happened with grunge, punk rock, etc ...

Whatever becomes popular enough for wide mass consumption, eventually ends up being infested and taken over by the pop music virus.

As a completely hypothetical example, if death metal was able to break out of the underground ghetto and had become just as popular as Metallica in the 1990s, then I wouldn't be surprised at all if pop music would have eventually completely infested it.

Though I would find it hard to imagine what such an unholy shoehorning of pop music into a death metal straightjacket might sound like.

Good call ^

I was imagining something more along the lines of a Bon Jovi or Taylor Swift writing and playing pop songs in a death metal style.

Hah, I'm sure someone somewhere has put some of those kinda songs to death metal. I'm not searching for it!

And rap, too. That became "popular" music in no time, too. They trotted out Vanilla Ice so he wouldn't scare the suburban parents too much.

Yeah, I remember what happened to "grunge" in the 90s. As soon as MTV put "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in heavy rotation, all of the jocks and preppies were playing Pearl Jam and wearing flannel shirts. And then the fashions models were strolling down catwalks with flannel wrapped around their waists.

And then after Cobain ate a mouthful of buckshot, they found Green Day and became "punks."

It also happened with country music, but the infestation of the pop music virus seemed to be more gradual over the past 25+ years. IIRC the earliest highly visible cases was stuff like Faith Hill and Shania Twain in the late 1990s.

Ironically, Shania Twain's breakout albums from that time were produced by Mutt Lange who was famous for producing classic hard rock / metal stuff like AC DC (Highway To Hell, Back In Black, etc ...), Def Leppard (High n Dry, Pyromania, Hysteria, etc ....), and later Nickelback "Dark Horse".

Nowadays the widely played "pop country" music stuff is almost indistinguishable from generic pop rock music. Other than maybe the drawl in the singer's voice, and presence of instruments such as banjo, violin, etc ...

At a smaller regional level, I have to wonder if death metal ever became popular with the jocks and preppies which grew up in the areas in Florida where the death metal scene was centered around during the early 1990s peak.

I went and saw Shania Twain on her last tour. It was way more pop than anything else. Quite a few songs didn't even have a band playing, just music piped in.

Looking around youtube, some live footage of Carrie Underwood playing covers of 80s metal songs like Guns 'n Roses "Paradise City", Skid Row "I Remember You", etc ...

Also watched some live footage of Taylor Swift playing with Def Leppard. They played Hysteria, Pour Some Sugar On Me, Photograph, etc ...

There are some decent death 'n' roll bands out there that might give you an idea where such a hypothetical might have lead to (such bands aren't really poppy but have a rock swagger that death metal bands normally don't have). It's certainly interesting to think about! (same with some melodeath bands)

Yeah, the 90s saw a huge realignment within popular music, where country music supplanted generic "rock" as the music of choice for the white middle class.

I think that the mid 80s and early 90s saw heavy metal (both hair metal, and the more extreme stuff), grunge, punk, and hip-hop rise in popularity so precipitously that it crowded the old-school rock music out of the scene.

And then Garth Brooks came along.

It was around 1990 and 1991, and Garth Brooks hit hard. Around that time, the old school "rawk" was dying, and rap music and heavy metal were taking over. So you had kids who, ten years ago, would have been listening to Van Halen and Journey, basically had to choose between corny hair metal (which was, by that time, guys in hairspray and makeup singing terrible Air Supply-like pop music), more extreme metal like Pantera or Metallica (the more accessible "black" album had not yet hit) that tended to confuse normal kids, grunge (which was mopey guys in drab clothes), or black guys in track suits and gold chains.

Garth Brooks provided a sort of working-class role model and rock and roll energy that a lot of these lower-middle class white kids were looking for.

And it even had a sort of ripple effect that has lasted through the decades, where people who grew up on the rock music of the 60s, 70s, and 80s (and even 90s) have transitioned to country music.

I will admit that I sort of went through a country music phase when I was a kid (side effect of watching The Dukes of Hazzard, I think), but I quickly outgrew when I got my first Iron Maiden record, and never looked back.

What changed my mind about Garth Brooks was when I first heard him doing an outstanding cover of KISS "Hard Luck Woman". That's when I first suspected he might have cut his teeth on playing rock covers when he was younger. Possibly a rocker type at heart.

The equivalent phase for me when I was really young, was disco music. I was given the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack record which I played a lot in those days. I also had the Grease soundtrack record, but didn't play it as much. This completely changed when an older relative gave me a Thin Lizzy record.

Country music came much later in life for me. I picked up the Shania Twain cds when I noticed Mutt Lange was the producer, and after seeing her videos on vh1. I didn't even know she was playing country music at first. I thought it sounded like generic rock with a very slick production.

Well, looks like there isn't much left in the releases of 2020 so I think its safe to start throwing out favorite albums of the year. My top 10 favorites aren't in any order (other than the top 3)

Just outside my Top 10
Necrot - Mortal
Bellwitch & Aerial Ruin - Stygian Bough Volume 1
Pallbearer - Forgotten Days
Benighted - Obscene Repressed
Disembowel - Echoes of Terror

Top 10
Ripped to Shreds - Luan
Undeath - Lesions of a Different Kind
Uprising - II
Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou - May Our Chambers be Full
Benediction - Scriptures
Napalm Death - Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism
Trident - North
3. Afterbirth - Four Dimensional Flesh
Came across this March release randomly in August by way of Bandcamp. Minute I heard the vocals I thought that sounds like Big Will. Lo and behold it was Big Will. Massive fan of Artificial Brain and this band is similar with more of a progressive tech death sound.
2. VoidCeremony - Entropic Reflection Continuum: Dimensional Unravel
The bass, THE BASS. Just a beautiful sounding prog death metal album similar to Human era Death, yet still unique. Was going to be my favorite debut album this year until....
1. Cryptic Shift - Visitations from Enceladus
Looked at the song length on Bandcamp before I started listening and saw the first song clocks in at just under 26 minutes (over half the albums length). The song builds and builds its first 4 minutes then kicks into the heaviest riff I've heard this year. By the time it was over it felt like a 5 minute song and I immediately listened to it again. The rest of the album is just as amazing and I'm really looking forward to where these guys go on the next album.

What are yall's favorites of the year?

I'm so out of the loop nowadays, that I couldn't even come up with 10 titles released over the past year which I have "listened to closely".

By "listening to closely", this means something which I have listened to with my full undivided attention on the standalone stereo.

I purposely exclude titles which I only listened to once or twice in the background. In practice, I've found that I frequently don't remember much of anything which I only listened to once or twice in the background.

Even when I have something on cd (or vinyl record) and listen to it with my full undivided attention on the standalone stereo, I've found as I got older that I don't remember as much if I don't listen to something repeatedly.

More generally, if something feels like a "chore" to listen to from start to finish and/or I don't remember much of anything after listening to it, then it will be dropped from my current playlist.

This is the primary reason why I don't listen to a lot of older classic metal bands these days. In spite of sounding just like their old classic stuff, I find I don't remember much of anything after listening to their newer albums even with their classic sound from their heydays.

Lumped up all of my "heavy" 2020 favorites into one list basically.

1. Code Orange - Underneath
2. Xibalba - Aņos en Infierno
3. Emma Ruth Rundle - May Our Chambers Be Full
4. Boris - NO
5. Drain - California Cursed
6. Power Alone - Rather Be Alone
7. Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin kynsi
8. Ulcerate - Stare Into Death and Be Still
9. Scalp - Domestic Extremity
10. Gulch - Impenetrable Cerebral Fortress

As a recent example which made this very clear to me, was listening to the post-y2k Slayer albums several times and finding that I hardly remembered much of anything. Both listening to them on my standalone stereo with my full undivided attention, and in the background while I'm doing something else.

Yesterday I pulled out a few other cds of classic metal bands long past their prime heydays, and listened to them on my standalone stereo with my full undivided attention.

Judas Priest - Angel of Retribution (2006)
Venom - From The Very Depths (2015)
Ozzy - Black Rain
Velvet Revolver - Libertad

After listening through these titles a few times on my standalone stereo, I cannot remember much of anything about them afterwards. (Back in the day when I first purchased these cds, I only listened to them once or twice at the time).

In terms of newer 2020 stuff, so far the only ones I listened to more than 3 or 4 times are Armored Saint "Punching The Sky" and Fates Warning "Long Day Good Night".

I thought "Punching The Sky" had decent writing. Almost on par with Symbol of Salvation in terms of being memorable. (I didn't really listen to Salvation back in the day, but listened to it again more recently for context).

I don't have as much context for Fates Warning, other than it sounds decent on its own. (I haven't listened to them since Awaken the Guardian and No Exit in the mid-late 1980s).

Listened to a "guitar hero" version of Metallica "Death Magnetic" which isn't "brick walled". I haven't really heard much of Death Magnetic before.

Not sure what to make of this album. It has elements I'm accustomed to hearing from Metallica in the 80s. But it doesn't sound memorable at all.

For anyone who missed CVLT Nation's Sonic Unrest: Vol. 6, every band's set has been uploaded to their YouTube Channel.

Day 1

Street Tombs
Mutilared
Zulu
Sarcoughaus
Scalp

Day 2

Pastoral
Sagnater
Moros
Diabolic Oath
200 Stab Wounds

Biased as all-hell because their debut LP made its way (easily) onto my Top 10 releases of the year but Scalp (CA) absolutely killed their set at CVLT Nation's Sonic Unrest: Vol. 6