apanthropy

Who is Max Norman?

Max Norman is an English producer and engineer who has been part of the metal scene since 1973. He produced Ozzy Osbourne’s classic albums, such as Blizzard of Ozz, Diary of a Madman, and Bark at the Moon. He’s produced records from Megadeth, Loudness, Death Angel and Grim Reaper, amongst multiple other artists. He’s also done mixing and engineering for many of the previously mentioned bands.

In a recent article by Ultimate Guitar, Max Norman was quoted with saying the following: “The problem now is people can’t make world-class records because there’s 10,000 records a day coming out or whatever.”

Continuing, he says “So nobody’s making world-class records because nobody gives a shit.”

“Because it doesn’t matter how good the record is. Only fucking two people are gonna listen to it anyway.”

Now, if you read the article, you’ll realize not everything Max Norman says is doom and gloom. He’s not speaking untrue though regarding the production of world-class records. Nobody really cares and there’s a very real oversaturation occurring in the heavy metal scene.

While the math in his figure of speech is slightly off, there were at least 32,500 heavy metal albums produced in 2023, based on a quick search on Encyclopedia Metallum. This equates to a running average of 89 albums released per day. If each album has an average run-time of, let’s say, half an hour, then it becomes grossly impossible to listen to everything being released. Granted, people have individualistic taste and are inherently going to avoid genres and bands they’re simply not interested in, but the point stands firm. At 89 albums per day, when does somebody stop and say, “there’s too much and most of it simply isn’t good.”

There’s too much and most of it simply isn’t good. Period.

To frame this, let’s look at 1985. Strictly focusing on heavy metal, there were just under 2,000 releases that year, an average of 5-6 releases per day.

One can argue “heavy metal has done well since 1985, and it’s more alive than ever.”

I agree. Heavy metal has done very well for itself since its inception. However, if I have an island that’s five square miles in size and introduce 89 deer on to the island every 24 hours, I’m going to have a problem on my hands in a very short amount of time. True, this is a very false equivalency, and I’d like to avoid the philosophical debate on the topic of overpopulation, but the concept is novel to a degree. Too much, too fast, too soon. Not everyone is going to survive. Great albums from unknown bands get buried, sub-par albums from long established acts get the screen and radio time. You’re well aware of the new Dying Fetus album that was released in 2023 but you’re probably not aware of the new Ildganger album. Both were solid releases, both came out in 2023, one is well-known, the other is a virtual shadow. Granted, you could replace Ildganger with any one of ten thousand other bands, and you’d have the same effect. This isn’t a dig at the new Dying Fetus record either, it was a solid release, but it also doesn’t sound anything remotely like their early material.

We can steer this topic into marketing budgets, age of establishment, rigorous touring by one band, so on and so forth, but the concept is there and it’s hard to deny. Good bands that aren’t deeply established are being buried.

Returning to Max Norman’s thoughts on record production, he’s right, nobody gives a shit about producing a world-class album anymore because the concept is obsolete due to over-saturation.

Gone are the days when you went to a physical store and bought an album on its release date. I remember the thrill of my stepdad taking me to Kamm’s Record Store on May 12^th of 2001, where he talked to the owner of the store and managed to get me a copy of Tool’s Lateralus three days before it came out. I remember bragging to my friends about it and inviting all of them over while we huddled in my bedroom, smoking joints, and listening to the album on repeat. I also remember the day Slayer released God Hates Us All, we all do, it was on 9/11. It was almost prophetic; it was grossly appropriate for the grim reality of that day. I remember going to Best Buy with some of my friends and each one of us picking up a copy of the album.

Those days are gone. Nostalgia is strong. When you have immediate access to a new album on a streaming service, it simply isn’t the same feeling. It’s soulless, it’s boring, and it’s something that the vast majority of people listen to as background noise before switching to the next flavor of the week. How often do you sit down and actually listen to a new album? No distractions, no screens, not treating it like background noise, but literally sitting down and strictly focusing on a new release? I’m assuming it’s probably pretty rare. Maybe you work a ton of hours, maybe your kids won’t shut the fuck up, maybe your significant other doesn’t share the same tastes as you, life doesn’t often leave a lot of time and space to pursue what we genuinely want to pursue.

If the vast majority of people barely sit down to listen to what they claim is their favorite style of music, is Max wrong then? How can production be an important factor if people barely listen and absorb the record? And does production matter that much for smaller bands that are going to die on their way up the impossibly high hill of metal popularity? With an average of 89 metal releases per day in 2023, it’s like D-Day for the metal scene, most of the bands won’t reach the metaphorical beach and are dead in the water.

The day of big metal release dates are over. It is a ‘rinse and repeat’ mechanism. But nostalgia is a strong force.

Speaking of which, the nostalgia surrounding the recent Slayer reunion news was immense, with the return celebrated at a level rarely seen in heavy music. Front page articles were plastered with the news of Slayer’s future return to the big stage, headlining two festival dates, one at Riot Fest in Chicago and the other at Louder Than Life in Louisville for late summer dates in September of 2024. This marks their return after a five-year “break up” period.

The news was odd considering a recent interview published by Rolling Stone on February 4^th, which quite literally opens with the line “Kerry King moved on from Slayer, whose breakneck-paced declarations of destruction redefined metal for a generation, a long time ago.” Apparently not.

When Rolling Stone asked, “Have you talked to Tom (Araya) at all since the last show?” King’s response was “Not even a text. Not even an email.”

When asked if he has spoken with Dave Lombardo, King’s response was very simple and very stark: “No. Lombardo is dead to me.”

So, with that being stated, let’s not call this a reunion. Let’s call it what it is, nostalgia’s impact and the opportunity for, what is assumed, a lot of cash. Let’s look at concrete facts…

Tom can barely hear. Not to mention, if you read the Rolling Stone article, it’s not like Tom and Kerry have maintained any sort of relationship and Kerry freely acknowledges that they are two completely different people. Kerry has a new solo album coming up that is being hyped heavily, undoubtably with some degree of touring most likely following with it. Jeff is dead. Jeff has been dead for a long time and it was a devastating blow to the band. Dave, unlike Kerry, has actually moved on from Slayer and is playing in several different bands now and seemingly enjoying himself quite a bit. So it’s looking like Paul Bostaph and Gary Holt will continue to play live for Slayer.

You’re getting half the original line-up.

Let’s be honest, five years is a reasonably long time. Anybody expecting Tom to take the stage and hit the high scream that opens ‘Angel of Death’ and not expect it to sound like a dying badger are lying to themselves. Sorry, but, come on now. 1986 was a long time ago.

This isn’t a dig at Slayer, not at all. Slayer are one of the greatest, most important bands in music history. It’s just a reality check.

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. Ask KISS fans about it. Ask Motley Crue fans about it. Ask the fans of any band that played legitimate as-advertised “farewell” tours, only to come back a few years later and start performing again.

Ask Emperor mastermind, Ihsahn, about nostalgia. Any self-respecting black metal fan knows exactly who Emperor are, when pressed by El Planeta Del Rock on the prospect of new Emperor material, he had this to say:

“I think it would be easy-ish to make something that sounds like early Emperor, but who would want a black metal album made to make money off some kind of conceptual idea for some kind of demand in the market? That goes against everything that the music is about, in some sense. So unless planets align in the ways that me and Samoth (guitars) just really connect over a common idea that we really want to make, I really don’t see that happening. And also, name me one band who broke up and then did a reunion record where people were, like, ‘Fuck, this is amazing. This is even better than the old stuff.’ It doesn’t really happen because it’s impossible, because you can’t compete with nostalgia.”

There are a few ideas here worth discussing, for one, he acknowledges that cash-driven, market demand-based reunion albums are contradictory to the ethos of the music’s principle concepts. He acknowledges that writing a stripped-down early Emperor style record would be relatively easy to do and would come more as a stripped-down conceptualized idea than an honest up-to-date record.

He is right that most reunion records don’t match up to the pre-breakup material for the vast majority of bands. As I write this, nothing comes to mind in terms of reunion albums eclipsing a band’s earlier releases.

Gary Holt’s wife offered sage advice for any detractor of the recently announced Slayer reunion: “Don’t go.”

Passes for Louder Than Life and Riot Fest, both, will set you back over two hundred dollars per head, for general admission all access to the full events. If this is your one and only opportunity to see Slayer, then seize it. However, for those of us that have seen the band before, you should be realistic as to what this really is, it’s a cash grab. Between King’s very vocal commentary involving the other surviving members of the band, the timing, and the festival billings, all signs lead to the money.

And the money will be there, because you can’t beat nostalgia.

-AJK