Many of us checked out of metal in the '90s. For some, tastes changed. For others, metal didn't offer enough. '80s thrash greats served up weak albums, death metal ascended rapidly but burned out just as quickly, grunge reigned supreme, and the century ended with metal in a kind of dark ages. That's the conventional wisdom, anyway.

I'll argue that while metal may have declined commercially during that time, it did not decline artistically. It went underground and stratified, which meant lower sales. But there was a hell of a lot going on then. In the '80s, there were fewer bands and fewer kinds of metal. It was easier to be "big". The '90s brought one of metal's major subgenre splits: death vs. black metal. Those in turn split into countless sub-subgenres, each with its own fanbase. The Big Four of Thrash are probably the last metal bands that can fill stadiums.

We should define exactly when metal's "dark ages" occurred. I'll argue that it took place from 1994 to 2003. I say 1994 because that year brought three records that were very negatively influential: Korn's self-titled debut, Pantera's Far Beyond Driven, and Machine Head's Burn My Eyes. Those records are defensible to various degrees, and perhaps even considered classics. But we're still paying for the sins of bands influenced by those records. They led to groove metal and nu-metal, the latter of which gets the most blame for the dark ages of metal.

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Nu-metal was just one of a host of abominations during metal's dark ages. That time period also had:

Blaze Bayley-era Iron Maiden

Ripper Owens-era Judas Priest

Post-Dave Lombardo Slayer

Post-Max Cavalera Sepultura; pre-Marc Rizzo Soulfly

Tons of crap by Metallica, Queensrÿche, Overkill, and early '90s death metal greats

Rise of symphonic black metal

Mortician

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But a lot of good (depending on whom you ask; Fenriz would disagree) things happened during metal's dark ages:

Second wave of black metal

Transition out of black metal by bands like Enslaved, Satyricon, Ulver, etc.

Gothenburg melodic death metal (also very negatively influential, however)

Rise of technical death metal

Incredibly fertile period for Devin Townsend and Strapping Young Lad

Peak, arguably, for grindcore (Nasum, Discordance Axis)

Late-'90s Boston hardcore scene (Converge, Cave In, Isis), leading to mathcore, post-metal, etc.

I'll argue that metal's "dark ages" ended in 2003 because 2004 was such a monumental year for metal. But it's not like 2003 was bad, and some switch flipped so that 2004 was great. As discussed above, movements occurred during the dark ages that built up to 2004 being a watershed year.

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Consider what happened in 2004:

Peak of metalcore, with Lamb of God's Ashes of the Wake, Shadows Fall's The War Within, Killswitch Engage's The End of Heartache, and Unearth's The Oncoming Storm

Strong comebacks by Megadeth (The System Has Failed) and Exodus (Tempo of the Damned)

Relapse's dream year: Mastodon's Leviathan, Pig Destroyer's Terrifyer, The Dillinger Escape Plan's Miss Machine. Those, combined with Isis' Panopticon and Converge's You Fail Me, laid the groundwork for Decibel magazine

Landmark death metal records by Behemoth (Demigod) and Arsis (A Celebration of Guilt); out of nowhere, Cannibal Corpse step up their game (The Wretched Spawn), a rejuvenation that continues today; Willowtip Records comes into its own by releasing Arsis, Alarum, Crowpath, and more

Your black metal album of the decade, Deathspell Omega's Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice

These were certainly artistic triumphs. But more importantly, they were commercial successes. Metalcore saved real metal commercially by providing new marquee names after nu-metal, and thus infusing audiences with new blood. (Hipster metal has this effect nowadays.) The more people that buy albums and go to shows, the more money there is in metal's economy. The money trickles down; Slayer take an up-and-coming Mastodon on the road; after Mastodon get big, they take an up-and-coming Kylesa on the road, and so on.

Metal might have seemed dark for a while, since the stars of the '80s didn't shine as brightly. But what happened was that they burned out, and many smaller stars took their place. Grunge had nothing to do with it. (A lot of grunge was basically metal in different clothes, anyway.) The Internet wasn't booming then, and information was scarce. Tape trading and physical 'zines meant much more then. I didn't know of the church burnings in Norway because I wasn't reading the right publications. But now the Internet would know, probably in real time. ("RT @vargvk: Burn baby burn") With so much access to information now, metal probably won't have another dark ages again. Ironically, though, the danger is that it will get washed out in a sea of bright light and no contrast.