20 years!



That's how long this site has been around. Do you feel old yet? Or are you among those of our users who were not even born then?

In early July of 2002, HellBlazer and I put this site online on the public Internet, but almost no one knew about it yet. With the help of a few friends (and some of their own friends), we went about to test the platform and started adding data, with the first band page being Amorphis, added on July 7th. Why Amorphis, we are often asked? I have no idea. I was probably listening to Elegy at the time or something. Or I looked around and saw an Amorphis CD lying around. Or maybe not, I honestly can't remember!

Then, on July 14th we bought the metal-archives.com domain name. Yes that's right, in the earliest, pre-launch days, the site ran on a... Tripod.co.uk URL, seeing as it was one of the rare web hosts that offered free PHP/MySQL hosting at the time. And a few days later - band addition records suggests this would be July 17th 2002 - one of our staff members decided to plug the site on a (sadly now defunct) public metal forum, and thus opened the floodgates. The contributions came pouring in quickly, the early “big push” needed towards building what quickly became the definitive heavy metal database on the Internet.

Never would I have imagined, two decades ago, that one day we would be hosting a staggering ~160k bands, or that there were even that many metal bands in existence. HellBlazer and I are constantly awed and humbled by the wealth of knowledge and information our community has gathered over the years, not to mention the wonderful attention to detail and work ethic of our tireless contributors and staff members. We could not have done it without you all, and we sincerely thank everyone who has contributed to this site, both in big and small ways.

Now, the 20 year anniversary of Metal Archiving ought to be celebrated and commemorated in some ways, and we do have some plans for that, which we will disclose shortly. Stay tuned…

For our users old and new, feel free to share your memories, anecdotes, thoughts, or other comments in here or on social media.

Here’s to, I hope, several more decades!

Cheers!!!!!

Been listening to metal since it first existed, but fairly new to Metal Archives myself. Interested to see what is in store

In 2006 I had only barely started listening to much of anything really. Had never had a lot of music in my life as a kid due to being hard of hearing and whatnot as a kid. But I knew I wanted to get into it and so I started paying attention to the stuff my friends liked; Pantera, Maiden, Priest... then just went from there and somehow found this place.

Even thinking back to when I first discovered MA around 2005, I don't ever remember feeling like it was incomplete or lacked the exact info I was looking for. I know it never has, and never will, hold 100% of metal band info, but it honestly feels that way. Congrats on 20 years, and thank you for the best site in the history of the internet!

I'm more of a lurker than anything, but I really truly love this site. It's invaluable.

Oh, I've been on MA for half of my life.

Fun fact: This site is now only a year away from being able to legally purchase alcohol and cigarettes in the United States.

Still, happy 20th Anniversary to MA!

in early 2003 a friend of mine found the MA page of a sardinian super unknown band that did like 2 demo tapes in like 50 copies each and we thought "how the fuck they found all the information to list them in this archive?" LOL
I started visiting the site every day but I registered only few months later and started adding information from my collection of music, mags and zines.

Fuck

...MA has been part of my life for longer than it hasn't been a part of it

I first heard about the website in 2013 or 2014, when I started getting into more obscure black metal bands, but wasn't really aware of the forum's existence until later on. I had a previous account here too, created in 2017-2018, I believe, but have since lost the credentials. Needless to say, it's refreshing to find messages boards like this that are still active. I used to frequent Ultimate Metal as well but eh, let's say I prefer this community much more. Long live MA!

Even in the late ‘00s, if you typed metal band names into Google enough you’d stumble across MA. And that’s why I’m here today. Great site, happy anniversary!

This is the best and most accurate metal music related website on the Internet. I was lucky enough to be around to witness the absolutely amazing evolution of the website during these long years, so big cheers to every single dedicated contributor who actively took part in this evolution. Happy anniversary metal-archives!

I've learnt so much about music and discovered many new bands thanks to this site. I can't imagine how little I would know if it wasn't for this site.

2 decades, dammit! Congratulations for creators of this beautiful thing.

I will raise a few toasts tomorrow, for a million more years to come...

PS. Just got over 666 posts...

21 posts in 16 years!

"Lurker" seems like an understatement.

Twenty years? OMG, seems like yesterday! Don't remember exactly how I found out the archives existed. I started to browse it as early as 2003 but didn't create a user until a couple years later.

Congrats. I cannot express how grateful I am that this site exists. I’m pretty sure the first time I came here was in 2003 or 2004. I was on an Iron Maiden website and asked about where I could locate the most authoritative discography and someone on that site linked me to MA.

Member since 2006, possibly lurked a bit prior to joining, I can't quite recall. What I do recall is when the site seemed to crash constantly. I don't miss those days.

Amazing website though. It's very rare that a day passes where I don't visit (even if only briefly).

11 posts in 18 years!

You guys are really coming out of the woodwork for this.

We are getting older.... happy birthday.

I found the site lurking through metal cd trade forums (RIP), and one thing lead to another....

I've been using the site since the early 2000s, but only joined the forums last year. MA has been the absolute best resource for finding music I've used and I don't think I'd have found as many of the bands as I have without it!

Happy 20th to Metal Archives. I always love browsing around on this site when I'm bored, and I always love contributing when I can. Thank you Morrigan and Hellblazer for creating one of the coolest metal websites to ever exist \m/

I went from an ignorant teenager to a slightly less ignorant moderator in the span of 10 years. It's been a blast so far, especially when bands show their gratitude for getting submitted to the site. One time a band even sent their EP to me as thanks. People usually talk about MA as this very close-minded and elitist sect, but it's been one of the most welcoming and wholesome communities I've been part of, so I don't know where I'd be without it.

I remember way, WAY back when Metallica's St. Anger album was released and was wanting to read reviews about it and many mentioned how poorly it was back in 2003. This is, somehow, lead me to click on Metal-Archives and saw overwhelmingly negative take on the album and this is also the time that I start to move away from Metallica and start to branch off to different bands and needed some more guidance. At that time, I was getting into the likes of Blind Guardian and Nightwish and so on.

Since the site gave me so much information, I became a mainstay. My forum suggested that I joined dating back in 2004 but it felt like a bit earlier than that before deciding to register anyway. I also remember getting banned from there because me and my brother have the same computer that we alter our usernames and somehow, someone found out that I might be messing around. But anywho, good times and I really love this site, anyway.

It's wonderful to see, honestly.

Haven't really posted in years even though I browse the main site regularly, but figured I'd chime in.

Can't really recall when I found the site, but must've been years before I registered at least. I remember using audioscrobbler and darklyrics for a lot of my metal findings and info back in those early 00 days (I remember I discovered Behemoth on darklyrics where I just looked through the artists alphabetically and checked them out since I loved playing as Stronghold in Heroes of Might and Magic III, and their top tier unit is Behemoth), but must've stumbled upon this site not too long after! Awesome database and community effort. Love that the site has kept the simple but effective design, and never went into innovation or a sleek design just for the sake of it. Additions like the similar artists tab and such like it have been fine though. Will probably use this site 'til the end of my days, haha.

Metal Archives fuckin rules!

I joined as a sophomore(?) in high school just starting out on my metal journey. Over the years, my level of activity has varied, but I'm usually lurking and reading the forum. Couldn't imagine how different my metal journey would be without this place!

I joined the site in Sep 2003 and I'm more of a lurker in the forums but I have used the site extensively for finding new music since I joined.

Wow, that fucks me right up. I have such fond memories of a good friend of mine in, holy christ, grade 8 I guess? lending me a random smattering of extreme metal CDs back when I was still firmly convinced that System of a Down was the heaviest band in the known universe. He showed me this site and told me it was how he found out about a lot of these bands, and how he was continuing to find new ones. The rest is history. I can't even begin to imagine how different my taste in music would be without Metal Archives.

Joined circa 2010. Glad to see the community here is still vibrant and welcoming, and it keeps providing me with great music leads to this day.

Congrats guys. I probably first found out about this site sometime in the mid-late 2000s. Can't remember exactly. What I do remember is that it blew my fucking mind that there was so much awesome music waiting for me to discover.

This site has probably done more for the metal community than you'll ever fully realize.

I've been using the website since before I joined, but I don't remember when that was, so I just voted for 2010, which is when I officially signed up

Happy 20th Metal-Archives!

I don't know? I'm relatively new here in the forum but I've been using MA since forever. I mean, I've listened to metal for about 16-18 years and I remember using MA since then.

The first time I ever heard of MA was back in 2003, trading music files on Soulseek, when someone in the chatroom suggested death metal bands to me, and said to check Immolation. Of course, I had never heard of them by that point, and said so to the dude, and he said "check it on Metal Archives". So, well, here I am.

2 decades, that's wild. I first came across MA in early 2008 when I was looking for info on some obscure bands. If I'm honest - I wasn't too fond of V1 of the site. I only visited the site if it was the only place that had certain band info. There are still a lot of bands where you can't find info on them anywhere else on the internet. I've always found that fascinating.

Ironically, I was searching again in late April 2011 and figured I'd give the site another shot and saw the new V2 interface. I absolutely loved it and found myself regularly using the site to find out more info. Eventually I decided to start contributing since the site has given so much to me. I found contributing was just as addicting as the site. Haha. Now I don't know what I'd do without this place.

Cheers to everyone that made this site happen and to all the staff that keep it going! The amount of work and effort that has been put into it is massive.

I registered in 2003, but lost account and password ( I could not remember those not even under torture - something connected with Morbid Angel propably).
Then I re-registered in 2006 (although, during years, I've been reading the forum often). Then again lost my password and couldn't log-in anymore. Wife & kids, all those anti-metal passion things of life, happened during the past decades but one day I just tried the odds of my past memory and finally could re-enter.

Happy birthday to Metallum, the most invaluable musical encyclopedia!

Incredible to think that this place has been going for 20 years now! I first began visiting MA in 2003 so I guess I’d be considered part of the OG group even though I didn’t sign up for the forum until some time later (under a different user name to my current one). MA was massively influential in developing and understanding my knowledge and appreciation for metal and it has pretty much been my gold standard for learning about the genre ever since. Here’s to another 20 years!

Pretty sure i've been using this website since like 2004 or 2005, I might have had another name years ago but Im not sure i used the forum then. Not sure when my actually join date under this name is 09 to 14 probably. Love this site, been a great aid to me over the years with finding great music and info.