Surely I'm not the only one frustrated, but also charmed by the necessary but still useless "Similar Artists" tab on the MA page. The criteria for these things is murky at best and yet you want something similar to a band that you have seriously latched onto lately. What's usually the case is that one of the guitarist's side project will be voted first or in the case of Judas Priest, they will have Iron Maiden as their most similar artist when, can we all agree? ...JUDAS PRIEST AND IRON MAIDEN DON'T SOUND ALIKE !

A band like Ram (from Sweden) is closer to Priest than Maiden has ever been and Primal Fear is dedicated to sounding like Painkiller-era Priest, while Accept is more like British Steel-era Priest and Iron Maiden don't have much in common musically/stylistically with Judas Priest except for REGION. So again, what's the criteria here?

This is not a complaint thread really. This made me think about (in general) what would any fan of the many mutations of metal consider as Similar Artists to the bands they love? What's the criteria? Region and scene is clearly a qualifier but what about influence vs. bands dedicated to worshipping Judas Priest, for example? Manilla Road's "Queen of The Black Coast" bears the marks of Judas Priest influence but not as blatantly as anything by Primal Fear. Ceremonial Oath and At The Gates sound way similar than Arch Enemy and ATG but you get the last two mentioned together more. Metallica and Kreator don't sound alike, neither do My Dying Bride and Paradise Lost (in fact PL sounds closer to Metallica than MDB) but they have genre specifications binding them.

If I asked you for similar artists to Panopticon, would your first suggestion be Wolves In The Throne Room ffs?

I love that similar artists tab, it's put me onto so much good stuff over the years it's not funny.
I don't expect it to give me artists that sound exactly the same but for them to be similar in varying degrees in spirit, sound and style.
After all it's the similar artists tab, not the bands that sound the same tab.
Sometimes it's not perfect but it can be very useful.

The 'Similar Artists' tab is the best thing about the entire site.

In response to the question what is the criteria?", there is one criteria only: the number of site users who have upvoted or downvoted.
I don't know how many site users use their voting rights here, I certainly do (all the time). It can really help smaller/unknown bands gain more recognition because it links them to the wider database. If I come across a band with no links in this tab then I will always throw them a few votes for similar artists.

So, if you don't think two bands are similar, give it a downvote.

I've found tons of bands that are similar to the band page I'm on - I don't think I've ever encountered a band I don't feel belong there.

People up/down-vote for different reasons. I agree that it's sometimes silly, for example when seemingly any female-fronted bands are claimed to be similar despite vast difference in sound on all releases.

Maybe MDB and PL has very early stuff which are similar to each other? If so, I'd say its perfectly reasonable to vote for their similarity. They don't have to be similar throughout their entire discography. For me it's enough if one release is similar to a release of another band. Maybe not only one single, but certainly a demo is enough for me.

Also the "first suggestion" criteria is irrelevant since there's no limit to how many bands you can vote for. Doesn't matter if it's the 50th suggestion of the first.

I find the ‘Similar Artists’ tab when looking at niche subgenres. I’ve discovered various dissodeath bands by searching there.

Similar artists feature isn't perfect, but it's still pretty great. I had this idea some years ago that it could be revamped and even wrote a bunch of stuff about this, but can't remember the details now. But of course it's based on a voting system so you're going to get the more obscure bands that might still happen to be most similar near the bottom. Arguably that's unfortunate, but not much can be done about that.

it's a good feature, i use it all the time

i've never added a similar artist to a band page but it seems you can add any band you want, then people will vote it up or down
i guess if they wanted to get really picky they could only allow you to add artists that are in the same genre?
or if it gets enough down votes and only has a score of 1 or 0 it is automatically removed from the list?

but yes with some bands you almost know before you click the tab what is going to be top of the list
it can be a bit click baity, i know i've just clicked the up arrow without thinking about it at times

Under the current system, the similar artist will only show visibly on the page once three users have upvoted it (assuming no downvotes). It is a superb system. I just assumed everyone used it, why not?
The beauty of the system is that there are no restrictions on it. Restricting it to certain subgenres would turn an amazing feature into a useless one.

I love the Similar Artists feature. It’s a useful resource in finding artists with comparable vibes and I like how the democratic aspect of it plays into that “if you like this, you might like that” sort of conversation you have with other music fans. I also can’t argue if as a band guy since it’s been resulted in some great representation for my projects.

The only suggestion I can throw out there is that it would be cool if it allowed for specifics on what sounds the most like a specific era. To use the Priest example, it’d be cool to see subdivisions of bands that sound like their seventies albums versus something like Primal Fear going for that specific Painkiller mold. Of course that would be a whole lot to add in and no doubt lead to even more splitting hairs than we already do.

I do see your concerns on the Similar Artists, like when people vote for bands that don't sound alike. However, I find that very rare in my experience, and find the pros far outweigh the cons. I lost count in how many bands I like that I would've never found out without the tab.

Yeah it's not perfect, but how could it be? In my opinion, if you're a guy who loves Priest but has never heard of Iron Maiden, you should definitely check out Iron Maiden before doing anything else. Maybe Primal Fear sounds more like them, but famous/popular bands will always be given more weight. It's fine as is and probably my favorite thing on the site. I've found tons of great stuff from it.

I like the similar artist tab, it's useful for death metal cause influences are always so direct

I have no issues with this feature. I treat it not like "this band sounds the same as that one", more like "if you liked this band, check out these guys, you might enjoy them too". Most of the time it works for me. The fact that some bands changed genres dramatically does complicate things a little but, but the fact that each band's genre is listed in this tab helps a lot.
Disagree about the need for the genres to be the same. For example, some musicians may have projects of vastly different genres, but they still end up sounding somewhat similar. This is often the case with non-metal projects that were included thanks to the side projects rule.

I've noticed that whenever two different sounding bands shared the same vocalist, they're shown on the similar artist page, which can be extremely misleading (see Conception and Kamelot, for instance). Otherwise, it's a helpful tool that helped me discover some good bands.

Its not a perfect feature but can be very helpful…

A few of us on our little MA Discord listening club actually talked a bit about this when a Virgin Black album came up and we looked to the similar artists list for the band only to find it filled with literally every other big goth metal band on the site. It led to a series of downvotes because come on. Virgin Black doesn't sound anything like Paradise Lost, Type O Negative, or Moonspell.

This, right here, is a very good answer.

1. The similar artists tab is a very useful tool. Not perfect. But definitely a good place to start.
2. There is no criteria, only each and everyone's subjective opinion is what decides what are the similar artists.

Keeping this in mind, to understand how some bands come to have similar artists that may or may not be all that similar, we have to understand that the greatest biais of such a system is, and the answer is that the most popular/well-known bands will inevitably end up being upvoted more, simply because more people know them. So sometimes, you discover this underground death metal band (let's say Skyglow) that is basically a copy of Death (I don't know if that's true, just giving an example), so you upvote Death as a similar artist. On their page, Death is the most upvoted similar artist with say 16 votes. However, on Death's page, the same band is like 120th most similar band. Why is that? Well, because people don't know Skyglow as much as they know Atheist, Pestilence, Possessed, Gruesome, or Cynic. If you think about it, it makes sense.

So, knowing this, then you can:

1. Nuance these numbers. You can understand that Atheist is not "objectively" the most similar band to Death, but rather the most well-known band that people might also find similar to Death.
2. Keep this in mind while looking for similar bands in the similar bands tab. So if you're looking for bands similar to Death, maybe do exactly what I said before, and go down the list, then click some of the names at random, and go look at their side of the similar tabs. And if on their side of it, Death is the most similar artist, then you might want to look into that band, as they might be more similar to Death then say Control Denied (as there will obviously be people who will vote for CD based on the fact that Chuck was in both bands), or even Obscura (which I personnally find to be hardly anything like Death).

TL;DR The similar tabs is a very useful tool. But like all "survey" type tools, have limitations and biases. Biases which you can anticipate and predict to better use the tool, which is still very useful even if it has limitations.

"Iron Maiden don't have much in common musically/stylistically with Judas Priest except for REGION"
Borderline operatic, high pitched vocals? Gallops? Melodic dual guitar leads?
I get the two bands sound very different when you get past the general stuff, but if you don't think there's any connection between them, you need to zoom out a little bit and take a broader perspective of metal. Maiden and Priest were high profile direct competitors in the same zeitgeist, at least starting with the 80s. "Similar artists" doesn't necessarily mean "artists who sound exactly the same," it can mean artists who share a very similar cultural space.

why? if you broaden rock and metal enough you could make it sound like Queen and Cannibal Corpse sound exactly alike.

I love the similar artists tab but I never trust the top part bc of how often it just fucking lies. Type O Negative's similar artist tab just fuckin lies. Why the fuck is Danzig at the top? That was rhetorical I know why but it's still not right, they sound nothing alike. Out of the top four in Type O's similar artists only Carnivore is accurate and it was literally Pete's previous band.

A better way to think of the similar artists tab might be for you to consider it a "fans also liked" tab. To use OPs example, there are bands that are more stylistically closer to each band, Malice and Aria are two examples, one for each band, but chances are if you're a fan of one, you're almost certainly going to be a fan of the other.

With similar artists, sometimes it's also interesting to look at the percentage that the votes get just as much as the number to see how similar they are. A more well known band will get more votes than a lesser known (but very similar band) simply because more people are familiar with it, but also because more people will disagree it won't have as many votes in favor.

Another way that the similar artists page is helpful is with those distinctions within a genre. For example, they're helpful at a glance with thrash bands, for example, in that you can determine if it is a more raw thrash band (similar to Slayer, Exodus early Kreator, etc) or a more melodic Bay Area style. Another example is for determining what death metal artist they're most like—for example, determining if they're made in the vein of Autopsy/Asphyx doomy death, Obituary grunty groovy death, or Bolt Thrower style, for example.

I really love the SA tab. The percentages are the best part about it. They are more interesting the more votes they have of course, but great for finding new bands all the same. It's like a best friend recommending cool shit to me, not always accurate but the beginning of some fun rabbit holes.

Yeah overally i'd say it's a lovely and useful tool but it can be unhelpful for some niche/unique bands like Deathspell O, where the 2 most recomended artists are Ulcerate and Blut aus Nord, which is ridiculous

I think it's a more general thing that doesn't really require excessive examination or anything like that.

You like Death? How about Morbid Angel? Maybe try some Immolation? Then they recommend Gorguts, which leads to Demilich, and then Timeghoul and that can loop to Pestilence which can either go the Cynic/Atheist route or the Ripping Corpse route which takes you to Human Remains and so on and so forth

See how I just named bands that aren't clones of each other but have enough surface similarities in terms of style, I think it's useful myself

Usually projects of the band will be voted first regardless of whether they're similar to the main band being referenced or not.

HeavenDuff summed up this perfectly for me though;

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Carnivore has some similarities to Type O, what I don't understand is A Pale Horse named Death.

On topic: It's a great feature.

Still fully on topic: I sometimes play 'six degrees of separation' in Similar Artists.

Skyclad to Nazxul, go. Skyclad - Bifrost - Ancient Rites - Sear Bliss - Nazxul.

I'll show myself out.

Yeah! And if we just broaden our perspective a little further what's the difference really between music and, say, sports? There is none! It's just people playing with objects and making noise and stuff!