Report: 'Metal Is Back' In Australia

Kathy McCabe of Australia's The Daily Telegraph reports: After years of hiding their guilty musical pleasure in the closet, Australia's metalheads are coming out loud and proud in defence of contemporary music's most maligned genre.

Putting metal back on the map has involved a year-long personal quest by Roadrunner Records managing director Jon Satterly whose label releases hundreds of albums from hard rockin' acts every year.

Satterly, whose email signature features the pithy entreaty "When in doubt ask, 'What would SLIPKNOT do?''', devised two promotional campaigns this year to achieve his goal of bringing metal into the mainstream.

The first initiative, "Out A Metal Head," was designed to uncover the most unlikely fans within and without the music industry.

His second goal was to get his artists' music back on the airwaves.

After they were deluged with thousands of postcards from fans demanding a few hours of power, Channel V put a metal show back on air in May. Albeit after 1am.

Satterly says his crusade was partly fuelled by a desire to grow the market in Australia, with Roadrunner's turnover exploding from $1.05 million in 1996 to more than $8 million in 2006.

He says two primary factors led to metal becoming a dirty word in the 1980s; hair metal bands and cultural media snobs.

"I think the genre did become a victim of the stereotypes of the '80s and hair metal didn't do us any favours,'' he says with a chuckle.

"It's always been working-class music, metal and later punk, which was appropriated by the cultural elitists, the snobby critics.

"It's almost like everyone's cultural memory of the genre ended in 1984 but it remains as diverse and thriving as any family of music."

Read the entire article at www.news.com.au.