We Need a Metal Hall of Fame and Toronto is the Place for it

I recently had the pleasure of visiting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland Ohio. It is a modern building with "new age" architecture designed to be a shrine paying tribute to the musicians who pioneered and advanced modern music. One of the exhibits at TR&RH is a video montage that pays tribute to all the inductees. It was while watching this half hour montage that I made a couple of observations. The first one was that if you are part of a movement at the beginning stages, eventually you will be labeled a pioneer and idolized. There were many inductees who were there only because they were semi popular in the fifties. The second observation was that a lot of the inductees should not be in there because they never played rock. Artists such as Nina Horn, Hank Williams, and Parliament were never in the rock and roll category (not to mention the Bee-gees and Run DMC who were the antithesis of R&R). And finally, out of the hundred or so inductees, there were only two true metal bands: the Legendary Black Sabbath and Metallica. That is when I had my epiphany: There needs to be a Metal Hall of Fame and Toronto is the city to have it in.

The case for a Metal Hall of Fame is simple: The criteria on the induction to the R&RHF is based on album sales and commercial success. Since Metal has always been music of the underground, it cannot compete with music made for the commercial masses. It would be like denying the genus of Classical music because the new Pussy Cat Dolls CD sold more copies in the same year then all the CD's from the Romantic Period world wide. Most of the musicians who pioneered Metal music were considered successes if their album reached sales of 40,000. For example Megadeth's 2004 release "The system has failed" sold 171,000 copies world wide and all the Cannibal Corpse albums combine barley cracked the sales of One Million. Metal is (and should be) judged on it's inventiveness and contribution to the genre. For example, everyone credits a band like My Dying Bride as pioneering Doom Metal, yet, by commercial standards they would be ignored because of their poor album sales. If Canadian Metal heads don't band together,legendary bands like Death (the first death metal band), Morbid Angel (the first Death Metal band signed to a major label), Celtic Frost (who is cited as inspiring every relevant metal band), Cannibal Corpse (Number one selling death Metal band of all time), Burzum (popularizing open strumming that would be imitated by almost every Black Metal band), and Anvil (Toronto legends and thrash pioneers) will never receive a monument that will immortalize their achievements for all eternity. A Metal Hall of Fame would create a Metal shrine where legions of faithful metal warriors would be able to pay tribute to their legends and heroes who are still frighting, and those who have passed on to Valhalla.

The case for having it in Toronto is simple: the city spends its money on much dumber things. We have actually dug subway tunnels only to latter fill them. The cost of that could not only build a state of the art Metal Hall of Fame, but also wipe out the debt of an African country. A few months ago, out-going mayor David Miller announced that, after looking at the paper work more closely, the city is not broke but has a surplus of a hundred million dollars. Is $500,000 to make history asking too much? Also, Toronto is the largest city and has the most metal heads. This Metal Hall of Fame would be the first in the world and would boost tourism. Every true Metal fan would want to make a pilgrimage at least once in their life to the Mecca of Metal and pay their respect to the gods of Metal, who gave them strength in their darkest hour. On top of that, it would inspire the Toronto metal head kids, knowing that one day they too can share the stage with Manowar, Maiden, and Priest for all eternity. Canada has had the pleasure of producing some legendary bands like Anvil, Cryptopsy, and Annihilator. We also have a lot of young bands with a lot of promise like Deterrence, Cauldron, Ash Lee Blade, Terror Horse, and Striker. However, we can do better, and being the first country with a Metal Hall of Fame would solidify Canada as a heavy metal contender like Norway , Germany, and Sweden.