Throughout most of high school and my freshman year, I enjoyed listening to the music of my favorite bands, such as Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Pink Floyd. I bought a lot of albums, as I still do, but they were usually the latest offered by one of my collection regulars. I remember the excitement of purchasing the newest albums offered by Stone Temple Pilots or Korn the day they went on sale, without even thinking that I was not buying anything totally new. Few Heavy Metal and Rock bands were able to reach stardom during this period, with the exception of Limp Bizkit, Godsmack, and a select few others. However, over the past year, this has changed and one can see that heavy metal and Hard Rock is being revitalized in a huge way.
New bands seem to be popping out of nowhere with surprisingly great songs and high quality albums.
Some of these bands include A Perfect Circle, Liquid Gang, Deftones, Disturbed, UPO, Nickleback, and P.O.D. Deftones were propelled into mainstream success after the release of their latest album, White Pony, this year. Their prior albums were popular only to the most hardcore fans, and the music never reached a mainstream audience because of lack of radio airplay. Disturbed is currently on tour with Stone Temple Pilots, and is opening many fans eyes and ears to their raw and explicit sound. Their sound fits into the rap infused metal genre that is being conquered by bands like Limp Bizkit. P.O.D. have opened up for Pantera on their tour this year, and also spent their summer filling a slot on the Ozzfest lineup.