ALL THRASH METAL BANDS OF THE EIGHTIES ARE SELL-OUTS!

Lemmy has entered the chat... and everyone else left it. While Motörhead were not really thrash, they were still a lot more thrash than the thrash-bands of the 90's.

As Jason Newstead once said: "Of course we sell out....every seat in the house every time we play." Love your content. Subbed!

Motorhead's one of the only metal bands I can think of who never sold out. They went a little melodic on Another Perfect Day (which I didn't like at the time, but they've grown to be one of my favorite Motorhead albums), and March or Die was a bit weak but it was still Motorhead. Lemmy never let ya down.

I started listening to metal in the 1981 and watched it all unfold in real time. True thrash metal was a short lived genre that quickly bridged heavy metal to death metal and later black metal.

As long as they are changing for themselves and not for the sake of selling more records I'm okay with it

Testament played ballads like that almost from the beginning

Metallica did the Black album in 1991, and all the other Thrash Metal bands followed their footsteps because of how huge The Black album was. Some of them I really love like Testament's The Ritual, Megadeth's Countdown To Extinction, and Anthrax's The Sound Of White Noise.

It might not be how you stay relevant...but it’s definitely how you stay employed!

Problem is, music, as everything else, is moving on and it's not always for the better. People get older, change their life priorities, listeners get bored if bands are unable to create something new and are repeating themselves. This is why at least some bands have excuse for trying something else.

Celtic Frost didn't even wait until the 80's were over. :)

SodoM, Kreator, and Destruction are still Thrashing hard.

Another interesting phenomenon in the nineties was the great amount of bands that emerged as death metal bands but with the years changed their style, for example: Therion, Paradise Lost, Opeth, etc.

Gotta say Testament - Trail of Tears is fucking awesome. Also overkill didn't sell out. In the 90's, there was another new sound that was popular. Groove metal. That sound you heard in the 90's. from I Hear Black. That wasn't grunge that was groove. They kept the thrash and just added the groove. Even a lot of fans are complaining how they changed to groove. Imo, thrash + groove is a great combination. But they've been back on thrash for years now anyway. Also Heathen didn't sell out. They only have like 3 or 4 albums and they're all thrash. Artillery I think also never made anything grungy or different as far as I remember

I think selling out is waaaaaayyy deeper then just “band plays a different style of music then what they got popular for.” 1. Times changes 2. Record labels ask/demand change 3. Taste change 4. The need to try something new Not to mention why is it “selling out” when a band changes to a form of music looked down upon? No one ever calls Pantera sell outs for going from glam metal to groove metal. Just saying 🤷🏼‍♀️. Also I feel like once a band or artist for that matter gets to a status of Metallica or Slayer they have the right to do whatever they want. Metallica gave us 5 all time metal classics (yes the black album is a classic, black album haters) back to back. At that point they could’ve became a country group for all I care they earned that right.

"Endorama" was a magnificent album. Was one of my favourite records back then.

How boring would it be if thrash bands just did thrash ALL the time, I like to see bands progress and having a diverse discography is a good thing for me. I fucking love a lot of the the stuff these bands did in the 90's

You discussed the influence of grunge and alternative rock and stuff like that, but I think you almost ignored the other big reason why bands changed their sound: the rise of Pantera. For better or worse, they pretty much were the most influential 90s metal band. For example, Scott Ian wanted his band to be like Pantera so bad... As for underground scene, it moved from thrash to death metal at the turn of 80s and 90s. In 89, most new bands rehearsing in garages were thrash. In 1992, they were death metal... I played in a band at the time.

I actually loved Diabolis In Musica, Load, Risk, and Volume 8.

I'm surprised you didn't even mentioned Sepultura, they didn't really sold out but they definitely changed their sound a lot. From a thrash death band they become a groove metal band

If you want to know how great a band did in the 80s , look what they did in the 90s - Razor Fist