The last two or three decades is incorrect. the last 15 years would be much more accurate. The early 90's hosted two of the greatest turns in music. The thrash/grunge metal scene, and the skater-punk rock scene. For punk, Guttermouth was becoming big, Social Distortion was together again (late 80's), Rancid, NOFX, Bad Religion, The Offspring. Not to say the punk scene never existed before this. If the clash, the Who, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, ETC. Than punk wouldn't exist at all.
The thrash metal scene changed through Pantera, Megadeth, Sepultura, and Anthrax. The Motley Crue, Poison, Warrant scene was dead and what all started with Cowboys From Hell (1991), pantera's first thrash album, came one of the biggest turns in music. The Monsters of Rock concert in 1991 (Moscow) is the Woodstock of its time. Bands were so influenced by that they wanted to be just like the "True" Big 4 (Pantera, Anthrax, Megadeth, Sepultura). Metallica soon began copying these artists, and so did other various bands. Pantera continued to dominate the new metal scene and bring it to the next level with their future albums (Vulgar Display of Power, then Far Beyond Driven, and eventually the Great Southern Trendkill). Pantera progressively became "heavier" through their albums, and the music from the great band carried on. Down, Hellyeah, Black Label Society (The great Zakk Wylde and Rob Trujillo), Kill Devil Hill (Rex Brown), Godsmack, and various smaller bands continue to bring true music to this world, true in the sense that they play for the passion of music, not the $$$.
You may think differently of these two scenes (not genres, scenes, lifestyles for punk, at least), but these were never the mainstream scenes, because they were always inferior in popularity to...well... pop music during their times, mainly Michael Jackson and such. Gangster rap was also receiving more attention during the early 90's. The truth is that if it weren't for metal and punk, music would be very, very dead. Any of the bands I listed in the metal category should have a top 25 album, if not every single one. These lists are BS, and people judge any band that has a "metal" label to be either 1)emo 2)screamo 3)simply people who bang on their instruments in a recording studio... It isn't true.
Originally Posted by: alharrisdude31