Written by:	BitterCOld
Published:	March 11, 2011

So that famous historical dude was wrong in his assessment that there are but two certain things in life, death and taxes. There are, in fact, three: death, taxes, and whining about the Metal Storm Awards results.

"Boo hoo!" you cry.

"The popular bands always win!" you claim.

Well, sure. Kinda. Looking at this year, some of the most popular bands in metal didn't win. Sure, the staff didn't actually nominate favorites like Iron Maiden or Dimmu Borgir. But even still, their write-in candidacy movements amounted to a blip on the radar.

The truth is, year after year, the awards most often go to the most popular band, regardless as to whether or not their release actually stand's up to the lesser-known competition.

And we're ok with that.

Folks have a right to vote, and it's common sense the most popular band will win.

So if you don't like it, boo-fucking-hoo. You don't have the right to dictate to others how they should feel about certain releases.

The MSA's serve multiple functions, and the winner in each field is, to a certain extent, the least of those. It's swell that some bands get a nice, shiny, (virtual) trophy to display on their (virtual) trophy shelves. The win and $5 will get them a pint of their favorite barley soda.

The reality of the situation is this? for one month of each year Metal Storm recognizes the big and the small alongside each other. The Davids and Goliaths go toe-to-toe in the same arena. And while, ultimately, Goliath will invariably slay David time and again, the Staff, through the nomination process, provide a fighting chance. It also provides the band a platform for the ever-growing multitude of Metalstormers to check them out.

It's win-win.

The small bands get recognized alongside their popular compatriots? and thus a chance to earn fans. And you, the voters, get a chance to check out a slew of new acts, and maybe discover some new bands with some awesome tunes.

Consider Mar De Grises, for example. MdG is a band from Chile, far off the typical metal map. They've released three albums, all high quality. They started small and unnoticed with their first effort garnering some praise and 20 votes in our first ever awards. Their second, Draining The Waterheart, arguably should have won, but came in second thanks to a last minute internet push, to a band who got like 125 votes the last day of shop. This time around, in a field filled with some stiff competition, they ran away with the vote. It took a while, but they won folks over. Some folks just arrived (several years) late to the party.

Truth is that virtually any popular band wins based upon a certain level of popularity gained through years of work. Whether or not their releases are the "best" of any given year is completely subjective.

So as stated above, the winners are the fans that uncover new awesome bands? and the bands that gain new, awesome fans.

That is the ultimate purpose of the Metal Storm Awards.

Bands gaining fans, and fans gaining bands.

So you can whine all you want about how horrible the results are. You can froth at the keyboard because Anal Necro Llama lost in the Donkey Rape Metal field to the more popular Shredded Whore Fetus Quesadilla. (Duh. SWFQ are just a Hot Topic band!) It's pretty amusing to most of us. We certainly don't want you to stop. It's entirely too funny and we have developed some lethal drinking games we, the staff and elites engage in at Metal Storm Towers.

I'm just putting this out there so maybe a few more of you will "get it" and understand the whole thing. Maybe you, too, once it sinks in, can grab the "Froggie Feast" (Popcorn, a bucket of chicken wings, and a six-pack of beer? I know, it doesn't sound at all French, but Collin swears by it. It's been his post-awards regimen for half a decade now) and join us in laughing at the myopic folks that take things way too seriously.