Happy Thanksgiving

Another year has flown by, and it's already time for my annual Thanksgiving post. Things are not perfect in the world. The economy stinks, record sales are in the toilet, and there has been a lot of upheaval. Still, there are many positive things happening, and we all have many things to be thankful for.

On this Thanksgiving day in the U.S., we reflect on those things for which we are thankful. In addition to appreciating my family and friends, there are also many things in the realm of heavy metal that I'm thankful for. I'm thankful that pioneers of the genre are still around making music. We can appreciate the past of artists like Metallica, Iron Maiden, Slayer and Motorhead while still enjoying their current stuff. I had the great privilege of seeing Metallica, Megadeth and Motorhead in concert this year, and in addition to old people like me, there was a strong contingent of young fans keeping the metal torch burning.

I'm also thankful for the wide variety of style and genres that make up heavy metal. Instead of just a couple of subgenres like a lot of styles of music have, metal has dozens, including thrash, death, black, power, gothic, progressive, doom and many more.

I'm thankful that even though the economy is struggling, metal keeps thriving. The quality of the music is good, and there are tons of great metal record labels bringing us that music. Even though you rarely hear metal on the radio (except satellite radio) or see it on TV, the live scene is still strong. Bands are still able to tour the world and bring their music directly to the masses (at lower ticket prices than many other genres), and metal fans are still showing up to support the scene.

I'm thankful for the incredible knowledge and passion of metal fans. There are few casual fans of heavy metal. Lovers of metal immerse themselves in the culture and history of their favorite bands and styles. The knowledge displayed by a lot of metalheads is simply amazing. Even though there can be a lot of bickering and sometimes less than civil behavior on some of the metal message boards, for the most part metal fans are happy to share their passion for the music with others.

I'm thankful for the technology that brings metal music and fans together. It used to be tape trading and writing letters, but thanks to the internet, communication is instantaneous and even unsigned bands can get their music heard via sites like Pure Volume and MySpace. Twitter really broke through this year, with seemingly everybody having a Twitter account (including About.com Heavy Metal. Follow us!).

I'm thankful for the great staff of writers on this site. They have so much knowledge, expertise and experience in the genre, and they've provided outstanding content to About.com Heavy Metal. Thanks Ray, Dan, Justin, MetalGeorge, Jay and everyone else who has written for the site this year.

But most of all, I'm thankful for you, the metal fan reading this. By supporting this site, you've allowed me to write about the incredible genre of music known as heavy metal. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, and keep it metal!