All jokes about obvious corporal shilling aside, The Golden God Awards are a mere 5 years old and were kick started by Revolver Magazine (a zine that these days is known more for catering to lonely teen boys, sparking enlightening discussions about sexism, and prompting shitty metalcore bands since they began incorporating something called "hard rock"). The idea is a nice one. Too often on these big stages of honoring musical achievements, metal musicians have gotten the shaft. It's not until they age, cut their hair, soften their sound (I swear I'm trying to hold out on the Metallica jokes as long as I can), that they can hope receive any public recognition. Unfortunately by this point they've lost a good chunk of their fan base by becoming the same stuff shirt swills they rebelled against in their youth. For whatever reason, the public perception would have you believe that metalheads are either a) young angry dumb kids with the musical talent of Captain Caveman and a box of cereal, who'll eventually "grow out of it", or b) old, flabby, failures who occasionally say some truly stupid shit.
The Golden God Awards as an idea comes form a good place and I could almost see something in the idea. Somewhere along the line I can believe that a guy naively thought it'd be a great middle finger to all the celebrity big wigs, angry suburbanites, and obnoxious hipsters, if for one night metal was the biggest damn thing in music; spotlighting and honoring their own. But while most ideas take at least a decade to start selling out, the Golden Gods manged to accomplish this in merely a single year; by giving a prize to Metallica for the "at least it's better then St. Anger" lackluster comeback album, Death Magentic and honoring Kat Von D for as far as I can tell, having sex with Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue and not getting some awful flesh eating disease. To say nothing of the fact that Rockstar Energy drink (in support of the named tour of that year) was all but shoved down everyone's throat on top of hundreds of other sponsors who were impossible to ignore. I get it; part of me realizes that getting together a gala of the who's who in metal, would be all but impossible to host without corporate sponsors. But when you have said gala of big names, tons of big name presenters, big budget tweet worthy "surprise" performances (that surely weren't rehearsed MONTHS before), typical teary eyed speeches, your faced with a stomach wrenching realization that this has become about EVERYTHING you hate about the MTV Awards.
And yes, Metallica is being offered a life-time achievement award this year at Golden Gods 2013 while Rob Zombie is presenting. Lets start with the first part of the douche funwhich. Metallica have made more money then several small nations and have received in their entire histories, while collecting enough awards along the way to circulate their own currency. So in other words I have a very, very, VERY hard time believing that them being there to win an award of some sort wasn't simply stipulated on one Lars Ulrich and there's no way Metallica can come out of this not looking like the complete tools everyone thinks they've become. Not to take away anything from Metallica's three, maybe four amazing albums and contributions to heavy metal. But they've had their honoring. The applause will be ringing in their skulls long after their dead, we're dead, and the robot hordes are still retrieving Ride The Lighting shirts from bombed out Hot Topics. There are plenty of forgotten god fathers of metal who never got their due, and could be just as fit for lifetime achievement awards if The Golden Gods was really serious about being about the music first and not the names. Exodus? Death? Hell pretty much all black metal ever owes a big freaking royalty check to Celtic Frost and Venom who stressful wrote every black metal song their ever needed to be.
As for Rob Zombie, the man is quite simply a hack. He has directed ONE good movie (I have a soft spot for the Devil's Rejects), ruined a horror icon with a boring back story and child-like love of gore over horror, produced a handful of made-for radio hits, and has been cruising off the goodwill of being in White Zombie for too long. The fact that he's role as host for this year's Golden God Awards (feel free to take a shot every time he says "Everybody scream!" or "Hell yeah!"), the very same year he has a make or break new solo album AND movie coming out (the film, Lords Of Salem has been successful panned at SSXW to death. Take note.) reeks of "angled".
I'm not even going to get into Tommy Iommi being nominated for Riff Lord. Riff..fucking..lord. The exact name for an award you'd dream up if you were 12 years old and just discovered Black Sabbath. Which is fine and dandy. If you're twelve years old. But can we pretend that metal is listened to by adults? Like real adults With jobs and mortgages, and everything?
Hell, all the award categories have that distinctive feeling of a passive-aggressive Jeff Foxworthy jab. Sure there's the standard "Best New Artists , "Best Vocalist , Best Guitarist. But "Most Dedicated Fans?" "Most Metal Athlete?" "Hottest Chick?" And again I have to come back to this, RIFF FUCKING LORD? Maybe find a more mature way to reefer to the founder of heavy metal guitar as we know it, who's currently fighting cancer, going on tour, and putting out a new Sabbath album? Is all I'm saying.
I could probably save my breath by just saying, a lot of the problems I have with the Golden God Awards are the same problems I have with all award ceremonies in general. There are only two formulas out there for running an award show: Locking out the votes to the unwashed masses, who couldn't possibly understand the delicate process of voting on entertainer (ala The Oscars), or leaving it to open voting, ensuring that there will be long stretches of time where Jennifer Aniston never fails to be nominated for best female actress.
I fall on the old argument that great art, doesn't need awards to be considered good. Word of mouth and the opinions of sweaty, smartass (but somehow devilish attractive) bloggers can worry about things like culture significance, long after the dust has settled. And anyway, didn't most musicians become musicians because they couldn't' stand the bullshit popularity contests?
But the most damning thing about the Golden God Awards off all though, is that it can't make it any more obvious it's playing catch up. One can imagine a similar thing happening when they first began the Oscars, The Garnmmys, and the Rock n' Roll hall of fame. How on earth do you go about honoring all the talent in your field without first acknowledging all the many, many before them that never got their due and built the foundation to make any of it possible? So they fix this by honoring a lot of old guys who haven't done anything worthwhile since their heyday ended decades ago through award nominations for their lackluster "comeback" material. Whether it's Al Pacino finally getting recognized for Scarface by giving him the Oscar for Scent Of A Woman, or Metallica finally getting back at Jethero Tull for all those years ago at the Grammy's in 89'; the year that would have you believe the 1) metal exists! And 2) It comes no harder then flute solos.
For these reasons all award shows are still burdened by old farts who either are forced into the spotlight for the ratings and prestige, or who clammer for it out of a sense of entitlement that sadly didn't go away with age. And this happens at the expense of spotlighting younger, newer talent. At least with the Grammy's they go through cycles of the same 5 pop stars with one occasional newbie. You're granted new faces that you don't recognize in at least two years (see first paragraph). Up to this point, The Golden Gods have featured the 101 of metal ever since inception. Maiden, Judas, Metallica, Sabbath, etc. Hell, Iron Maiden and Rush are up for nominations this year.
There are some youngbloods that slip through the cracks, but it's hard to shake the feeling that they're only either established acts, bands who have a built in Hot Topic fanbase. (Looking at you Black Veil Brides), or push the hell out of emphasizing the looks of their female members at the expense of lauding them for their talent. I can't even use the "they need the big names to bring intrest" argument because I think everyone knows the reason thats bullshit. Metal has NEVER been the popular kid on campus. It's a niche and it's thrived as a niche like other underground music scenes. Which means that a show honoring metal for metalheads shouldn't have to worry about being popular or bending over backwards to cater. It shouldn't have to realy on gimmicks, brand-names engraved on ever damn surface, contrived collaborations aimed at being tweet worthy, or anything. Metal, you've got a built in fan base of adorbale little outcasts who grew up and discvovered dispoasable income. You don't need to lok at them like big walking paydays. Just the same fans you had when you were in basmenats, abandoned warehouses, and shitty bars.
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