Should There Be A Metal Awards Committee?

Sadly, Tom, none of us really care.

Grammy's Heavy Metal awards, Kerrang! Awards, Metal Hammer Golden Gods; I can almost hear the collective moan emanating from the underwhelmed everywhere. As ambitious, accepting or even accurate as the more high profile awards ceremonies in heavy metal are (I bring this up because the K! Awards went down this week), they never truly feel precise or fully involved. Of course, annual lists adorning certain albums of each calendar year as premier by the burgeoning blogosphere and and less corporate mags like Decibel often strike a gong that resounds much more with the metal community. But even so, individual or conglomerate opinion often take over and taint the each list and award, creating widespread disparity.

So, with all that being laid out, the hypothetical question I will raise is this; what if the metal community were to somehow construct an unholy alliance of metal media wiz-kids, tasked with voting on awards for heavy music each calendar year as a conglomerate association? The sports ass in me immediately makes a connection to the writer and journalist associations that exist for professional sports leagues who vote on the the yearly awards for each sport and their respective organization. Let's face it; what the fuck do the Grammy's really know about metal? If a collective of the top writers, bloggers and reviewers in the heavy music biz came together and brought the hammer down on the top albums from each genre of the year, or, say, named a veritable Most Valuable Hesher of the Year, wouldn't the metal community take notice?

I know what you're thinking; metalheads bitch too much to come together on anything. Well, point taken. But if something like this were to be pulled off, it could be a serve as a source of camaraderie for the heavy community; something that all metalheads could take pride in, even if they don't agree with the awards. This is probably the biggest pipedream evar, but I think it's at least worth talking about.

Discuss!!

- Jack