Founding member of Dream Theater and current Sons of Apollo drummer Mike Portnoy has said that he thinks the 80s were better than the 90s for metal and explained why.
The revelation came out during a cameo that Portnoy made for Sobre La Dosis. During the video, the drummer listed popular metal bands from both decades, and the 80’s list was much longer.
“Well, for metal, I would have to say the ’80s, ’cause the ’90s started to go downhill once grunge came around. The ’90s… really, the only thing going for metal, for me at least, in the ’90s was Pantera, Sepultura and Machine Head. Those were the only new bands, really, doing metal. All of the other great metal bands from the ’90s all came around in the ’80s,” the drummer said.
He added; “So for me, the ’80s, we got Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer, Overkill, Exodus, Megadeth — that was all the thrash scene. And then all the early ’80s stuff, you had Rainbow and AC/DC and Accept and Motorhead and Sabbath and Priest and Maiden. So, I think the ’80s were definitely the stronger decade of the two.”
In 2018, Portnoy spoke about how the success of grunge in the early 90’s pushed a lot of successful rock bands off commercial radio and tanked their album and tour sales.
“I think [pantera] were the perfect band that was needed in the metal world around ’91, ’92, because pretty much the ‘big four’ were kind of knocked out of style by grunge. Slayer, Megadeth, Anthrax, Metallica and then also Testament and Exodus and overkill, all those bands around the early ’90s got killed by grunge.
“So Pantera was the only band to really carry metal through the ’90s. I’d say Pantera, Machine Head and Sepultura — to me, those were the three that were carrying it through. But Pantera were the top of those,” he told Metal Wani.
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