Here at Metal Hammer, we don’t ask for much from our readers and online followers beyond unswerving loyalty, the occasional frothing plaudit and the mandatory ownership of at least three albums with Ronnie James Dio singing on them. We’re reasonable people, aren’t we? Every now and then, however, we need to ask you for a teensy favour.
Due to the unerring brilliance of our devilishly handsome Art department and a thunderously fruitful collaboration with our friends at SixMoreVodka in Germany, Metal Hammer has been nominated for a prestigious PPA Award in the Cover Of The Year category… not entirely surprisingly, for our none-more-spectacular Slipknot cover from last summer, wherein the Iowan crew were re-imagined as the superheroes that, if we’re honest, most of us strongly believe them to be in reality anyway. Be honest, it was a fucking stunning magazine cover by anyone’s standards and, all modesty aside, concrete proof that Metal Hammer continues to aim higher and demand more from its contributors and creative team than most comparable magazines could even be bothered to idly daydream about. We fucking rule. The end.
That said, we can’t just sit back, pat ourselves on the gleaming steel breastplate and wait for glory to come our way. We really, truly need your votes to help us win this award. And not just because we want to parade around the office declaring our own unwavering fabulousness to the rest of our TeamRock colleagues – who would, in fairness, be quick to tell us to fuck off. The truth is that winning an award like this would be a three-fold victory for our world: firstly, it would be a heartening and inspiring acknowledgement that Metal Hammer is the great magazine that we all sincerely hope it to be and, by extension, a satisfying salute to the world of heavy music from a mainstream music and media industry that very rarely gives any kind of appreciative nod in our direction at all.
Secondly, this would be a clear triumph for Slipknot, too. As much as we may all be slightly nervous about recent developments in the band’s volatile camp, there is little doubt that the mighty ‘knot are one of the most vital and important bands that our world has spawned over the last 20 years and we are all immensely proud to have collaborated with them on that spectacular piece of cover art. Finally, just take a look at some of the other magazines covers that we find ourselves competing with… be honest, some of them are fucking rubbish… especially the Country Life one, which appears to comprise a bog standard portrait shot of Prince Charles that is only marginally more exciting to look at than an average brick wall. More importantly, perhaps, we are competing with Cosmopolitan’s Miley Cyrus cover. Obviously there’s nothing inherently wrong with making a living from shoving your bum into people’s faces and squeaking like a rabid chipmunk over a turgid, cynical and wafer-thin pop backing, but let’s not pretend that we can’t revel in a bit of inter-genre animosity here. Come on! It’s Miley Cyrus, for fuck’s sake! If nothing else, we need to all vote as many times as possible to ensure that the daft, weed-addled harridan doesn’t get yet more publicity for doing absolutely fuck all.
Above all, it’s pretty damn obvious that Metal Hammer’s Slipknot extravaganza is a million times better than all the other contenders in this category. Everyone worked extremely hard to ensure that the finished result would be beyond spectacular and a genuine collector’s item (not to mention an insanely popular desktop background) and receiving this nomination is, in itself, welcome recognition for our collective efforts. But we still need your help. So please vote for us… as many times as possible! And hopefully we will all be able to share in a splendid victory for heavy music and, it hardly needs saying, common sense.
If you haven’t already voted for Hammer, head over here. Thank you.
