GermanMetal.com will be doing a special radio show this Monday, December 29th, which will take a look back at all the German metal music that has been released in the past year. It will begin streaming online at 3 PM Eastern time (12 noon Pacific time) in the US, and will continue for 4 hours. All you have to do to start listening is head to GermanMetal.com/radio.

The show will include plenty of music, but also some discussion about important bands, their music, and various events and things that happened during 2008. The results of the website’s German Metal Awards 2008 will also be announced at some point in the show. (If you haven’t voted in the poll to determine the winners of each category, you still have a few days left to do so. Just visit the poll here and vote!) In addition to all that, listeners will have a chance to win free prizes by answering some of the trivia questions that will be asked!

If you are free on Monday, be sure to check out this special radio show!

Anyone who has been part of the online German music community for many years may remember GermanMetal.com which started in 2002. The original goal was to create complete fansites for German metal bands, but only the Oomph! and Herzer sections were ever finished before that first version of the site went offline.

Now, after a number of years in hibernation and lots of hard work more recently, site founder Joki has brought life back to GermanMetal.com in the form of a wiki. Just like any other wiki, anyone can add new pages and edit the information contained on the site, creating a knowledge base of German music that represents the areas of expertise of all its contributors. You can help add to the wiki, too. Just create an account to begin.

One thing to keep in mind: GermanMetal.com does not cover all styles of German music. As the name indicates, the site focuses specifically on some of the many various forms of metal that have become popular in Germany. Whether you call it industrial-metal, electro-metal, Neue Deutsche Härte, tanzmetall, or something completely different, it can be tricky figuring out if a band qualifies or not, especially when there are so many names for what seems to be basically the same thing. So if you want to write about a band, you should definitely read exactly what their definition of “German metal” is first. There’s also a priority artists list which can give you some suggestions for what bands to write about.

The GermanMetal.com wiki has lots of information about ASP, Samsas Traum and Unheilig already, and you can be sure that list will grow significantly over time. Check it out.