ottoborden

I used to buy the answer that I wasn't looking hard enough, but now I know better. I can think of a couple bands that are trying a little change here or a little change there but I haven't found any band doing something as different as the gulf between Judas Priest and Metallica in '83 ya know? Or between Metallica and Morbid Angel. The gap between Artificial Brain and the great mass of derivative DM just ain't all that big at the end of the day. But in general a lot of what passes as innovative in metal these days are really just minor tweaks: take some generic modern DM, throw in a keyboard and a few seconds of clean vocals and call yourself Symphonic Tech Death or whatever. It's nonsense. Lazy nonsense. I think it's a false equivalency you're drawing between catchy and saccharine (Babymetal being more sugar than Issues). Some catchy stuff is sugary sweet and some isn't. But more importantly I think bands like Issues and Babymetal prove a fundamental metal assumption wrong. Metal and sugar can mix and they can mix well. Saccharine pop hooks sound good over punchy, tight and heavy metal backing. I'm not saying that all of metal should drop everything it's doing and blindly follow, no. But I am saying that, for better or for worse, they're the only genuinely new thing to happen in metal since like '03. Is it daring to mix metal and pop? I don't care. It sounds good.

Metal needs songs with catchy hooks. Think they used to call them riffs when they played them on the guitar (could be wrong about that though, I'm no musicologist). Catchy riffs and vocal hooks make for good songs. My $.02 about something that would be new for the genre as a whole. There just doesn't seem to be many new ideas coming out of metal. Sure some bands are going back to a more "organic" sounding production and some are going back to older styles. But my gripe is they aren't going forward. A lot of metal I'm hearing these days strikes me as a genre gazing lovingly into its own navel. Metal is an industry and it needs to be disrupted by something somehow. And metal needs something new to talk about. I'd rather hear cute Japanese girls sing about chocolate and karate (in a language I can't understand) or angsty young guys complaining about their parents shortcomings than more generic "society is failing, embrace nihilism" shit from some metal guy. At least I can relate to the frustrated and confused young guy, I used to be one. But where is metal's Kendrick Lamar?

Issues and Babymetal are the best thing to happen to metal in ~10 years.