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Controversial Metal Opinions


7YearsOfBlood

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On 06/02/2018 at 2:26 AM, Fraser said:

Metallica are the most overrated and over hyped metal band to have ever played the genre. 

I'm inclined to agree with you. As BAN said many of the people who would disagree are more casual fans. However Metallica hold that title only because so many bands the mainstream label meta actually aren't. slipknot, ghost, and killswitch engage for example.

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I'm inclined to agree with you. As BAN said many of the people who would disagree are more casual fans. However Metallica hold that title only because so many bands the mainstream label meta actually aren't. slipknot, ghost, and killswitch engage for example.
Those were my thoughts. There are many bands that I feel are more overrated and really contributed nothing of value to the metal community, but they are placed under the metal umbrella falsely.

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2 hours ago, BlutAusNerd said:

Those were my thoughts. There are many bands that I feel are more overrated and really contributed nothing of value to the metal community, but they are placed under the metal umbrella falsely.

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Such as? 

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8 hours ago, BlutAusNerd said:

Those were my thoughts. There are many bands that I feel are more overrated and really contributed nothing of value to the metal community, but they are placed under the metal umbrella falsely.

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A band can make nonmusical contributions to a music community though.  Many of these bands represent gateways into metal (even if they are not metal themselves).  I know some of those borderline rock/metal bands got me started.

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A band can make nonmusical contributions to a music community though.  Many of these bands represent gateways into metal (even if they are not metal themselves).  I know some of those borderline rock/metal bands got me started.
That's kind of like saying that drinking hard soda is a gateway into drinking beer. Just because it opens you up to something doesn't mean it's the same thing. Metal does indeed take influence from many genres outside of its borders, but not usually from bands that marginalize and water down a few metal elements into an otherwise pop music base. I get that many wouldn't have found their way toward something harder without bands like those, but that doesn't inherently give those bands value to the genre in question.

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9 hours ago, BlutAusNerd said:

Those were my thoughts. There are many bands that I feel are more overrated and really contributed nothing of value to the metal community, but they are placed under the metal umbrella falsely.

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7 minutes ago, BlutAusNerd said:

That's kind of like saying that drinking hard soda is a gateway into drinking beer. Just because it opens you up to something doesn't mean it's the same thing. Metal does indeed take influence from many genres outside of its borders, but not usually from bands that marginalize and water down a few metal elements into an otherwise pop music base. I get that many wouldn't have found their way toward something harder without bands like those, but that doesn't inherently give those bands value to the genre in question.

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Contributing to the metal genre is different from contributing to the metal community as you discussed above.  I agree wholeheartedly that the borderline bands are not very significant musically.  However, helping to grow a fanbase seems to be intrinsically good for a community.  Thus I would say that they do have value.

 

 

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Contributing to the metal genre is different from contributing to the metal community as you discussed above.  I agree wholeheartedly that the borderline bands are not very significant musically.  However, helping to grow a fanbase seems to be intrinsically good for a community.  Thus I would say that they do have value.
 
 
In either case, they can't really qualify as "overrated metal bands" if they don't meet the base criteria of being metal bands. So, whereas I would view many of these groups as more overrated than Metallica, Metallica would likely be the most overrated band that fits into the metal genre.

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50 minutes ago, BlutAusNerd said:

There's a difference between controversial and just plain wrong.

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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?

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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?


Here's the thing though, the riffs and melodies from the guitar and/or vocal lines are the hooks. Metal had never, and will never, need the kinds of saccharine hooks that pop music uses. It's basically the antithesis of metal. Combining metal with pop music isn't innovative, it has only served to dumb down the genre for mass consumption from the many failed attempt and identities it has taken on. This is not to say that metal can't be catchy, but the chorus even from a mainstream classic metal song is still a long way from the ones used in bubblegum J-pop. If you think metal doesn't have any new ideas, you're simply not paying attention. Just as always, the retro and safe sounding bands get the press and the attention, you usually have to dig for something that's daring. Is it daring to mix metal with pop/punk or J-pop? Not really. It's just a way to try to marginalize and reduce metal to a kind of guitar distortion, which is the only way that people who don't want to think about the music they're hearing seem to he able to view it. This kind of synthesis brings it down to their level, but it benefits no one.

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3 minutes ago, BlutAusNerd said:


 

 


Here's the thing though, the riffs and melodies from the guitar and/or vocal lines are the hooks. Metal had never, and will never, need the kinds of saccharine hooks that pop music uses. It's basically the antithesis of metal. Combining metal with pop music isn't innovative, it has only served to dumb down the genre for mass consumption from the many failed attempt and identities it has taken on. This is not to say that metal can't be catchy, but the chorus even from a mainstream classic metal song is still a long way from the ones used in bubblegum J-pop. If you think metal doesn't have any new ideas, you're simply not paying attention. Just as always, the retro and safe sounding bands get the press and the attention, you usually have to dig for something that's daring. Is it daring to mix metal with pop/punk or J-pop? Not really. It's just a way to try to marginalize and reduce metal to a kind of guitar distortion, which is the only way that people who don't want to think about the music they're hearing seem to he able to view it. This kind of synthesis brings it down to their level, but it benefits no one.

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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. 

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The crux of the point here is that if you need accessibility in your Metal and you find the genre lets you down then you might just be not that big on Metal in the first place/anymore.  That’s no more a controversial thing to say than the “babymetal is the best thing to happen to Metal..” statement is.  It is okay to like other forms of music, just maybe expand your music horizons to non-Metal music as the genre itself conforms in totality to none of what everyone wants.

It is your responsibility as a music fan to find your own path, I can easily bash Death Metal, Black Metal, Doom whatever for becoming formulaic or staid but I know if I go out there and search for stuff I will find something that will float my boat and pacify me somehow, even if that means me drifting music genres.

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2 hours ago, ottoborden said:

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.

Evolution of musical styles happens in small steps, it did then as it does now. There are a couple of steps you're missing between Judas Priest and Metallica and more between Metallica and Morbid Angel. 

2 hours ago, ottoborden said:

The gap between Artificial Brain and the great mass of derivative DM just ain't all that big at the end of the day. 

I think you and I have really different ideas of what derivative DM is. Are you focusing mostly on the vocals? How many generic death metal riffs are in an average Artificial Brain song? 

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When you facepalm so hard you break your own nose...

 

Nothing new since 2003? So Ulcerate, Grave Miasma, Portal yeah they aren't doing anything new. Vektor, Akercocke, nothing new there either. As for disproving a misnomer that metal can't be sugary. Yeah um no Helloween, Manowar, Blind Guardian and another hundred power metal bands exist. Metal can't be catchy? Ever heard Anata's 'The Conductor's Departure'? That's some of the most catchy, memorable shit I've heard AND it's brilliantly technical death metal. My point is that you claim to be looking and that it's an objective fact metal is no longer creative. I'm here to tell you, objectively, that you sir are wrong.

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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. 

 

So you searched and didn't find what you were after, and now you gave up because you "know better"? Sounds like a cop out to me. As Will had mentioned, there are several orders of evolution filling the "gulf" between Judas Priest, Metallica, and Morbid Angel. While you're passing off gradual changes and tweaks as not being what pushed the genre forward, what is Kill 'em All besides a few gradual changes and tweaks beyond Accept and Raven? What is Morbid Angel but some gradual tweaks beyond Possessed and Death? Both bands took some influence from other sounds, like Metallica grabbing some hardcore punk aggression and Morbid Angel bringing in half of the seminal grindcore band Terrorizer to its rhythm section and their own take on Eddie Van Halen's soloing style, and that doesn't make them any less groundbreaking for not being all that far ahead of the pack. Metal wasn't created in a vacuum, it sprang up through the work of several bands and several influences, and those influences have all ran off into several different directions over the years, just not at the rapid pace that some people believe when working with an abridged history of the genre. Just as the gap between Artificial Brain and throwback death metal "ain't that big", neither was it when a million bands sprang up around death metal in the late 80's/early 90's, all playing slightly different varieties of basically the same thing. That didn't make it less innovative, it made it more personal, they did it their way and had their sound, even if they used the same death metal tool box to assemble that sound.

 

The point I made was to argue catchy vs. saccharine, not to equate the two with one another. My point is that a band like Running Wild can be catchy as shit, and never resort to the same kinds of melodies and hooks that a pop band would use. The false equivalency is assuming that you would need to resort to those kinds of pop music techniques to sound catchy. You can argue that mixing metal and saccharine pop works, and maintain that as your opinion, but I'm far from the only one who would disagree with that notion. They didn't mix anything, they appropriated one token element of metal and put it into J-pop. That doesn't make their music metal, it's just J-pop with guitars, nothing about the songwriting ever changed. Metal wasn't integrated, it's just a prop/gimmick used in in this case. Therefore, this isn't anything new for metal, nor is it anything new for pop, since pop/rock bands have been appropriating "metal" guitars since the 80's. Again, if you think that's all metal has had that's been different in the past 15 years, you really just haven't paid attention. But Aus Nord, Deathspell Omega, StarGazer, Vektor, Vhöl, Lantern, Wormed, Mitochondrion, Cultes Des Ghoules, Negative Plane, Ulcerate, Black Harvest, Satan's Host, Anhedonist, the list of bands in many genres just goes on and on of forward thinking and revolutionary acts from all over the metal spectrum over that timeframe. It's time to pull your head out of the sand dude. Nobody is telling you not to listen to Babymetal and Issues, but maybe do some research before making false assumptions about the creative process being dead in metal.

 

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6 minutes ago, BlutAusNerd said:

Just as the gap between Artificial Brain and throwback death metal "ain't that big", neither was it when a million bands sprang up around death metal in the late 80's/early 90's, all playing slightly different varieties of basically the same thing. That didn't make it less innovative, it made it more personal, they did it their way and had their sound, even if they used the same death metal tool box to assemble that sound.

 

 

This is the crux of the discussion IMO. What really drives metal "forward", or makes it continually relevant? It'll be a different answer depending on what we're listening for. I would argue (like you) that genuine personal expression is by far the most important factor, and it's not terribly material to me whether it takes place within the boundaries of an existing idiom. It's not that I don't like hearing something new, but valorizing "innovation" for its own sake  strikes me as cultural and intellectual tourism, and I just have to accept that people who think that way are coming from a much different place than I am.

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I agree that so-called innovation for the sake of it simply isn't appealing. Where a band is creative and their passion shines through makes for such an engaging experience. The spacey progressive thrash of Vektor for example. There's so much good stuff going on in metal and I'm barely scratching the surface myself. It's not that hard to find the new and innovative bands out there.

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Well I certainly agree both KISS and Metallica are over-rated. That being said I do think Metallica's first two albums are very good. Metallica helped in creating the thrash sound. They are also the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed metal band period. Neither of those things precludes Metallica from being over-rated of course. The simple fact is Metallica have a legacy which ought to be respected at least.

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Taste in music isn't an opinion to be fair. What you do and don't like is a personal matter. I dislike both of those genres. I presume you mean melodic metalcore such as killswitch engage of course. My knowledge of metalcore more broadly is virtually nonexistant so I won't sit here and call it a write-off genre.

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