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Has metal broken off into unrelated niche genres?


the_thrashing

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When I was a kid, every time I met someone who was into metal too it was so cool, like they understood. We had almost the exact same tastes, almost all of us. I think the only divide I saw was maybe on death metal, it was too extreme for some. If they liked death metal, they agreed with me on everything pretty much. If not, they still agreed with me on all the classic bands. I'm talking back in the early 90's and late 80's. Nowadays it seems like metal is not 1 all encompassing crowd anymore. I meet people into metal and get all happy and then I talk with them a little more and find out that they hate almost everything I like and love everything that I hate.

I was watching this weird documentary about metal in Africa and they all had dreams of coming to the West where metal is supposedly popular. The few that got here were extremely disappointed about the scene. They described their own African scene as being far more welcoming, more comradery etc. It made me think of how it used to be.

 

Is Metal still 1 thing these days or is it now like several scenes who all hate each other? This subgenre crowd vs the other subgenre crowd. I honestly don't know anymore. Maybe I'm just old, and its the old guys and the young hating each others tastes, but at that I started hating almost everything new back in 95 when I was 15. Am I wrong about this?

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I find this wealth of sub-genres bit weird. Theres so many hugely specific genres, where the bands in it really just sound pretty much the same. It´s in a way taking away the uniqueness. Before when a band sounded unique and had their own gimmick or twist, it was just that. Now theres going to be plenty of copycats and it´s going to be called yet another sub-genre.

Meshuggah is a great example. There was no "Djent" when they started doing their thing.. but after enough copycat bands came along, suddenly it´s no more being a Meshuggah clone, it´s being a djent band instead. I might be over simplifying it, but thats a bit how it feels to me. 

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1 hour ago, ChainsawAkimbo said:

I find this wealth of sub-genres bit weird. Theres so many hugely specific genres, where the bands in it really just sound pretty much the same. It´s in a way taking away the uniqueness. Before when a band sounded unique and had their own gimmick or twist, it was just that. Now theres going to be plenty of copycats and it´s going to be called yet another sub-genre.

Meshuggah is a great example. There was no "Djent" when they started doing their thing.. but after enough copycat bands came along, suddenly it´s no more being a Meshuggah clone, it´s being a djent band instead. I might be over simplifying it, but thats a bit how it feels to me. 

I don't mean really specific genres like Hungarian butt-core or hairy smurf metal. I mean the more broader ones like black metal, death metal, doom, the "core" genres etc vs each other. One kind of metal fans vs another is what I'm talking about. But yeah I know what you mean.

By the way I like Meshuggah but I never got into any of the djent bands.

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It just seems like an evolution of the genre. Not that I can speak from experience, I was born in 1999. Nonetheless, the sub genre versus sub genre stuff makes me think about stories from the 80s about punk versus metal, nazi punks versus liberal punks, even rac versus punk. Then once extreme metal was a formidable part of the mix, everything became more complicated and contentious. Black metal, in particular, seemed to contribute to this greatly, since it took from both punk and metal, joining genres which were often considered rivals with one another and effectively making more people mad about differences in taste within metal. Not to mention the elitist sentiments that came with the second wave of black metal, which surely assisted in the divide. With the benefit of hindsight, what it looks to be is that as the new subgenres kept coming, the niches became more "niche" and the fans became more passionate about a particular sound, eventually dividing metal fans into several different groups (as opposed to the aforementioned simpler metal versus punk conflict). Honestly, though, you could call this all speculation. It's hard to say exactly how this subgenre versus subgenre shit came to be. It could have to do with changes in culture not necessarily pertaining to metal, as well, like the advent of the internet, giving people a louder voice to express their strong opinions about music or what have you. Interesting thread, there's lots of ways you could go with this.

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3 hours ago, ChainsawAkimbo said:

Well.. in the broader sense it´s been going on as long as there was metal.. think thrash vs. glam metal etc.

You're right about that. 1 thing I noticed these days is that everything from the 80s softer than thrash is being pegged as glam but back then  me and everyone I knew made a distinction between hard rock (the heavier side of it) and glam (the far poppier, softer side of it). For example, I never considered GNR glam (even though they did have the look) until about 2000 they got pegged as hair metal.

Around 2004 I was at a show that was death metal and deathcore and actual fights were breaking out over moshing. The circle pit guys and the kung fu guys fighting each other, spitting etc. About a quarter of the crowd fighting each other and the rest of everyone self separating each other in an us vs them stare down stand off.  If someone fell down depending on what side of the room they were on, they were getting stomped on by people that were standing there. And you could tell which side everyone was on by how they dressed. I never saw that before because of musical tastes. I was at lots of other mixed bill shows and everything was fine so I guess it was an isolated incident.

3 hours ago, salmonellapancake said:

It just seems like an evolution of the genre. Not that I can speak from experience, I was born in 1999. Nonetheless, the sub genre versus sub genre stuff makes me think about stories from the 80s about punk versus metal, nazi punks versus liberal punks, even rac versus punk. Then once extreme metal was a formidable part of the mix, everything became more complicated and contentious. Black metal, in particular, seemed to contribute to this greatly, since it took from both punk and metal, joining genres which were often considered rivals with one another and effectively making more people mad about differences in taste within metal. Not to mention the elitist sentiments that came with the second wave of black metal, which surely assisted in the divide. With the benefit of hindsight, what it looks to be is that as the new subgenres kept coming, the niches became more "niche" and the fans became more passionate about a particular sound, eventually dividing metal fans into several different groups (as opposed to the aforementioned simpler metal versus punk conflict). Honestly, though, you could call this all speculation. It's hard to say exactly how this subgenre versus subgenre shit came to be. It could have to do with changes in culture not necessarily pertaining to metal, as well, like the advent of the internet, giving people a louder voice to express their strong opinions about music or what have you. Interesting thread, there's lots of ways you could go with this.

 

Ah, I remember the "true kvlt" bm guys. That seems to be gone, as far as I know, I could be wrong. The internet definitely fuels it.

When I was in high school (90s) I was one of 4 metal guys in the whole school. There was about 15 punks who hung out with us. The rest of the school was all into gangster rap and they hated us. When we saw another kid into metal, we would always want to hang out. I'm still like that. And almost everyone I know hates my music to this day. That's why I come here, I have no one to talk to about music.

1 of my best friends who I hardly ever see or hear from due to living far away, we meet in junior high, we both were into Metallica and we became friends just like that. It literally happened like this- I saw a long haired guy with ripped up jeans in class and we started asking each other "You like Metallica? You listen to KNAC (local metal FM station)?". I'm guessing this was 1992. A while back, I completely stopped using FB and he freaked out. He thought I died or something because he couldn't get a hold of me. Him and 2 of those punk rockers I knew from school where the only ones who noticed or cared. I didn't mean to do that to them, I just hate FB.

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