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What Are You Listening To?


khaos

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3 minutes ago, Serpentboi1992 said:

yeah. i agree. i took my dad to that new top gun movie for father's day and it was surprisingly a much better film than i was expecting it to be. tom cruise is a cringe person, but i'm a black metal fan. so, i have to separate entertainment from the entertainers on a fairly frequent basis in order to enjoy most of what i enjoy. lol 

Had a lengthy discussion about this recently with my oldest and dearest friend from our high school days together in the 1970's. I said something about how I edited the musical selections when he comes over because I knew he wasn't really heavily into the more extreme sub-genres of metal. I mean we lived together at one point for about 5 years back in the late 80's/early 90's and during that time our record collections got pretty intermingled. I know he's a metalhead and although we've always kept in touch over the years, I know we went off in different directions with our music explorations and interests almost 30 years ago.

We just went to see Overkill together back in March which was a band we both used to be totally into, and together we went to as many of their (as well as many other metal and punk bands') shows as we could all throughout the 80's. He told me in March that currently his favorite metal band was Nightwish and he's super into Wardruna (whom I wouldn't call metal at all) but he also said that I didn't need to edit anything on his behalf when he was present, he was actually quite curious about the current state of extreme metal and what kind of stuff I actually enjoy listening to these days when I'm alone. He wants to jump in but the sheer number of bands and albums coming out these days seems daunting, he doesn't know where to start.

So I texted him a list of some of my favorite albums so far in 2022 in case he'd like to check any of them out. Several hours later I got a text back satying he had liked some of it (didn't specify which ones) but he noticed that most of the bands had a very strong Satanic or anti-Christian stance/theme/mission and he wondered how a given sub-genre could have so many hundreds of bands that all seeemd to be solely and entirely based on nothing more than being vehemently anti-Christian. He wondered why don't they ever sing about anything else?

We had a long back and forth about it and I explained to him that although the dark "evil" sound of the music was quite important to me, I'm clealrly not an evil person myself. I don't pay any attention to lyrics or themes or messages in black or death metal and the whole Satan thing is not what I'm there for, it really is just about the riffs for me.

Of course anyone who knows me well enough knows it's true that I do identify as anti-Christian. (anti meaning I'm actively opposed to it, not just saying that I'm not a Christian) But it's not something I think about all day nor do I generally feel compelled to talk about this stuff with the normies, be they friends, strangers or family. 

I wouldn't say my views are extreme enough to where I'd be willing to call myself a card-carrying Satanist. I don't believe in any supernatural entities, not any Gods or Satan or angels or demons or spirits or ghosts or Heaven or Hell and I don't really like to spend a lot of time thinking about any of that stuff because I don't even find the subject that interesting, I just think it's banal and stupid. I just want to be free to enjoy the heavy music for its own sake and to bang my head with abandon.

So I am one of those people who is able to totally separate the music from the message and from the artist. Apparently not everybody can. We all know that some black metal artists over the years have been bad people, just like I'm sure there have been bad people involved with the making of any sub-genre of music or film or literature or whatever. But I don't feel the need to screen every band to weed out the shitbags nor the need to comprehend, dissect and approve of all their various messages. Same way I don't need or care to know if all the factory workers and company employees at the companies who make and sell any of the products I use regularly are good/bad people. I'm not the thought police.

So to Jon's point earlier, I don't feel the need to screen out the Christian nutters from the art or music I consume any more than I need to screen out the Satanists and shitbags. It doesn't matter to me how I might feel about a band's or a musician's or a filmmaker's or actor's ideology or personal habits. As a consumer I feel entitled to "cherry-pick" and just take the parts I want from music & films, and to simply leave/ignore the rest. Film and music are escapism for me and to a large extent I feel like the actors and black metal musicians are playing a part anyway, moreso than they're just representing their normal everyday selves. 

32 minutes ago, FatherAlabaster said:

Blood Incantation is a great live band. I still don't like Starspawn but seeing that stuff in person was a totally different and much more compelling experience.

That's interesting, I wouldn't say I loved it but I liked most of Starspawn but then they lost me with Hidden History and the prog intrusion for lack of a better word.

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13 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

 

That's interesting, I wouldn't say I loved it but I liked most of Starspawn but then they lost me with Hidden History and the prog intrusion for lack of a better word.

No surprise that I like the proggy stuff on Hidden History. But I love plenty of non-proggy DM, too... I don't know why Starspawn has never clicked for me. I've tried listening to it a bunch, and something always keeps me at arm's length. Even after I saw them and thought their set was phenomenal, I went back to the album and couldn't get into it. It's a bit weird to me, on paper it seems like I should dig it.

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18 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

I've still never heard Dystopia, but have to say I listened to this new track twice. It was decent, although main vocal melody seemed ripped off Black Friday. Dave has such a distinctive guitar tone though. 

If you notice that "We'll Be Back" is the last track on the album, which means it should be the best/most epic. Yet, it is no Mechanix, My Last Words, Hook in Mouth, or Rust in Peace...Polaris.

Holy shit, I just gave myself goose bumps even thinking about My Last Words. 

I love My Last Word.  Very underrated song.

 

Love the opening line "My life's on time but again my sense is late."

 

I am sure we can all relate to that.

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14 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

I love My Last Word.  Very underrated song.

 

Love the opening line "My life's on time but again my sense is late."

 

I am sure we can all relate to that.

Peace Sells is literally the only Megadeth album I would ever think to revisit these days. And yet I had to go to YouTube and have a listen to My Last Word to refresh my memory. Good tune for sure (no goosebumps for me though)  but I guess I don't usually make it that far since it's the very last song on the album coming after the shit cover of I Ain't Superstitious. So I usually just turn it off after Bad Omen and put on something else.

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Krallice - Psychagogue  ...yes, but.

Sunrise Patriot Motion - Black Fellflower Stream   ...maybe. I think so. I used to like Yellow Eyes quite a bit, then I saw them live and they annoyed me enough that I just kinda stopped listening to them. Unfair, but I didn't do it on purpose. Second good/interesting/different album from the same guys in the past few months. Maybe I'd like Sick With Bloom again if I put it on.

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