What Are You Listening To?

[Dead1]

Personally I think Venom shits all over most of the obscure most black, death and thrash bamds people fawn over on this site.

Catchy, memorable raucous tunes played with blistering energy.  They invented extreme metal and did a pretty good job of it.

Sure they weren't serious about being evil or Satanic but that was the point (in any case you guys all denounce the serious actual evil of 2nd wave black metal and most of you are probably not practising Satanists or Neo-Nazis or Pagans). 

They might not have been the best musicians either but neither were the Sex Pistols. 

 

Venom encapsulates extreme metal.   They kicked serious arse.  Sure they fucked up at times but so did everyone else (Cold Lake, Black album, a lot of Bathory's 1990s catalogue,Turbo etc etc).

[JonoBlade]

50 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

First time I heard of them was on the god damned nightly network news, they did a story with a bit of live concert footage (that they talked over) about the Venom craze in the UK because it was so shocking and confusing to normies who were scratching their heads at how these evil Satanist characters who were making such an unholy racket could have kids lining up around the block to see them. People were concerned. And then of course in the 80's we had the full blown Satanic panic here in the States.

It wasn't just the States. I have an image in my mind of seeing footage of Venom (mainly Mantas who had blonde hair and sunglasses) which quite probably was on the six o-clock news or some current affairs program in NZ in the 80s. The satanic danger of metal definitely was a thing everywhere, when parents didn't know what to make of it. Let's not forget those dangerous subversives Knights-In-Satan's-Service. Credit to my mum, she was shit-scared of me becoming a devil-worshipping wastrel, but didn't actually do anything to stop me, because Doctor Spock's guide to parenting says that if you try to forbid something, your kids are just going to be even more intrigued by that thing. So, they didn't really make a big deal out of it, even though I am sure it bothered them.

 

[navybsn]

The Night Eternal - Fatale

 

38 minutes ago, JonoBlade said:

It wasn't just the States. I have an image in my mind of seeing footage of Venom (mainly Mantas who had blonde hair and sunglasses) which quite probably was on the six o-clock news or some current affairs program in NZ in the 80s. The satanic danger of metal definitely was a thing everywhere, when parents didn't know what to make of it. Let's not forget those dangerous subversives Knights-In-Satan's-Service. Credit to my mum, she was shit-scared of me becoming a devil-worshipping wastrel, but didn't actually do anything to stop me, because Doctor Spock's guide to parenting says that if you try to forbid something, your kids are just going to be even more intrigued by that thing. So, they didn't really make a big deal out of it, even though I am sure it bothered them.

 

Don't forget Anti Christ/Devil's Children (AC/DC) or We Are Satan's People (WASP). Hell, even Def Leppard was considered satanic back in the day around here. And don't get caught playing D&D.

Guess they were right in hindsight. I'd go to a Ghost concert before I'd go to church. Maybe even FFDP.

[Kristiko]

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath (album)

[GoatmasterGeneral]

1 hour ago, Dead1 said:

Personally I think Venom shits all over most of the obscure most black, death and thrash bamds people fawn over on this site.

Catchy, memorable raucous tunes played with blistering energy.  They invented extreme metal and did a pretty good job of it.

Sure they weren't serious about being evil or Satanic but that was the point (in any case you guys all denounce the serious actual evil of 2nd wave black metal and most of you are probably not practising Satanists or Neo-Nazis or Pagans). 

They might not have been the best musicians either but neither were the Sex Pistols. 

Venom encapsulates extreme metal.  They kicked serious arse.  Sure they fucked up at times but so did everyone else (Cold Lake, Black album, a lot of Bathory's 1990s catalogue,Turbo etc etc).

I really want to like Venom. If there was ever a band that was tailor made for me it's Venom. The were the same age as me, my "peers." Welcome to Hell came out when I was 20, right time, right place, I was totally into nwobhm, I should have been their biggest fan. I should have met them at the airport and given them a ride to their hotel when they came over for their first US tour with Metallica as support in '84. I love the idea and the attitude of Venom. I love most bands who play some form of Venom worship. If it weren't for Venom we might not have large portion of the filthy black metal bands I love today. But their actual music sounds to me like some atonal combo of being out of tune and not being able to play their instruments. Nothing even remotely "catchy" about their music to me. I would call Venom's music the opposite of catchy. It's unlistenable.

I don't honestly know if they are actually out of tune or if they can in fact play their instruments or not. But what's important is it sounds that way to me, and atonality is something I just can't tolerate, not even a little bit. And I hear it in places where others don't. For example Morbid Angel and Pantera are two more very popular legacy metal bands I also can't listen to at all because they use too many notes that don't go together and their music sounds atonal to me. Altars of Madness in particular sounds to me like a record that's being played backwards. You would not believe how many times I've listened to that one because I'm so sure there must be something I've just been missing and maybe this 409th time it will make sense to me. I know Trey and Dime are viewed as virtuosos within the metal world, but lke Venom I find their music absolutely unlistenable. If it weren't for the extreme levels of atonality I would very likely be a fan of all 3 bands.

The Sex Pistols Bullocks album is fine because they had professional studio musicians "fill in" for the band members who were musically challenged. I really like that record, bought it when it first came out, but it's hard for me to even hear it as "punk" anymore because it's so smooth and so catchy it sounds like pop music to me 46 years later.

[navybsn]

Dodsferd - Diseased Remnants of a Dying World

 

[MarkhantonioYeatts]

...WhiteNoise....that is absolutely untrue about THE SEX PISTOLS....everything they ever recorded was played by the band....no studio musicians subbed in for anyone....for the songs that were not recorded with Glen Matlock(..before he left...), Steve Jones played the bass parts on his guitar to cover for Sid's deficiency at bass. Vicious was not as bad a bassist as he is been blamed for.....he played bass in FLOWERS OF ROMANCE, his first band with Keith LEVENE and if you listen he actually is decent sounding(...he was just so fucked up on whatever the drug of the day was...). By the time he joined THE SEX PISTOLS, he was dope-fried and was rarely able to function as a bassist or human much of the time. 

[Serpentboi1992]

[navybsn]

22 minutes ago, MarkhantonioYeatts said:

dope-fried and was rarely able to function as a bassist or human much of the time

I think that's in the job description for Punk Bassist.

Speaking of punk bassists who can actually play...

Tony Lombardo (The Descendents)

Shameless Halo

Matt Freeman (Rancid)

Rats in the Hallway

Fat Mike (NOFX)

Live at Rockpalast

Brian Kienlen (Bouncing Souls)

Manthem

And of course Jerry Only (Misfits)

Angelfuck

 

[Dead1]

4 hours ago, MarkhantonioYeatts said:

.....he played bass in FLOWERS OF ROMANCE, his first band with Keith LEVENE and if you listen he actually is decent sounding

Wow didn't know that about Sid. 

6 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

But what's important is it sounds that way to me, and atonality is something I just can't tolerate, not even a little bit. And I hear it in places where others don't. 

It's strange because a lot of what you listen to it atonal.  

 

 

[Dead1]

6 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Altars of Madness in particular sounds to me like a record that's being played backwards. 

 

Intro to Altars of Madness is the opening few bars played backwards.

First half of the album is some of the best death metal out there IMO.  It peters out a bit in second half but still very listenable.

 

Quote

If it weren't for the extreme levels of atonality I would very likely be a fan of all 3 bands.

I don't hear any atonality in Venom though Morbid Angel and Pantera can get atonal at times (eg Pantera's 25 Years before the time change) if you think about it in terms of disjointed stuff that doesn't follow standard norms  (when it comes to atonality I think about a lot of Immolation (eg Close To A World Below), Brutal Truth around Sounds of the Animal Kingdom), Meshuggah and most definitely stuff like Pyrrhon and Imperial Triumphant).

Oh and Napalm Death, Nails, Noisem and most other grindcore and power violence is atonal.  But then I enjoy stuff like From Enslavement To Obliteration 

Venom are playing essentially punk and heavy metal tunes.  There's standard rhythmic patterns in there.  There's occasional atonal solos if that was an issue I wouldn't be listening to Slayer and Celtic Frost either.

 

Quote

Nothing even remotely "catchy" about their music

Strange cause most of your music is not catchy or memorable.  When I hear Live Like An Angel or Black Metal or Manitou, Poison or whatever I can generally guess it straight away.  

 

 

Quote

I really like that record, bought it when it first came out, but it's hard for me to even hear it as "punk" anymore because it's so smooth and so catchy it sounds like pop music to me 46 years later.

Punk music was catchy - I mean listen to the Ramones, early Clash, the Saints etc.  

 

Sex Pistols is still one of the most abrasive, obnoxious, ugly albums out there in my opinion.  It's rawer than a lot of metal including huge chunks of modern Nuclear Blast style death and thrash.

 

And lyrically man they can still be offensive by today's standard - eg Bodies.  In many ways more extreme than Cannibal Corpse cause the Pistols made it realistic and not horror movie clichés.

 

Quote

 

She was a girl from Birmingham
She just had an abortion
She was a case of insanity
Her name was Pauline, she lived in a tree

 

She was a no-one who killed her baby
She sent her letters from the country
She was an animal
She was a bloody disgrace

 

Body, I'm not an animal
Body, I'm not an animal

 

Dragged on a table in a factory
Illegitimate place to be
In a packet in a lavatory
Die little baby screaming

 

Body, screaming, fucking, bloody mess
Not an animal, it's an abortion

Body I'm not an animal

Mummy, mummy, mummy, I'm an abortion
Throbbing squirm, gurgling bloody mess

 

I'm not a discharge
I'm not a loss in protein
I'm not a throbbing squirm

 

Ah! Fuck this and fuck that
Fuck it all the fuck out of the fucking brat
She don't wanna a baby that looks like that
I don't wanna a baby that looks like that

 

Body, I'm not an animal
Body, an abortion
Body, I'm not an animal
Body, I'm not an animal
An animal
I'm not an animal
I'm not an animal, an animal, an-an-an animal
I'm not a body
I'm not an animal, an animal, an-an-an animal
I'm not an animal
Mummy! Uh!

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

4 hours ago, MarkhantonioYeatts said:

...WhiteNoise....that is absolutely untrue about THE SEX PISTOLS....everything they ever recorded was played by the band....no studio musicians subbed in for anyone....for the songs that were not recorded with Glen Matlock(..before he left...), Steve Jones played the bass parts on his guitar to cover for Sid's deficiency at bass. Vicious was not as bad a bassist as he is been blamed for.....he played bass in FLOWERS OF ROMANCE, his first band with Keith LEVENE and if you listen he actually is decent sounding(...he was just so fucked up on whatever the drug of the day was...). By the time he joined THE SEX PISTOLS, he was dope-fried and was rarely able to function as a bassist or human much of the time. 

Ok fair enough, makes sense it would've been Steve Jones. But I knew I'd heard or read that Sid did not play the bass tracks on the album. I certainly wasn't calling Steve Jones' ability into question, I know he's played with a ton of different people post Pistols including Iggy Pop on my personal favorite Iggy album Instinct, that I just bought on a whim in the late 80's and then it turned out to have quite a bit of replay value.

 

36 minutes ago, Dead1 said:

It's strange because a lot of what you listen to it atonal.  

Possibly, I can't say there's none because I'm sure there must be some things, but I wouldn't say a lot. I do go out of my way to avoid atonality and excessive dissonance as much as possible, I find it irritating and distracting. What would you say I listen to that's atonal?

[Dead1]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

I find it irritating and distracting. What would you say I listen to that's atonal?

Well ironically that Omega album that started this discussion was more atonal than Venom in the vocal department.

 

But you listen to death metal and grindcore which are atonal, especially grindcore and you hate the "bouncy/groovy" stuff in those genres eg Pig Destroyer's newer stuff.

[JJWO]

Mortiferous - Necromancer Awakens 

[FatherAlabaster]

Tomb Mold - The Enduring Spirit   ...still dig it second time through. Lots of cool riffs. A lot of it feels like just one riff after another, but there are some parts that develop and unfold nicely. Not sure it will stick around for me long-term but it's engaging at the moment.

[AlSymerz]

COC - Animosity

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

4 hours ago, Dead1 said:

Intro to Altars of Madness is the opening few bars played backwards. First half of the album is some of the best death metal out there IMO.  It peters out a bit in second half but still very listenable.

I don't hear any atonality in Venom though Morbid Angel and Pantera can get atonal at times (eg Pantera's 25 Years before the time change) if you think about it in terms of disjointed stuff that doesn't follow standard norms  (when it comes to atonality I think about a lot of Immolation (eg Close To A World Below), Brutal Truth around Sounds of the Animal Kingdom), Meshuggah and most definitely stuff like Pyrrhon and Imperial Triumphant).

Oh and Napalm Death, Nails, Noisem and most other grindcore and power violence is atonal.  But then I enjoy stuff like From Enslavement To Obliteration 

Venom are playing essentially punk and heavy metal tunes. There's standard rhythmic patterns in there.  There's occasional atonal solos if that was an issue I wouldn't be listening to Slayer and Celtic Frost either.

Strange cause most of your music is not catchy or memorable.  When I hear Live Like An Angel or Black Metal or Manitou, Poison or whatever I can generally guess it straight away.  

Punk music was catchy - I mean listen to the Ramones, early Clash, the Saints etc.  

Sex Pistols is still one of the most abrasive, obnoxious, ugly albums out there in my opinion.  It's rawer than a lot of metal including huge chunks of modern Nuclear Blast style death and thrash.

And lyrically man they can still be offensive by today's standard - eg Bodies.  In many ways more extreme than Cannibal Corpse cause the Pistols made it realistic and not horror movie clichés.

 

Had a lengthy response typed out to this post paragraph by paragraph, and I was just about ready to post it but then the power went out and I lost the whole fucking thing. Spent well over an hour on it and I don't feel like typing all that shit again. But maybe the short version would be better anyway. 

You've been telling me for years now that my music is not catchy or memorable when clearly from my point of view it is. Obviously you think your favorite music is catchier and more memorable just like I think the stuff I like is. Doesn't everybody? There's no way to objectively quantify memorability, so it's a pointless quality to debate. I would say though it seems fairly self-evident that memorability is completely subjective and exists mostly in the mind of the beholder. We all hear things differently.

Unlike Welcome to Hell or Altars of Madness for examples, I don't hear Bollocks as an "ugly" album at all, and I never have. Musically or sonically speaking I mean, I'm not concerning myself with the lyrics here. I don't get offended by anything, ever, nothing has ever been off-limits in my world. So I'm probably a bad judge of what might be offensive to others. But again, ugliness as well as offensiveness are both completely subjective too. And I do listen to a lot of pretty raw and ugly music so my rawness and ugly meters may be calibrated differently than most people's.

I hear grindcore more as chaotic than atonal. I can hum along with a lot of it so it couldn't be too overly atonal. And I'm talking strictly about the guitar riffs now, I'm not referring to the solos, or lyrically, vocally, rythmically, intestinally or any other kind of atonality. Just the music. And that goes for the Omega album too. I listen to stuff like grindcore and war metal a bit differently than I would other sub-genres though I think. I know going in they're gonna be chaotic so I'm prepared for that and take it into consideration. But I'm pretty selective with both my grindcore and my war metal, there are certain albums I really love while a good portion of the rest of it I could just as easily live without. I listen to a lot more death/grind or crust/grind than I do straight up grindcore. I do check out a fair amount of grindcore and I usually enjoy it while it's playing once or twice but I don't feel the need to buy or relisten to that much of it. A good death/grind album though is worth its weight in gold.

Of those 8 bands you listed in your second paragraph I can't listen to any of them, except Brutal Truth. But I've never heard that 3rd album, I only have their first two. The first and only Immolation album I was ever able to get into was Atonement, so I can't really call myself a big Immo fan, but I can't completely dismiss them either. They were damn good live the two time I saw them though, I'll have to give them that. Those other 6 bands are all a hard pass, I don't mess with any of them.

Ha! Over an hour again even though this version was a bit shorter. Sorry for jumping all over the place.

 

 

NP: Actum Inferni - Uzurpator Niebiańskiego Tronu, Poland

 

[RelentlessOblivion]

Sacramentum - The Coming of Chaos

[JonoBlade]

20 hours ago, navybsn said:

Don't forget Anti Christ/Devil's Children (AC/DC) or We Are Satan's People (WASP). Hell, even Def Leppard was considered satanic back in the day around here. And don't get caught playing D&D.

Guess they were right in hindsight. I'd go to a Ghost concert before I'd go to church. Maybe even FFDP.

As a second to last nail in the coffin I played D&D too. 

Alas, it was a missed opportunity choosing not to be gay. I would have possessed the trifecta of supreme evil.

There can't be that many of those. Save Satan themself.

[navybsn]

Today calls for a good old fashioned Satanic panic playlist. Probably continually add to this for a while, but we'll start here...

Candlemass - Epicus Doomicus Metallicus (the one that started it all for me)

Mercyful Fate - Don't Break the Oath

Mercyful Fate - Melissa

Judas Priest - Defenders of the Faith

Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance

Ozzy - Blizzard of Ozz

Ozzy - Diary of a Madman

Ozzy - Bark at the Moon

AC/DC - Highway to Hell

AC/DC - Back in Black

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

Motley Crue - Shout at the Devil

Def Leppard - On Through the Night

Def Leppard - High N' Dry

Twisted Sister - Stay Hungry

KISS - Alive II

Slayer - Hell Awaits

Slayer - Show No Mercy

Metallica - Kill 'em All

Iron Maiden - Number of the Beast

 

 

 

[JonoBlade]

 

1 hour ago, navybsn said:

a good old fashioned Satanic panic playlist...

W.A.S.P. - Live...In the Raw

Queen - The Game (feat. Another One Bites the Dust, GG's favourite band and song, which backwards is "start to smoke marijuana"

Led Zeppelin - IV (feat. Stairway to Heaven, everyone's favourite song, which backwards praises "sweet satan")

Judas Priest - Stained Class (feat. Better By You, Better Than Me - not even written by Priest - which backwards includes the command "do it" for every last gas station attendant in the world to kill themselves)

John Denver? Wasn't he a devil worshipper?

[Innominate]

Mayhem - Wolf's Lair Abyss

[Kristiko]

Megadeth - Peace Sells... But Who's Buying? (album)

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Dominance - Slaughter of Human Offerings in the New Age of Pan, Poland

 

Mantle - Krivio Sapnai, Lithuania

 

[MarkhantonioYeatts]

...WhiteNoise....that DOMINANCE record smokes....I need to pick that up....I wanted to grab their demo a couple of years ago but the website that sells it is really sketchy from what I've read...plus I'd rather not buy cassette except as a last resort....

LIHHAMON - Doctrine