What Are You Listening To?

[AlSymerz]

Oh, so no one important, gotcha

[Dead1]

11 minutes ago, AlSymerz said:

Oh, so no one important, gotcha

Him and I used to wage war on each other.  He was your stereotypical latte leftie complete with inbuilt hypocrisy you associate with those types  (ie virtue signalling whilst at the same time defending skyrocketing property prices and environmentally unsustainable development).   

[navybsn]

5 hours ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

I try to avoid discussing Blasphemy entirely

Nothing wrong with Blasphemy music wise. Foundational war/bestial black metal that inspired tons of good bands that followed. From a personal standpoint, I don't endorse their beliefs anymore than I endorse overt satanists, anarchists, or any of the other ideologies ascribed by many of the bands we all listen to. I look at it as the shock value means they chose to offend the establishment and attract attention from the outcast. The green Mohawk if you will. An open affront to proper societal values.  Are they devout national socialists or stupid kids that took shit to far and stuck with the gag too long? Don't know, don't think I'd ever find out. But I won't part with my copy of Gods of War or Fallen Angel of Doom because some Internet detective with a platform says so. Even if they were reciting the entire text of Mein Kampf in the songs, I doubt anyone could really tell, and I don't pay any attention to lyrics myself. Don't research bands either. The music bangs or it doesn't. That's my only criteria. Ymmv.

The great thing about metal, and music in general, is that we get to set our own criteria of what is good and what we value. I like bands like Rush and The Cure that 95% of the board absolutely hate. No shame either way. If I see someone really enthusiastic about a particular album, I'll give it a shot. I know most of the guys well enough to know what to expect, but I make my own decisions about what I spend my money on and put in rotation. Maybe it's filthy black metal or polished prog wankery. Don't worry about what others think about a particular band that you like. Doesn't really matter in the grand scheme. But know the audience you're talking to and maybe don't bring up certain topics around those with highly charged opinions that may or may not be rooted in fact. I don't discuss politics with my wife for that very reason. She bases her position on Tiktok news and the like with no other research. So there's no point unless I want to fight. Metal is no different. Everyone has an opinion and you know the old saying about that. Few if any of us really know these people and what they think. Never will.

Where it gets troublesome is when you start adopting the same pov as the ideologies represented by the band(s). You'll see the argument that just purchasing or streaming something from a specific band is supporting their ideology. I don't agree. This is all extremely low volume low demand stuff that even big bands make little to any money from. So how can you really be supporting a movement of ill repute? 99.9% of the world doesn't even know most of the subgenres and bands we metalheads obsess over even exist. And even if no one buys it, horribly offensive stuff will still be made and said. So the argument doesn't hold up with me. We give politicians with much more dangerous views much bigger platforms to spew their garbage which causes considerably more damage to the populace while we all just go about our lives. Listening to something you enjoy with the mind that there are some things or ideas embedded that may not be kosher and being conscious about keeping them from influencing your own beliefs is a key tenant to listening to anything these days with the access to music we have. Same as objectively watching the news and drawing your own conclusions. As long as you are able to do that, I don't see where bands like Blasphemy,  Burzum, Goatmoon, Grand Belials Key, or Graveland pose any threat to you. Most of them suck anyway. And if I hadn't started with Blasphemy back in the mid 90s, I probably wouldn't think much of them had they come out in the past few years. But to write them out of the development of heavy metal because they have distasteful or even disgusting personal beliefs would be a disservice.

[Nasty_Cabbage]

22 minutes ago, navybsn said:

Nothing wrong with Blasphemy music wise. Foundational war/bestial black metal that inspired tons of good bands that followed. From a personal standpoint, I don't endorse their beliefs anymore than I endorse overt satanists, anarchists, or any of the other ideologies ascribed by many of the bands we all listen to. I look at it as the shock value means they chose to offend the establishment and attract attention from the outcast. The green Mohawk if you will. An open affront to proper societal values.  Are they devout national socialists or stupid kids that took shit to far and stuck with the gag too long? Don't know, don't think I'd ever find out. But I won't part with my copy of Gods of War or Fallen Angel of Doom because some Internet detective with a platform says so. Even if they were reciting the entire text of Mein Kampf in the songs, I doubt anyone could really tell, and I don't pay any attention to lyrics myself. Don't research bands either. The music bangs or it doesn't. That's my only criteria. Ymmv.

The great thing about metal, and music in general, is that we get to set our own criteria of what is good and what we value. I like bands like Rush and The Cure that 95% of the board absolutely hate. No shame either way. If I see someone really enthusiastic about a particular album, I'll give it a shot. I know most of the guys well enough to know what to expect, but I make my own decisions about what I spend my money on and put in rotation. Maybe it's filthy black metal or polished prog wankery. Don't worry about what others think about a particular band that you like. Doesn't really matter in the grand scheme. But know the audience you're talking to and maybe don't bring up certain topics around those with highly charged opinions that may or may not be rooted in fact. I don't discuss politics with my wife for that very reason. She bases her position on Tiktok news and the like with no other research. So there's no point unless I want to fight. Metal is no different. Everyone has an opinion and you know the old saying about that. Few if any of us really know these people and what they think. Never will.

Where it gets troublesome is when you start adopting the same pov as the ideologies represented by the band(s). You'll see the argument that just purchasing or streaming something from a specific band is supporting their ideology. I don't agree. This is all extremely low volume low demand stuff that even big bands make little to any money from. So how can you really be supporting a movement of ill repute? 99.9% of the world doesn't even know most of the subgenres and bands we metalheads obsess over even exist. And even if no one buys it, horribly offensive stuff will still be made and said. So the argument doesn't hold up with me. We give politicians with much more dangerous views much bigger platforms to spew their garbage which causes considerably more damage to the populace while we all just go about our lives. Listening to something you enjoy with the mind that there are some things or ideas embedded that may not be kosher and being conscious about keeping them from influencing your own beliefs is a key tenant to listening to anything these days with the access to music we have. Same as objectively watching the news and drawing your own conclusions. As long as you are able to do that, I don't see where bands like Blasphemy,  Burzum, Goatmoon, Grand Belials Key, or Graveland pose any threat to you. Most of them suck anyway. And if I hadn't started with Blasphemy back in the mid 90s, I probably wouldn't think much of them had they come out in the past few years. But to write them out of the development of heavy metal because they have distasteful or even disgusting personal beliefs would be a disservice.

I generally agree, and just so I'm clear here, I do think that the way that evening went down might have had to do with more than just Blasphemy's music, but it's one of those lessons I've learned the hard way to just keep a level head and stay quiet in certain situations. Basically I was at a house show with a few friends and a few people I knew more-or-less by sight, but not by first name. These second group of kids were the type who would often freeze bottles of water before a show and huck them at people's heads if there was a line or down time between bands so that if they got arrested for assault the charges wouldn't stick simply because of the general pandemonium that occurred when stuff like that went down.

I wasn't even all that interested in the band since I'd seen them play before and they were of the type that believed if they wished hard enough and were pure of heart they'd magically turn into Sevendust. I agreed to go because the sister of a friend wanted to go get drunk there, and we knew she liked putting herself in dangerous situations when she did. Now I cannot stress enough that I am not some dip who thinks he's Sir Ivanhoe in these situations, so I was very very clear that all of this was dependent on how late the evening ran, and if I was ready to go they'd need to be ready. No twenty minute goodbyes no negotiating my way to the door. If it's time to go it's time to go. So my job was to stay sober and make sure nobody separated her from the larger group / get her to her place if things started to turn south.

Thankfully that didn't really happen, but there were some guys there who knew what I was doing and were getting progressively more annoyed with me running interference through the evening, and when I happened to bring up Marduk I think they saw their opportunity to kind of flip the good will of the room back toward their side. They essentially named off a few bands and asked some sort of broader general questions and when I replied that I'd only heard one Blasphemy album, but I did like Arghoslent they got a little too physical for my liking, and since the band was done playing, when they decided to throw me out and immediately separate the drunk girl I did manage to get a word in that I was being booted out and threatened and if they wanted a ride it was last call.

All in all nothing came of it and I was able to get the girls home and go catch some rest myself, but the dudes did make sure to corner me and say that they'd kick my "nazi pig ass" if I showed up to one of their house shows again which made me laugh since I knew the guy whose house I was actually at and he would have shut the whole operation completely down if he got wind of somebody acting like that.

So in any case what I'm saying is there might have been a little bit more going on than me taking some altruistic stand for free expression in music.  Doesn't change that I really can't be bothered to check in on the general moral character of a band if the music's good.

Hell there are a few sites I used to frequent that would unequivocally ban any sort of discussion on the subject at all. I didn't really mind since at the end of the day it's their site and up to their discretion what type of content they chose to include and omit. It's difficult on occasion to simply accept that, but it's rare enough that I run into gatekeeping zealots to really get upset about it. For my part I've always thought a happy middle ground would be to include a warning at the start of coverage of that nature and then we can all be happy enough to choose how we would engage with the material.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. I just wanted to clarify a few things since these types of discussions so often devolve into feces flinging chaos, and that I don't tell that story to make myself into some sort of hero figure in the most backward ass sense of noblesse oblige imaginable.

NP: Proscriptor McGovern's Apsu - s/t

https://agoniarecords.bandcamp.com/album/proscriptor-mcgovern-s-aps

My god I love this album. I know Proscriptor's not an original member of Absu, but with him as the de facto bandleader they have yet to release anything below an 8/10 for my money, with this one being near perfection.

[agamerwholovesmetal]

Scumdogs of the universe (1990) - Gwar 

I will be seeing these guys live in October. hopefully I'll be able to get into a moshpit for the first time at this one

[Nasty_Cabbage]

7 minutes ago, agamerwholovesmetal said:

Scumdogs of the universe (1990) - Gwar 

I will be seeing these guys live in October. hopefully I'll be able to get into a moshpit for the first time at this one

I feel fairly confident you'll have fun. I don't know who they've got now that Oderus Urungus has passed, but they were always a band that was far more about spectacle than anything else. You don't even really have to own the albums. Pro tip: if you have a ratty white t-shirt you don't care about, wear that.

It actually sort of surprises me how many young people I know or have known that like GWAR. I generally would have thought the past few generations of music fans in particular wouldn't be receptive to it. Reason for hope in the future generations, I suppose. You won't need to remind yourself to have fun, that's for sure, and every once in a while remember not to take all this stuff around you quite so seriously.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Altarage - NIHL, España 2016

 

  Teitanblood - Death, España 2014

 

[Dead1]

GWAR seem to be very much an American thing.  I've never met anyone here in Australia who listened to them.

[GoatmasterGeneral]

Hell's Coronation - Transgression of a Necromantical Darkness, Poland slow groove black/death

 

Black Priest of Satan - Element of Destruction, Germany 2016 fuzzed out black/death filth

 

[Arioch]

7 hours ago, Dead1 said:

I prefer the original of Enemies of Reality.  Sneap's remaster didn't ad anything to it.

As for Sneap and metal nobility, his problem is he essentially applies the same sound to every band he produces.  He is very good at what he does but he doesn't vary it.  

I also condemn Andy Sneap for paving the way for modern Nuclear Blast/Century Media style overproduction.  He was never as bad as what these two labels do now but he was a pioneer for that type of production.

 

Oh and irony, NP Kreator - Enemy of God  produced and mixed by one Andy Sneap.😁

I totally agree with what you say about Andy Sneap.

I love what he did in the first two Sabbat, but as a producer, he's a shit.

The same sound applied to every band that comes into his studio, a sound that's clean and powerful but where you rarely hear the cymbals on the drums.

You get the impression that he has a default setting for his equipment and when a band arrives, all he has to do is say: come and welcome! Come on, plug in your instruments, we're recording!

In his defence, I'd just say that the bands he produces don't particularly want to have a personalised sound. Do they come to him because of the prices? His potential reputation?

PS: I have both versions of Nevermore's Enemies of Reality and I too prefer the original edition.

[Arioch]

This morning I decided to listen to my two favourite Thrash albums of all time.

I love plenty of Thrash albums, but these two surpass them as far as I'm concerned.

And neither of them is produced by Andy Sneap 😅

I'll start with :

Forbidden - Twisted into Form (1990)

I love this band! And I'm HAPPY to see them back in action, even if Russ Anderson is unfortunately not with them (the new singer is doing very well).

I love Bay Area thrash. Bands like Testament, Death Angel, Exodus, Defiance and Vio-Lence have shaped my imagination and my taste in music. But Forbidden, with Forbidden Evil, brought me more. Unstoppable melodies, lots of energy, sick breaks, Russ's vocals and Craig Lociciero's solos. I love it all!

And on Twisted, Forbidden have mastered their art perfectly. It's a less crazy album than Forbidden Evil but I find it more homogeneous. Everything I love about them is even more pronounced, with riffs you can't hear anywhere else. It's all good! A real treat!

[JonoBlade]

53 minutes ago, Arioch said:

I totally agree with what you say about Andy Sneap.

I love what he did in the first two Sabbat, but as a producer, he's a shit.

The same sound applied to every band that comes into his studio, a sound that's clean and powerful but where you rarely hear the cymbals on the drums.

You get the impression that he has a default setting for his equipment and when a band arrives, all he has to do is say: come and welcome! Come on, plug in your instruments, we're recording!

In his defence, I'd just say that the bands he produces don't particularly want to have a personalised sound. Do they come to him because of the prices? His potential reputation?

PS: I have both versions of Nevermore's Enemies of Reality and I too prefer the original edition.

Due to Andy's association with Sabbat I could never not like the guy. Ironically, the production on those Sabbat albums is not great in my opinion and maybe he could even do a good remix if he kept the spirit of the original. 

Methinks labels do send work to producers who are a safe pair of hands. Sneap sure has done his time and dedicated his life to metal. But yeah, that samey production is not a selling point, it is just something you live with. 

I would love to work with him one day and try and steer things in a different direction but doubt I can afford his rates!

I've worked with another name producer Jaime Gomez Arellano, who did the last 4 or 5 Paradise Lost records (recorded, mixed, mastered) and he is the consummate professional, but he definitely has a "house sound" especially for drums which are just on the wrong side of too polished for my tastes. But others must love it or they wouldn't go to him. 

[Nasty_Cabbage]

NP: Moonlight Sorcery - Horned Lord of the Thorned Castle

https://moonlightsorcery.bandcamp.com/album/horned-lord-of-the-thorned-castle

EDIT: Okay this absolutely slays. It's everything I wanted from them after two excellent ep.s. Two parts black, two parts speed/shred, and one part melodeath tinged sheer exuberance.

[JonoBlade]

43 minutes ago, Arioch said:

Forbidden - Twisted into Form (1990)

I love this band! And I'm HAPPY to see them back in action, even if Russ Anderson is unfortunately not with them (the new singer is doing very well).

And on Twisted, Forbidden have mastered their art perfectly. It's a less crazy album than Forbidden Evil but I find it more homogeneous. Everything I love about them is even more pronounced, with riffs you can't hear anywhere else. It's all good! A real treat!

Plus one. Twisted into Form is a thrash standard, pretty much perfect.

I saw a clip of the new singer and he seemed to do well. Those are big shoes to fill, and an even bigger t-shirt.

8 hours ago, Dead1 said:

I found the vocals in Spill The Blood off putting at times.  They're disjointed and sound atonal in context of the song.  I love rest of South of Heaven.

It was something much discussed at the time. Spill the Blood is like South of Heaven reprised because the riff is pretty similar. But it works. Jeff at his best.

[Arioch]

And here is my second favourite Thrash album:

Dark Angel - Time does not Heal (1991)

9 songs, 67 minutes, 246 riffs!

Of course, I love Darkness Descends for its devastating fury, Leave Scars for the huge, unhealthy edge it exudes, but on this album, I find the band less crazy, but the compositions are ultra effective with me, whether the tempo is fast or mid. It has enormously riffs, which makes the album enough difficult to assimilate but what happiness!

12 minutes ago, JonoBlade said:

Due to Andy's association with Sabbat I could never not like the guy. Ironically, the production on those Sabbat albums is not great in my opinion and maybe he could even do a good remix if he kept the spirit of the original. 

The production of the first two Sabbaths isn't great, I agree. But I wouldn't want a remastered version with a different sound for anything in the world.

Their production is part of their identity and bears witness to a time when you could recognise an album, or even a band, from the first few seconds you listened to it.

[JonoBlade]

1 hour ago, Arioch said:

Dark Angel - Time does not Heal (1991)

The production of the first two Sabbats isn't great, I agree. But I wouldn't want a remastered version with a different sound for anything in the world.

Their production is part of their identity and bears witness to a time when you could recognise an album, or even a band, from the first few seconds you listened to it.

Shamefully I have never even heard Dark Angel's output after Darkness Descends. I had that one on CD but I think it got stolen 25 years ago and I never replaced it. I remember a live VHS of We Have Arrived (with Rineheart on vocals) which was great. 

You make a strong point about production being part of the identity. It's a tough call. I think you could utilise some modern studio capability without losing the spirit of the original. In Sneap's case he would be tempted to sample replace every drum hit, which would be a bad idea, but the production could be tidied up a bit. A lot of 80s albums are damaged by the drum production that was en vogue at the time. Damn you Phil Collins!

The main problem with modern masters is that they just brickwall the earlier CD master from the 90s. That takes no effort and damages the music. A tasteful remix and dynamic master could add value to the original recordings.

Re-recording outright however is fraught as a potentially pointless task. Twisted Sister rerecorded Stay Hungry supposedly so it would be "as we always intended" but it sounded even more shit and wasn't the original magic so had no nostalgia to carry it. In reality it was because they fell out with the record label and wanted to have a replacement out there which actually paid them. I bet they made about $40 bucks from the whole debacle.

The upcoming rerecording of Paradise Lost Icon will be an interesting exercise. They've done it because they have no rights to the original masters and wanted to celebrate its 30 year anniversary. I really liked that album but haven't heard it in so long because I only had it on cassette! Therefore, I could get the new one and enjoy it on its own merits.

That is my plan.

[Arioch]

13 minutes ago, JonoBlade said:

Re-recording outright however is fraught as a potentially pointless task. Twisted Sister rerecorded Stay Hungry supposedly so it would be "as we always intended" but it sounded even more shit and wasn't the original magic so had no nostalgia to carry it. In reality it was because they fell out with the record label and wanted to have a replacement out there which actually paid them. I bet they made about $40 bucks from the whole debacle.

Take the example of Exodus, who in 2008 decided to re-record their Bonded by Blood album with the same members as in 2008 (i.e. with Rob Dukes on vocals), resulting in Let there be Blood.

It may have been a good idea, but this revisit falls far short of Bonded by Blood.

BbB has a slightly muddled, dated sound, but it's instantly recognisable to any fan of the band who knows the album. And there's an energy about it that's nowhere to be found in the 2008 version.

The sound of Let There Be Blood is a wall of guitars, but apart from that, there's no personality, nothing.

And guess who produced the record?

https://www.discogs.com/release/3675094-Exodus-Let-There-Be-Blood

I think his name is Andy... Andy Sneap 🤣

[JonoBlade]

16 hours ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

Rhythm sections are almost always underrated. I am not going to look up Phil Rudd. That'll just make me sad if he really is looking that poorly, and of course the fate of Malcom Young is well documented. Time is cruel indeed. I'm glad they all made it to the age where they could successfully dodge the moralizing "well that's where the hard party lifestyle leads you" crowd over their sugarless cornflakes. 

Perhaps I described this poorly. Phil looks pretty rough but he still played on the last AC/DC record and sounds great. He had his problems with drugs which means he can't tour now, so he screwed himself big time with that, but he's still active. His life choices make him a bit of a vegetable, but he is a legend among drummers.

Not like poor Malcolm. Pretty much the cruellest way to go imaginable. He was a visionary band leader that took little more than a pub rock band with a gimmicky lead guitarist and made it the biggest band on the planet - and ended up a diminished shadow of himself. Mercifully dementia took him quite quickly as these things go.

He wasn't that old when he died. His hard drinking and smoking lifestyle quite likely played a part in his decline (it can't have helped) and left us with only Angus, having to sift through old cassette tapes to put together albums from Malcom's riffs. Although I actually prefer the last few albums to the latter ones where Mal was still involved.

In honour of our friend, the nicest guy in the universe, James T "let Spock handle it" Kirk, I am on my second pass through:

The Sinner Rides Again | KK Downing / KK's Priest (bandcamp.com)

It's nice. And short!

But I doubt we'll hear from James today as he's in trad metal ecstasy.

[Arioch]

Defiance - Void Terra Firma (1990)

Another San Francisco thrash band, Defiance.

In my opinion, they were wrongly accused of plagiarising Testament (not least because the singer's vocal timbre was too close to Chuck Billy's), but the band didn't achieve the success they deserved.

Nevertheless, Void Terra Firma is one of my favourite Bay Area Thrash albums.

[Sheol]

8 hours ago, navybsn said:

Where it gets troublesome is when you start adopting the same pov as the ideologies represented by the band(s). You'll see the argument that just purchasing or streaming something from a specific band is supporting their ideology. I don't agree.

It's all personal preference as you said, but I think that by purchasing music/merch you support a douchbag person, and in effect makes it easier for him to continue spreading bullshit. It's not the same as endorsing an ideology, but it is supporting the person backing the ideology. I def. have some stuff in my collection that I bought without knowing who was behind it, but now that I know buying a new record from the bands make me feel a bit uneasy. It doesn't make a difference in the big picture as you say, but on a personal level it would feel wrong to wear a Arghoslent or Clandestine Blaze shirt. In Aspas case you know that at least some of the money he makes from his music and label most likely goes into funding neo-nazis.

[JonoBlade]

13 minutes ago, Sheol said:

It's all personal preference as you said, but I think that by purchasing music/merch you support a douchbag person, and in effect makes it easier for him to continue spreading bullshit. It's not the same as endorsing an ideology, but it is supporting the person backing the ideology. I def. have some stuff in my collection that I bought without knowing who was behind it, but now that I know buying a new record from the bands make me feel a bit uneasy. It doesn't make a difference in the big picture as you say, but on a personal level it would feel wrong to wear a Arghoslent or Clandestine Blaze shirt. In Aspas case you know that at least some of the money he makes from his music and label most likely goes into funding neo-nazis.

This is my take too. There is just so much music out there that you can afford to pass over bands that appear dodgy. Of course, if you listen on Spotify they're not getting paid anyway - so have at it.

Buying merch is a step beyond buying music I reckon. You are proudly representing and endorsing a band by wearing a t-shirt, whereas having a few MP3s on your phone is just your dirty little secret.

 

[GoatmasterGeneral]

50 minutes ago, JonoBlade said:

The upcoming rerecording of Paradise Lost Icon will be an interesting exercise. They've done it because they have no rights to the original masters and wanted to celebrate its 30 year anniversary. I really liked that album but haven't heard it in so long because I only had it on cassette! Therefore, I could get the new one and enjoy it on its own merits.

That is my plan.

What?!? I wish they'd put their energies into suing to get the rights to their masters instead of pursuing this re-recording nonsense, which never ever works out well. It always sounds worse. If any metal band has ever re-recorded an album of theirs that came out sounding even half as good as the original I'm certainly not aware of it.

I happen to really love that album just the way it is, so I will definitely not be listening to any re-recording nonsense. I got the vinyl when it first came out and at some point a decade later I also bought it on CD. Not my fault the band signed away their rights and didn't/don't make any money off the sales of Icon.

Not to go off on a tangent or anything....but that's who you should be directing your ire at Jon boy, the predatory labels who actively fucked over these naive bands and saddled them with these unfair shitty contracts. Not the Spotify people who use it as the modern day equivalent of the free radio I grew up with as my only way to hear new music as a kid. Except that these days they get to choose their own content because we have the technology to do that now.

I don't use any of the music streaming services myself, but I don't think we should demonize or shame those who do. They're not trying to fuck anyone over. As a band leader and shot caller if you don't like their 44 million plays to make 87 cents business model then you don't have to have your music available on their service, right? If labels are making package deals with streaming services which make certain bands' music available on streaming services without their knowledge or against their will, for pennies, again that's on the labels.

[MacabreEternal]

Bathory - Hammerheart (1990)

Each time I tell myself I am done with Bathory and Quothorn's shit singing capability that he somehow relentlessly hacked away at showing a resilience that far outweighed his vocal capacity, I put on Hammerheart and soon find myself completely enamoured with them for an hour or so.  The heavy Viking metal aesthetic helps no ends of course, it sort of excuses all the roughness present on the record.  This and Under the Sign of the Black Mark should get more plays I have decided.

[JonoBlade]

1 hour ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

What?!? I wish they'd put their energies into suing to get the rights to their masters instead of pursuing this re-recording nonsense, which never ever works out well. It always sounds worse. If any metal band has ever re-recorded an album of theirs that came out sounding even half as good as the original I'm certainly not aware of it.

I happen to really love that album just the way it is, so I will definitely not be listening to any re-recording nonsense. I got the vinyl when it first came out and at some point a decade later I also bought it on CD. Not my fault the band signed away their rights and didn't/don't make any money off the sales of Icon.

Not to go off on a tangent or anything....but that's who you should be directing your ire at Jon boy, the predatory labels who actively fucked over these naive bands and saddled them with these unfair shitty contracts. Not the Spotify people who use it as the modern day equivalent of the free radio I grew up with as my only way to hear new music as a kid. Except that these days they get to choose their own content because we have the technology to do that now.

I don't use any of the music streaming services myself, but I don't think we should demonize or shame those who do. They're not trying to fuck anyone over. As a band leader and shot caller if you don't like their 44 million plays to make 87 cents business model then you don't have to have your music available on their service, right? If labels are making package deals with streaming services which make certain bands' music available on streaming services without their knowledge or against their will, for pennies, again that's on the labels.

Icon was on Music for Nations which went bust. The rights got transferred somewhere in the bankruptcy but are a mess. I completely understand that you'd never want to hear a new version. I am in the unusual position of knowing I liked the album but don't have it burned into my conscience (like Shades of God). I could just buy the Icon CD off eBay but I like the idea of giving the band money today.

Spotify is not the modern day equivalent of radio. Radio plays singles and that is absolutely fine. It is a great promotional tool. I use You Tube in this way. Watch a new promo video or old gig footage, but spotify makes entire catalogs available for a pittance. 

It's very true that it's a free market and each artist/label has the right to choose. But artists are not rocket scientists and frequently make bad choices. Getting your stuff OFF spotify is a pain in the ass and they charge you to do it. Far more than they ever would pay out for it to be there in the first place. 

Everyone (managers/labels/venues) has tried to screw over artists since the beginning of time. I only rail against it for the sake of awareness. Anyone who pays a subscription to Spotify to listen to albums day in day out is a piece of shit. If they think they are actually contributing somehow, they are a delusional piece of shit. If they're just fair weather music fans wanting to line up a playlist of feel good modern hit singles, fine. That is radio. Listening to your favourite bands' albums and discovering new whole albums to listen to over and over is not radio. 

"They're not trying to fuck anyone over." It is hard to know whether whoever created Spotify is actually the devil. Was there an intent to devalue music in the way they do? Possibly not. It is not active fuck-overy in the way a manager or a record label operated, but it is still bad.

 

 

[navybsn]

1 hour ago, Sheol said:

It's all personal preference as you said, but I think that by purchasing music/merch you support a douchbag person, and in effect makes it easier for him to continue spreading bullshit. It's not the same as endorsing an ideology, but it is supporting the person backing the ideology. I def. have some stuff in my collection that I bought without knowing who was behind it, but now that I know buying a new record from the bands make me feel a bit uneasy. It doesn't make a difference in the big picture as you say, but on a personal level it would feel wrong to wear a Arghoslent or Clandestine Blaze shirt. In Aspas case you know that at least some of the money he makes from his music and label most likely goes into funding neo-nazis.

I agree. There's a difference between purchasing something in ignorance and making an active choice to support. Many of us are old enough to have purchased plenty of stuff that had we known more at the time, we would have made a different choice. There just wasn't the information available in the 80's-00's that there is today. I'm not going to go back and purge my collection for purity sake at this point. I pull something out once every few years that I haven't listened to in a while for a trip down memory lane. I usually come to the conclusion that I don't really care for the majority of it anymore. That includes plenty of stuff of non-questionable origin btw. But I keep it because I did once see something in the music and may again one day. If I had to reduce the size of my collection, however, this would be the first stuff to go. Most wouldn't be a purchase today and certainly none of ill repute. My general argument was that even purchasing something out of ignorance likely doesn't generate enough income for any of these pukes to make a real difference, and I don't believe listening to a few Absurd albums will make you a devout supremacist anymore than Dissection or Mercyful Fate will turn someone into a devout satanist. Those are active choices made by the individual.

Merch to me is a whole different thing. Purchasing and wearing merch is moving to the "representing the band/ideology" stage. Essentially broadcasting to the world that you approve of said band and their message. You're no longer just enjoying a nasty riff. That's where I draw the line. I'm fairly selective of the merch I buy anyway, so there's no way I actively choose to spend my money on a sweatshirt with "Black Metal Skinheads" in 60 pt font. Of course, I wouldn't have 30 years ago either.