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80's and 90's metal vs. nowdays metal


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  • 3 weeks later...

For me, and I guess a lot of people, it will always be impossible to beat the music of my youth, when I first discovered the bands that are still to this day my favourites. So on that note, nothing can beat the 90s for me when it comes to black metal, doom, gothic, (and late 80s) hair metal etc. 

However, having said that, I would argue that some albums that were released in the last ten years by the likes of Septicflesh and Rotting Christ are as good as anything created in the 80s and 90s to my ears. Throw in albums like Moonspell's '1755', and Marduk's 'Frontschwein', and I'm fully prepared to say that metal today is as good as its ever been. What the current albums lack, though, is ultimately that nostalgic connection that I have with 80s and 90s albums that include friends, girls and the carefree days of youth. 

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The 80's was the best time for metal because it was everywhere, the age was metal. But even today there are a lot of great bands making amazing music.
Using that logic, it would make more sense to say that metal is best now because it truly is coming from everywhere. It may not have household name bands in the modern era, but there has never been more metal from metal places being produced than there is now.

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On 5/4/2018 at 5:20 PM, BlutAusNerd said:

metal is best now because it truly is coming from everywhere

I second that. 

That whole 80s nostalgia thing never appealed much to me. Sure there were some good bands, but there were also a shitload of, well, shit. Those who think the 80s were so so metal can't possibly have been there at the time.

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14 hours ago, MaxFaust said:

I second that. 

That whole 80s nostalgia thing never appealed much to me. Sure there were some good bands, but there were also a shitload of, well, shit. Those who think the 80s were so so metal can't possibly have been there at the time.

While there’s metal then there’s ‘metal’, even I remember as a young kid seeing Def Leppard, Skid Row and Metallica videos on mainstream tv music shows in the late 80s and early 90s in Australia. It would never happen today. Hell, it’s hard enough finding a music store these days.

I was only 10 when the 80s ended, but watching the video for ‘Kickstart my Heart’ on one of the five channels we had in Australia will always stay with me. 

Stadium tours, albums in the charts, the era of high sales, magazines, fan clubs. So many amazing underground bands were still out there. Shit, Maiden, Dio and Ozzy were kings!

Are you sure the 1980s wasn’t a great decade to be a metal fan?

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On 5/8/2018 at 10:56 AM, Requiem said:

Are you sure the 1980s wasn’t a great decade to be a metal fan?

Any decade is a great decade to be a metal fan.

I'm just not with the choir that sings (nostalgic) praise to the times when grandpa was a young street punk. That's a bunch of fucking nonsense. There might have been a greater sense of being outcastes that were standing united against a cold front of ignorant "powers that be" ... but that's by and large because of the PMRC thing, that grew out of the Satan panic of the 80s. 

Nobody will deny you access to a pub just because you're wearing a patch that says Judas Priest nowadays ... so in that sense, it's easier to be into harder music ... also, even the most burgeoise housewife seem to have "full sleeve" tattoos nowadays, and stock market traders can have 20 piercings in the face and a blue mohawk, without this seeming strange. Times change.

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3 hours ago, MaxFaust said:

Any decade is a great decade to be a metal fan.

I'm just not with the choir that sings (nostalgic) praise to the times when grandpa was a young street punk. That's a bunch of fucking nonsense. There might have been a greater sense of being outcastes that were standing united against a cold front of ignorant "powers that be" ... but that's by and large because of the PMRC thing, that grew out of the Satan panic of the 80s. 

Nobody will deny you access to a pub just because you're wearing a patch that says Judas Priest nowadays ... so in that sense, it's easier to be into harder music ... also, even the most burgeoise housewife seem to have "full sleeve" tattoos nowadays, and stock market traders can have 20 piercings in the face and a blue mohawk, without this seeming strange. Times change.

In that case, we will just have to get more extreme in order to stand out again!  In all seriousness, though, perhaps the increased commercialization of "outsider culture" will compel some metal bands to begin exploring new aspects their music in order to remain unique (the draw of creating something new is quite strong, after all).  I read an article once that described Sunn O))) as the future of metal, and perhaps they were right.

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5 hours ago, BlutAusNerd said:


 

 


I sure hope not.

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I think that their work has some drawbacks, but there are certainly some merits as well.  Just as traditional art styles have survived the revolutions created by the avant-garde, so shall more traditional styles of metal.  That being said, I do think that Sunn O))) are pushing the boundaries of metal in novel ways.

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I think that their work has some drawbacks, but there are certainly some merits as well.  Just as traditional art styles have survived the revolutions created by the avant-garde, so shall more traditional styles of metal.  That being said, I do think that Sunn O))) are pushing the boundaries of metal in novel ways.
They do push some boundaries, just in ways that I find really boring. Their albums don't do a ton for me, especially after seeing them live. If that could capture that atmosphere on recording, that would be something.

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25 minutes ago, BlutAusNerd said:

They do push some boundaries, just in ways that I find really boring. Their albums don't do a ton for me, especially after seeing them live. If that could capture that atmosphere on recording, that would be something.

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From what I have heard, they are a band that is definitely meant to be seen live (I have yet to see them perform).  While I find them conceptually interesting, I do not listen to their music too much.  That being said, I think that they have produced some good songs on their studio albums.  What do you think of their live recordings?

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From what I have heard, they are a band that is definitely meant to be seen live (I have yet to see them perform).  While I find them conceptually interesting, I do not listen to their music too much.  That being said, I think that they have produced some good songs on their studio albums.  What do you think of their live recordings?
I don't think I've heard their live recording. I have Black One and have heard studio tracks from a couple of other albums, but that's about it.

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51 minutes ago, BlutAusNerd said:

I don't think I've heard their live recording. I have Black One and have heard studio tracks from a couple of other albums, but that's about it.

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Check out "Dømkirke."  It is one of their live albums.  They also have an official bandcamp page of live recordings.

https://sunn-live.bandcamp.com/

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It seems unlikely that SunnO))) is ever going to be the future of anything, let alone metal. I like some of what they're doing but it's all too intellectual and avantgarde. I'd categorize them with Chrome, Tuxedomoon and the Residents (or why not Merzbow?) rather than any metal band, save perhaps for some artists at the doomsier end of the scale. 

As for the rebel thing, I think the age of metal being controversial is a bygone era. Even black metal is mainstream here, for instance. They get support from the government, FFS. Nor are the metal kids so few and far inbetween that it's considered a safe thing to do to beat on them. Times change.

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On 5/9/2018 at 8:55 PM, MaxFaust said:

Any decade is a great decade to be a metal fan.

I'm just not with the choir that sings (nostalgic) praise to the times when grandpa was a young street punk. That's a bunch of fucking nonsense. There might have been a greater sense of being outcastes that were standing united against a cold front of ignorant "powers that be" ... but that's by and large because of the PMRC thing, that grew out of the Satan panic of the 80s. 

Nobody will deny you access to a pub just because you're wearing a patch that says Judas Priest nowadays ... so in that sense, it's easier to be into harder music ... also, even the most burgeoise housewife seem to have "full sleeve" tattoos nowadays, and stock market traders can have 20 piercings in the face and a blue mohawk, without this seeming strange. Times change.

Eh?

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On 5/9/2018 at 9:29 PM, MaxFaust said:

It seems unlikely that SunnO))) is ever going to be the future of anything, let alone metal. I like some of what they're doing but it's all too intellectual and avantgarde.

Sunn O))) is and always will be an absolutely useless band. It's doom made by people who can't write good riffs even if their lives depended on it. 

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30 minutes ago, Ekthelion said:

Sunn O))) is and always will be an absolutely useless band. It's doom made by people who can't write good riffs even if their lives depended on it. 

Imagine if your life depended on writing a good riff. God, the pressure....

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Sunn O))) is and always will be an absolutely useless band. It's doom made by people who can't write good riffs even if their lives depended on it. 
Except that they have written a great many good riffs, with Thorr's Hammer, Burning Witch, Goatsnake, and Khanate. That's the confusing part, they should know what they're doing, but it's as though they decided to turn off their brains and record themselves whacking off to amps and pedals. I maintain that the live performance of theirs I witnessed was good, but that likely had everything to do with Attila Csihar's involvement.

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On 5/9/2018 at 9:29 PM, MaxFaust said:

It seems unlikely that SunnO))) is ever going to be the future of anything, let alone metal. I like some of what they're doing but it's all too intellectual and avantgarde. I'd categorize them with Chrome, Tuxedomoon and the Residents (or why not Merzbow?) rather than any metal band, save perhaps for some artists at the doomsier end of the scale. 

As for the rebel thing, I think the age of metal being controversial is a bygone era. Even black metal is mainstream here, for instance. They get support from the government, FFS. Nor are the metal kids so few and far inbetween that it's considered a safe thing to do to beat on them. Times change.

While Sunn O))) definitely incorporates aspects of noise (perhaps a bit of performance art as well?), they nevertheless came from a distinctly metal background, and continue to incorporate metal into their studio albums.  By consciously pushing metal music into the realm of the avant-garde, we have no choice but to recognize them as least one strain of the future of metal music.

8 hours ago, Ekthelion said:

Sunn O))) is and always will be an absolutely useless band. It's doom made by people who can't write good riffs even if their lives depended on it. 

I'm not sure what you mean by "useless."  At least to me, the utility of a piece of music is determined by whether or not there is at least one person who is able to derive pleasure from listening to it.  Since it is clearly the case that many people enjoy the music of Sunn O))), it seems to be improper to label them as useless.

Whether their riffs are good or not is subjective.  I tend to like some of them.

On 5/9/2018 at 9:29 PM, MaxFaust said:

As for the rebel thing, I think the age of metal being controversial is a bygone era. Even black metal is mainstream here, for instance. They get support from the government, FFS. Nor are the metal kids so few and far inbetween that it's considered a safe thing to do to beat on them. Times change.

There is still some controversy in metal today.  Check out the Militant Black Metal movement.

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Seriously, guys. How is this even a discussion? It's painfully obvious that whatever and whoever is alive to carry on the metal torch RIGHT NOW trumps whatever came before by default. Who cares how great Judas Priest used to be or what a great guy Lemmy was in life? FFS ... look to the future. That's where shit happens. No disrsepect to the ancestors, but be real.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I wasn't around for the 80s and was born when there was only a few months left in the 90s, but I think those eras are deserving of the high regard of which they are spoken. Right around 1987, Extreme Metal was constantly producing some of the best, most influential records. I do think, however, that there are just as much, if not more, great records being released today. It seems that people often prefer the 80s and 90s, though, because the bands of that time were, for the most part, developing genres that were only just starting to sprout, giving them the novelty that they possess.

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