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


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On 5/18/2018 at 6:38 AM, MaxFaust said:

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.

Just because something is new does not entail that it is in any way better (or more worthy of attention) than something that is old.  Just as anticipation of the future can bring new advents to music (and anything really), so can reexamination of the past.

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On 5/18/2018 at 6:38 AM, MaxFaust said:

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.

The problem is that the older material is revered for a variety of different reasons other than simply establishing the genre. Many of the bands operating today would be nothing without the innovations brought forth from bands in the '80s and '90s. That's clearly something worth considering.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/2/2018 at 10:54 PM, Ecthelion said:

something worth considering.

I don't mean to sound as if the old stuff is worthless. Fuck me if I do! The problem is rather that I know a lot of guys who got stuck in their perfect loop, like when they were young and good looking and all the music was radical and impressive ... whereas now they are fat and gone, working with some bullshit that destroys the earth, whilst trying to deny their own kids the pleasure of discovering rock'n'roll on their own terms. But what can you do? That's how life rolls.

You will see.

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well i feel like yes

but then again I like metal from then and now

its so different now but still good in new ways

but i have such a positive association to the metal i used to listen to as a child. so to me it will always be special or "golden"

On 5/18/2018 at 8:38 AM, MaxFaust said:

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.

i think being real would be to accept that many things we see now are just offshoots of great original creative ideas from the past

there is no area of life in which the past has become no longer relevant. the past is what shapes the future and it's what created our current now

"who cares about how great judas priest used to be?" me, for one. everyone I know. i think everyone should care about how great judas priest used to be. i think thats a very relevant topic in the art world in general, and in music, and it always will be. i would hope that my great grandchildren would one day find out how great judas priest was

there are so many aspects of classic music that we just can't hear anymore. so its good to be appreciative of the then and the now. that way you can have a full understanding of music and how it has evolved

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The past is a whole heap of 'nows' collected behind us. Our current time is simply one set of 'now'. Therefore, the past is better because it contains 50 years of metal 'nows', whereas the current moment only contains one, and the future none at all. 

The past wins. 

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4 hours ago, Requiem said:

The past is a whole heap of 'nows' collected behind us. Our current time is simply one set of 'now'. Therefore, the past is better because it contains 50 years of metal 'nows', whereas the current moment only contains one, and the future none at all. 

I mean, if you want to get that way about it, you could just as easily say the future contains all the "nows" we have to look forward to, and the past is a constantly receding phenomenon that's becoming more and more alien.

This reminds me of an FB group discussion about whether people would choose to listen only to music that had been recorded up to that point, and never anything released afterwards; or only new releases from that time forward, and never again anything from the past. I thought it was a dumb mental exercise and I still do, but regardless of how much I love the music I've listened to all my life, in spirit I'm with the futurists. I want to hear what happens next.

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33 minutes ago, FatherAlabaster said:

I mean, if you want to get that way about it, you could just as easily say the future contains all the "nows" we have to look forward to, and the past is a constantly receding phenomenon that's becoming more and more alien.

This reminds me of an FB group discussion about whether people would choose to listen only to music that had been recorded up to that point, and never anything released afterwards; or only new releases from that time forward, and never again anything from the past. I thought it was a dumb mental exercise and I still do, but regardless of how much I love the music I've listened to all my life, in spirit I'm with the futurists. I want to hear what happens next.

That is the problem for me.  I have only so much time to listen to music, and have to decide whether I would prefer to explore something new or keep studying something old.  Both paths have merit, but a choice must be made.

5 hours ago, Requiem said:

The past is a whole heap of 'nows' collected behind us. Our current time is simply one set of 'now'. Therefore, the past is better because it contains 50 years of metal 'nows', whereas the current moment only contains one, and the future none at all. 

The past wins. 

But we can only experience the past as a now, not as a past.  Thus we are perpetually locked in a now.  The past simply represents a list of potential nows.  The music of the present is another now.  It appears that we can only experience one now at a time.  From this standpoint, both new and old music would be experienced in the same manner, and would thereby possess equal value by your metric.

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From my perspective, a damn good song is a damn good song, whether it was recorded 30 years ago or 30 days ago. The past has already given us many damn good songs, which I still enjoy listening to, and the present also has plenty of damn good songs, though just a bit more difficult to find these days. But searching for them remains the most fun thing I do these days. 

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5 minutes ago, VektorAlgebra said:

From my perspective, a damn good song is a damn good song, whether it was recorded 30 years ago or 30 days ago. The past has already given us many damn good songs, which I still enjoy listening to, and the present also has plenty of damn good songs, though just a bit more difficult to find these days. But searching for them remains the most fun thing I do these days. 

I think that now it is easier to come across bad music.  The internet allows anyone to upload their songs, as opposed to when music would have to be produced in physical copies.  That being said, the internet has certainly had a democratizing effect on metal (I like searching for new songs/bands too).

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5 hours ago, FatherAlabaster said:

I mean, if you want to get that way about it, you could just as easily say the future contains all the "nows" we have to look forward to, and the past is a constantly receding phenomenon that's becoming more and more alien.

This reminds me of an FB group discussion about whether people would choose to listen only to music that had been recorded up to that point, and never anything released afterwards; or only new releases from that time forward, and never again anything from the past. I thought it was a dumb mental exercise and I still do, but regardless of how much I love the music I've listened to all my life, in spirit I'm with the futurists. I want to hear what happens next.

This is a mathematical problem as far as I'm concerned. 

I'm 38 years old now. I anticipate that without unforeseen disasters I will probably live until about 80. It's hard to judge, but my metal listening capabilities will probably last until... 70? I might not be in my right mind after that. 

So as of now, I have everything from Black Sabbath to whatever is being released today if I choose the past as my exclusive listening domain. This is about 50 years worth of material and includes, well, everything. 

If I choose only to listen to music created in the future, and I stop listening to metal meaningfully at about 70 years of age, this only gives me 32 years of music. And what's more, I can't guarantee that those 32 years will be as full of quality as the past 50 years. 

So, in conclusion: 

50 years worth of Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Opeth, Emperor, Morbid Angel, Death, Iron Maiden, My Dying Bride and every other single band that has been.  

vs

32 years of ???

I'm erring on the side of caution and choosing the past. It's mathematically more reliable. I'll save a lot of money over a lifetime too. 

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5 minutes ago, Requiem said:

This is a mathematical problem as far as I'm concerned. 

I'm 38 years old now. I anticipate that without unforeseen disasters I will probably live until about 80. It's hard to judge, but my metal listening capabilities will probably last until... 70? I might not be in my right mind after that. 

So as of now, I have everything from Black Sabbath to whatever is being released today if I choose the past as my exclusive listening domain. This is about 50 years worth of material and includes, well, everything. 

If I choose only to listen to music created in the future, and I stop listening to metal meaningfully at about 70 years of age, this only gives me 32 years of music. And what's more, I can't guarantee that those 32 years will be as full of quality as the past 50 years. 

So, in conclusion: 

50 years worth of Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Opeth, Emperor, Morbid Angel, Death, Iron Maiden, My Dying Bride and every other single band that has been.  

vs

32 years of ???

I'm erring on the side of caution and choosing the past. It's mathematically more reliable. I'll save a lot of money over a lifetime too. 

I know I'd start feeling pretty isolated if I never got to hear another new release. And I wonder what effect it would have on my own music.

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33 minutes ago, FatherAlabaster said:

I know I'd start feeling pretty isolated if I never got to hear another new release. And I wonder what effect it would have on my own music.

Of course. I’d hate to never hear any new music. Luckily I haven’t heard even 1% of metal already made, so there’s plenty for me to explore. 

That’s it, I’m convinced. I’m not going to listen to any music released after today. Ever!

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/15/2018 at 4:32 PM, Requiem said:

Of course. I’d hate to never hear any new music. Luckily I haven’t heard even 1% of metal already made, so there’s plenty for me to explore. 

That’s it, I’m convinced. I’m not going to listen to any music released after today. Ever!

Even if one has only heard a minuscule percentage it sometimes feels like 95% of metal released is entirely unremarkable, the number slowly increasing as years gather. I can certainly do a year-by-year run-through of my music collection and observe which years are feverishly well-blooded and which are anemic and devoid of substance. And the last decade or so has seen the scene suffer from a rust that is not the sanguine metal of iron of which I'm used to. Believe me, a vampire can tell the difference!

 

 

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13 hours ago, Vampyrique said:

Even if one has only heard a minuscule percentage it sometimes feels like 95% of metal released is entirely unremarkable, the number slowly increasing as years gather. I can certainly do a year-by-year run-through of my music collection and observe which years are feverishly well-blooded and which are anemic and devoid of substance. And the last decade or so has seen the scene suffer from a rust that is not the sanguine metal of iron of which I'm used to. Believe me, a vampire can tell the difference!

 

 

I'm also turning my back on all technologies created after 1987. I'm actually typing this right now on a typewriter. Death to the future. Hail the dark past. 666. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

The problem with dwelling in the past is that you never progress. At the same time to suggest that anything is better simply for being in the present is ignorant. Both past and present have much to offer and, as with all things, it comes down to personal preference.

 

I feel like the good bands these days tend to fall on the more extreme end of the spectrum. Compare that to the late eighties/early nineties when phenomenal bands covered almost the entire metal genre.

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One of the things that I've noticed (sorry if this has already been pointed out) is that a lot of the good metal coming out nowadays has the same spirit, the same vibe as the good metal that was coming out in the '80s and '90s (and late '70s, for that matter).

So I don't think it's a case of metal being inherently "better" in the "golden age" - there's a load of shit metal from the '80s and '90s, loads of demo-level bands that never got anywhere because they really weren't all that good, musically speaking.

At the same time, there's comparatively a lot less of the '80s metal spirit around nowadays (though obviously that's picked up like wildfire in the past 10-15 years). Even some of those crappy demo bands back in the day had more oumph in their music - there's a ballsiness and sense of power that was picked up on and communicated in the '80s, which diminished a bit in the '90s (recording techniques, reliance on increased gain/distortion over "heavy playing" etc.), but then got brought back in the '00s with a lot of these "retro" bands and people working out that you can't just play through a million pedals to get a heavy sound... There's something in the way of playing and the kind of riffs, too, which makes heavy metal "heavy".

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6 hours ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

I feel like the good bands these days tend to fall on the more extreme end of the spectrum. Compare that to the late eighties/early nineties when phenomenal bands covered almost the entire metal genre.

I think that metal music can broadly be split between "extreme" and "accessible" (for lack of better words).  Today, it feels as though many of the bands on the accessible side of the spectrum have been increasingly deriving influences from other musical genres (rock, pop, shoegaze, etc.) in addition to past metal music.  Accessible metal is what is popular because it is easier to listen to without existing background knowledge.  I think that the result of this is that that branch of metal music has become increasingly watered down - hence, not as good if you like metal music.

It sounds to me, however, that most extreme metal bands derive their music almost exclusively from past metal bands.  Therefore their music would have a more distilled metal sound.

I guess that back in the 80s/90s there was a stronger interest in pure metal music.

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6 minutes ago, Balor said:

I think that metal music can broadly be split between "extreme" and "accessible" (for lack of better words).  Today, it feels as though many of the bands on the accessible side of the spectrum have been increasingly deriving influences from other musical genres (rock, pop, shoegaze, etc.) in addition to past metal music.  Accessible metal is what is popular because it is easier to listen to without existing background knowledge.  I think that the result of this is that that branch of metal music has become increasingly watered down - hence, not as good if you like metal music.

It sounds to me, however, that most extreme metal bands derive their music almost exclusively from past metal bands.  Therefore their music would have a more distilled metal sound.

I guess that back in the 80s/90s there was a stronger interest in pure metal music.

I was more referring to the fact that these days it's mostly death, doom, and black metal giving us quality. Bands like Grave Miasma, Ulcerate, Ahab, Akercocke, 1349 and Black Harvest for example. By comparison the diversity of the eighties/nineties was stunning. We had Coroner, Candlemass, Bathory, Death, Fates Warning, Iron Maiden, Blind Guardian...the list just keeps going. Little wonder then that so many modern bands take inspiration from their predecessors

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11 minutes ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

I was more referring to the fact that these days it's mostly death, doom, and black metal giving us quality. Bands like Grave Miasma, Ulcerate, Ahab, Akercocke, 1349 and Black Harvest for example. By comparison the diversity of the eighties/nineties was stunning. We had Coroner, Candlemass, Bathory, Death, Fates Warning, Iron Maiden, Blind Guardian...the list just keeps going. Little wonder then that so many modern bands take inspiration from their predecessors

I guess today most ideas within the black/death metal sphere have already been -more or less- eviscerated, it’s difficult to find something that sets the bar high, or that even separates itself radically from the peers. In this sense, I applaud the effort of bands like Deathspell Omega, Peste Noire or Portal. With that in mind though, I still believe metal has virtually endless possibilities of expression and progress

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I agree and that was kind of my point. The bands innovating and breaking new ground stand out more these days. That's not to say they are better just that they exist at a time when metal has stagnated somewhat. In the golden age it must have been so difficult to stand out because just about every great band was crafting a unique sound.

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Depends on when you grew up.  In my opinion, there isn't a better year for metal than 1987.  King Diamond's Abigail, Grim Reaper's Rock You to Hell, Helloween's Keeper Part I, Anthrax Among the Living, etc.  But this was my youth.  I am not a big fan of 90's metal, but I thought 00's metal saw a return to better melodies and more visceral, less grungie (groove) oriented metal.  I think now it is struggling, but Black Metal and Grindcore are still keeping it going.  

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Most of the metal I like came from the 80s and the 90s was okay for metal... 90s had a lot of alternative metal, some of which I like, some of which I hate, but overall a good decade. 

 

The main problem is though, that the good bands often hit commercial success with metal back then and although it was very good it helped inspire countless other bands to aim for commercial success when they were subpar bands. Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Motorhead, etc. all were very good bands with awesome music and they achieved commercial success (hitting the UK Top 100 and the Billboard and whatnot), and other mediocre musicians saw that and decided they could make easy money with their shitty hard rock/metal. So there is some good metal nowadays, don't get me wrong, but the commercial metal you often see in the charts and whatnot is generally pretty lame. 

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On 6/15/2018 at 9:04 PM, VektorAlgebra said:

From my perspective, a damn good song is a damn good song, whether it was recorded 30 years ago or 30 days ago. The past has already given us many damn good songs, which I still enjoy listening to, and the present also has plenty of damn good songs, though just a bit more difficult to find these days. But searching for them remains the most fun thing I do these days. 

I agree!!! I do not care if a song was written 40 years ago or 3 months ago, by a 60 year old or 16 year old: if it is good then I'll listen to it, buy the CD, or buy it online and download it...if there is no other option available! Time is something that I have never really understood or had a good concept of and it has nothing to do with my music choice. Metal has a long history: if you include classical music which a lot of metal is based on then it hundreds of years old. And well, sticking exclusively to one or two decades with in more than five centuries or more, seems very limited.

But as for personal preferences: the 1993 to around 1995 did nothing for me music wise!

 

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