Poll: Metal and it's Deterioration in the Pop Music World

[Zac_Dai]

Could people please stop using loose when they mean lose.

Anyway yeh I'm not a massive metal fan but I like some of the older stuff and yes anything that goes mainstream will be marketed for the masses.

Also we so need a thread on when Metallica "sold out" for the fun that will ensue.

 

[Not Good]

I don't have to. You should already be well aware of it's faults.

Like I said before, people like you claim that music that has grown in popularity "sucks", but you can never back up those statements with anything.

And it's people like you, who are too lazy to find a certain band's criticisms, that makes me want to facepalm multiple times. DF's main problems is their less-than-average stage shows and the aforementioned overproduction. As for CoB

They aren't very good nor are anywhere near edgy, they are a rather generic sound

 

[Amund]

All of this is relative opinion.

*nods*

 

[Not Good]

All of this is relative opinion.

*nods*

Well what would it be otherwise?

 

[Amund]

All of this is relative opinion.

*nods*

Well what would it be otherwise?

Evil bunnies?

 

[TSED]

Mainstream music makes everything bad not because it rots away the 'musicianship' but because the mainstream has terrible taste in music. 'They' prefer rather simple songs that are a little catchy, that their relatively untrained ears can discern and digest. (Find me a music teacher that likes rap or hip hop, I dare you.)

How does the mainstream 'drain away musicianship'? It doesnt make you play worse...

If you'd reread that, you may notice I said it does NOT diminish musicianship.


As a matter of curiousity, what does your head lecturer teach? You didn't specify.


Now, some one else:

Allow me to disagree. America has many, many great metal bands and contributes much to the evolution of the genre.

I want to voice my opinion that metalcore isn't metal. It's hardcore with varying amounts of metal influence. Hardcore is basically just sped up punk. I don't see how sped up punk with some distortion pedal and maybe a hint of a guitar solo is metal. I have a similar line of reasoning for not considering nu-metal as metal, but they're just my opinions. I personally can't stand either of them (very much because of some social groups, I understand this. They engraved some elitism in me that I just don't see the point of overcoming).

As for American metal... Yeah, they suck. They really do. Honest. Death, Cynic (though their new album was not great), Metallica and Megadeth, The Absence. Those are the only bands I can really appreciate (and I actually hate Metallica, I just recognize they're influential as they're basically the biggest metal band of all time. Not because they sold out, but because they killed Napster and essentially birthed the RIAA and DRM).

I think that my personal tastes colour my opinion, though. I like prog metal but not Dream Theater which somehow manages to bore me within 20 seconds. I don't as a general rule like power metal (only example I can think of that's 'power metal' that I like is Machinae Supremacy, which is really hard to classify and I've heard them be called NWOBHM, power, SID metal, and more [and SID metal isn't even a real genre]). I am much more a death and doom metalhead, which North America just doesn't do.

Let's take a look at random bands and their locations in my WinAmp:
Absence, The: USA
Amon Amarth: Sweden
Anata: Sweden
Arch Enemy: Sweden
At The Gates: Sweden
Black Sabbath: UK
Dark Tranquility: Sweden
Ensiferum: Finland
Enslaved: Norway
Gojira: France
Hanging Garden: Finland
In Flames (old stuff, new stuff is TRIPE) : Sweden
Insomnium: Finland
Iron Maiden: UK
Judas Priest: UK
Machinae Supremacy: Sweden
Machine Head: USA
Megadeth: USA
Moonsorrow: Finland
Norther: Finland
Opeth: Sweden
Shadow Gallery: USA
Skyclad: UK
Swallow the Sun: Finland
Wintersun: Finland

Final tallies:
Sweden: 8
Finland: 7
UK: 4
USA: 3
France: 1
Norway: 1

North America: 3
Europe: 21

And I wasn't even pulling out my 'underground' bands of which I have many.

On In Flames: seriously, that is the best example of selling out I can think of. Period. It's not that they made their music a bit more palatable to the masses, it's that they TOTALLY CHANGED THEIR STYLE to make their music more palatable to the masses. They dropped the folksy influence. Their lyrics went from philosophical musings to whining about feelings. Their vocals went from death vocals to this weird half-whine-half-growl. Their instrumentation went into basic formations. It's. Terrible. Any 'real' metalhead should feel ashamed or angered whenever they talk about In Flames.



Oh, for all of you Dragonforce lovers, go listen to Yngwie Malmsteen. He was the original wanky fast-guitar-with-no-writing-talent metal guitarist.

 

[Not Good]

All of this is relative opinion.

*nods*

Well what would it be otherwise?

Evil bunnies?

Should I be scared?

 

[Amund]

No.. for that is not a high level evil bunny warlock priest. Foamy will save you, if you don't have a gun.

Also TSTD... did you ever listen to Otep?

 

[Aptspire]

Well, if you wish to be elitist to a single genre, go ahead
but, as a metal fan (I like Slayer and Cradle, to just name those two), I also listen to various styles of music, like prog, good rock, 70's punk, etc.
I personally think that, since tastes aren't a democracy, it isn't your place (nor mine) to say what is "win or fail"
it's still just (dis)liking a genre or another
I like those bands, still
and Amund, I know I did ('sthere any other album than 'The Ascension'? can't find any D
I liked it for it's riffs, and it's opinions

 

[TSED]

No.. for that is not a high level evil bunny warlock priest. Foamy will save you, if you don't have a gun.

Also TSTD... did you ever listen to Otep?

If you're talking to me: yes.

And I don't really like them. Too much riff repetition, and it feels like most of the time they've just stopped the music so she can recite bad poetry she wrote when she was going through her first break up at 15 years old.

Plus, as I stated earlier, they're not metal. They're nu-metal. Which isn't metal.

 

[Amund]

Aptspire, yeah there are more cds then the Ascension. There's Sevas Tra, House of Secrets and Jihad.



TSED... sorry about getting your name wrong. Eh, personally I like the poetry songs, but that's just me. What about their songs Blood Pigs and Battle Ready? Isn't that metal? Or am I mistaken on my definition?



Oh by the way, my itunes says that Evanescence is Metal.... I don't see it.

 

[Not Good]

Aptspire, yeah there are more cds then the Ascension. There's Sevas Tra, House of Secrets and Jihad.



TSED... sorry about getting your name wrong. Eh, personally I like the poetry songs, but that's just me. What about their songs Blood Pigs and Battle Ready? Isn't that metal? Or am I mistaken on my definition?



Oh by the way, my itunes says that Evanescence is Metal.... I don't see it.

Stupid, stupid iTunes.

 

[HSIAMetalKing]

I don't have to. You should already be well aware of it's faults.

Like I said before, people like you claim that music that has grown in popularity "sucks", but you can never back up those statements with anything.

And it's people like you, who are too lazy to find a certain band's criticisms, that makes me want to facepalm multiple times. DF's main problems is their less-than-average stage shows and the aforementioned overproduction. As for CoB

They aren't very good nor are anywhere near edgy, they are a rather generic sound

Stage shows I can understand-- I wouldn't go see DF live. Their album music utilizes synthesizers and heavy editing-- not that there's anything wrong with that.

As for CoB, I don't look for "edgyness" when I look for good music, so I suppose that's just another matter of opinion. My main point is that claiming that any music is better than any other music is a logical fallacy. There is no standard for "good" music.

 

[Amund]

Yeah all those face palms still don't match the power of Picard double Face Palm

 

[cleverlymadeup]

funnily enough i'm actually watching a documentary on heavy metal at the moment

Which one? because there are plenty.

i was watching global metal done by a Canadian anthropologist who is also a metalhead

it's pretty good, both of his documentaries on metal are pretty good

 

[TSED]

Stage shows I can understand-- I wouldn't go see DF live. Their album music utilizes synthesizers and heavy editing-- not that there's anything wrong with that.

As for CoB, I don't look for "edgyness" when I look for good music, so I suppose that's just another matter of opinion. My main point is that claiming that any music is better than any other music is a logical fallacy. There is no standard for "good" music.

DragonForce plays their music too fast to mean anything. There's no emotion, no power, no message. It's just noise put together in a specific melody over and over and over again.

CoB is Britney Spears. Wrap up absolutely meaningless messages in decent musicianship and you get something that is absolutely worthless as art.


About Otep: I don't know their songs so I can't answer whether those two are metal or not, sorry.

 

[The Black Adder]

Mainstream music makes everything bad not because it rots away the 'musicianship' but because the mainstream has terrible taste in music. 'They' prefer rather simple songs that are a little catchy, that their relatively untrained ears can discern and digest. (Find me a music teacher that likes rap or hip hop, I dare you.)

How does the mainstream 'drain away musicianship'? It doesnt make you play worse...

If you'd reread that, you may notice I said it does NOT diminish musicianship.


As a matter of curiousity, what does your head lecturer teach? You didn't specify.


Now, some one else:

Allow me to disagree. America has many, many great metal bands and contributes much to the evolution of the genre.

I want to voice my opinion that metalcore isn't metal. It's hardcore with varying amounts of metal influence. Hardcore is basically just sped up punk. I don't see how sped up punk with some distortion pedal and maybe a hint of a guitar solo is metal. I have a similar line of reasoning for not considering nu-metal as metal, but they're just my opinions. I personally can't stand either of them (very much because of some social groups, I understand this. They engraved some elitism in me that I just don't see the point of overcoming).

As for American metal... Yeah, they suck. They really do. Honest. Death, Cynic (though their new album was not great), Metallica and Megadeth, The Absence. Those are the only bands I can really appreciate (and I actually hate Metallica, I just recognize they're influential as they're basically the biggest metal band of all time. Not because they sold out, but because they killed Napster and essentially birthed the RIAA and DRM).

I think that my personal tastes colour my opinion, though. I like prog metal but not Dream Theater which somehow manages to bore me within 20 seconds. I don't as a general rule like power metal (only example I can think of that's 'power metal' that I like is Machinae Supremacy, which is really hard to classify and I've heard them be called NWOBHM, power, SID metal, and more [and SID metal isn't even a real genre]). I am much more a death and doom metalhead, which North America just doesn't do.

Let's take a look at random bands and their locations in my WinAmp:
Absence, The: USA
Amon Amarth: Sweden
Anata: Sweden
Arch Enemy: Sweden
At The Gates: Sweden
Black Sabbath: UK
Dark Tranquility: Sweden
Ensiferum: Finland
Enslaved: Norway
Gojira: France
Hanging Garden: Finland
In Flames (old stuff, new stuff is TRIPE) : Sweden
Insomnium: Finland
Iron Maiden: UK
Judas Priest: UK
Machinae Supremacy: Sweden
Machine Head: USA
Megadeth: USA
Moonsorrow: Finland
Norther: Finland
Opeth: Sweden
Shadow Gallery: USA
Skyclad: UK
Swallow the Sun: Finland
Wintersun: Finland

Final tallies:
Sweden: 8
Finland: 7
UK: 4
USA: 3
France: 1
Norway: 1

North America: 3
Europe: 21

And I wasn't even pulling out my 'underground' bands of which I have many.

On In Flames: seriously, that is the best example of selling out I can think of. Period. It's not that they made their music a bit more palatable to the masses, it's that they TOTALLY CHANGED THEIR STYLE to make their music more palatable to the masses. They dropped the folksy influence. Their lyrics went from philosophical musings to whining about feelings. Their vocals went from death vocals to this weird half-whine-half-growl. Their instrumentation went into basic formations. It's. Terrible. Any 'real' metalhead should feel ashamed or angered whenever they talk about In Flames.



Oh, for all of you Dragonforce lovers, go listen to Yngwie Malmsteen. He was the original wanky fast-guitar-with-no-writing-talent metal guitarist.

Wtf are you talking about American metal sucking? You need to be schooled man. We have/had great bands like Manilla Road, Vio-Lence, Dark Age, Brocas Helm, Nocturnus, Dark Angel, and Hallow's Eve just to name a few. And you complain about the media and pop music destroying metal yet most of the bands that you listed are almost like pop bands in there respective countries or a least pretty well know.

 

[HSIAMetalKing]

Stage shows I can understand-- I wouldn't go see DF live. Their album music utilizes synthesizers and heavy editing-- not that there's anything wrong with that.

As for CoB, I don't look for "edgyness" when I look for good music, so I suppose that's just another matter of opinion. My main point is that claiming that any music is better than any other music is a logical fallacy. There is no standard for "good" music.

DragonForce plays their music too fast to mean anything. There's no emotion, no power, no message. It's just noise put together in a specific melody over and over and over again.

CoB is Britney Spears. Wrap up absolutely meaningless messages in decent musicianship and you get something that is absolutely worthless as art.


About Otep: I don't know their songs so I can't answer whether those two are metal or not, sorry.

I suppose that in order to avoid being a hypocrite I have to respect your opinion on the matter-- but "too fast" is a subjective statement. You may not detect emotion, power, or a message-- but I and many others do. Their songs are brimming with power and emotion-- listening to DF makes me feel like I'm in the intro sequence of a fucking awesome Saturday morning cartoon. As for messages, well... I'd agree that their lyrics don't have much depth, and yet that never bothers me.

You also claim that CoB has "meaningless messages"-- well, who decides if a message is "meaningless" or not? I don't really understand your reference to Brittney Spears (although they did do a cover of one of her songs, which I thought was funny).

 

[BallPtPenTheif]

"2: Are excessive amounts of concentrated fail"

as soon as i read that, i stopped reading and gave up on your post. you clearly need to put more thought into this idea beyond knee jerk emotions and vague flacid meme based insults.

What the hell does that even literally mean?