Kevin's Watch

Meh, a lot of people don't like Metallica, including a lot of hardcore metalheads. To be fair to the genre, Metallica goes away from metal to hard rock around Load ("the black album" being kind of a shade of gray).

I will say that if you ignore everything metal, you're depriving yourself of a vast field of quality music. Yeah, if you don't know anything about metal or how to appreciate it, most of what you'll hear is going to be crap. Ninety percent of everything... the rule holds true. Same for country, rap, etc.

Personally, I hate -

Modern jazz
Modern country
"Dance" music (not to be confused with techno)
R&B
Just about anything "Top 40"
Almost anything Eastern
Divas (Streissand, Dion, Houston, et al)
Gospel

Caer Sylvanus wrote:a lot of people don't like Metallica, including a lot of hardcore metalheads.

Just a guess, but are the hardcore fans offended that Metallica became hugely successful? They don't like their musical idols to get too popular? It's a lame, tired rationale: if you become massively popular, then you are no longer a "serious" artist.

Or are the fans irritated that Metallica's style evolved over time? That brings up the second lame, tired rationale: We like you the way you were. Your new stuff is never as good as your "classic" stuff. Fans don't like to stray out of their comfort zone, so they don't want their heroes to change. Then, when artists don't change and repeat themselves, they are dismissed for not having anything new to say.

I say those things because I've been guilty of using those rationales myself. It's a kind of snobbery and I do try to overcome it.

I liked the first couple of Metallica albums, but thought their music went downhill around the Black Album. Not because they got popular, but because the music wasn't as good. "Seek and Destroy" is a great song, "St.Anger" doesn't do it for me. It's all subjective.

I agree heartily with Matrixman, the singer-songwriter era was gawdawful. I'd add the "sensitive guy" stuff from the 70s to that too...Seals & Croft, Loggins & Messina, The Little River Band, and all their ilk.

Yeah, the black album was a whole lot of mediocre, on the way to bad.

Hahaha..listen to a song like Unforgiven Too :p
Hahaha...

Edge wrote:the pseudo-pop-music known as 'metal'.

Not liking metal is perfectly fine, but I don't understand this "pseudo-pop" comment. I can't thing of many things less pop than metal

Listen to american New Alternative radio, and you'll be soooo impressed with how much a metal sound can be...twisted...or mutated...or coerced into the pop genre... man, it's a sad state of affairs.

The hardcore guys say Metallica left its thrash metal roots behind in favor of (more marketable) hard rock (throw in the belief that Cliff Burton's death cost the band their soul and you just about have it all). That much is pretty unarguable. A lot of people will say "sell-out" but for that I point to Tool's "Hooker with a Penis"

Most of the crap on the radio isn't metal (and dammit, nu-metal isn't metal). It's what happens when pop goes "alternative".

Cail wrote:I liked the first couple of Metallica albums, but thought their music went downhill around the Black Album. Not because they got popular, but because the music wasn't as good. "Seek and Destroy" is a great song, "St.Anger" doesn't do it for me. It's all subjective.

Yeah, St. Anger = devolution, to me.

JemCheeta wrote:Yeah, the black album was a whole lot of mediocre, on the way to bad.

Hahaha..listen to a song like Unforgiven Too :p
Hahaha...

Black Album? Was that an intentional reference to Spinal Tap? Funny either way really.

It's loyk yoo can litrally sniff the glove!

Once again, I am not disrespecting Metal as a genre, I just think that a huge number of Metal bands think if you tune down your guitar, have that insanely fast beat and double bass, and make it really loud, that constitutes good music. I respect a Metal band that remembers that it's music. Dream Theater and Tool are very good examples. Coheed and Cambrion, while I see that they are better than most metal, annoy the crap out of me. (That guys' voice just grates me.)

I was fearing that my post at 2:00 in the morning came out sounding preachy or nasty. The brain works in mysterious ways in the wee hours.

I just find that it's emotionally healthier (usually) to, er, look for the good in an artist's work than to focus on the negatives. But if a work is truly bad, then there's no way around it.

When I come across an artist whose music really speaks to me, I tend to be willing to follow that artist's career and accept stylistic changes. If I view each successive work as an expression of who that artist is at that particular moment in his life, then it's easier for me to accept changes that on the surface seem drastic and unwelcome. In this way, a flawed work makes the artist more human, if you will. It's the silly, illogical, self-contradictory part of human nature letting loose and speaking out.

CovenantJr wrote:

Edge wrote:the pseudo-pop-music known as 'metal'.

Not liking metal is perfectly fine, but I don't understand this "pseudo-pop" comment. I can't thing of many things less pop than metal

Well, let me phrase it differently: 'metal' is the bastard child of 'underground' music and 'disco'; it inherited the instrumentation of 'underground' combined with the beat and structure of disco, to create something in which the whole is less than the sum of its parts... and makes it the step-sibling of pop music, sharing its sensibilities and soullessness.

Yeah - 'metal' is just 'disco' with electric guitars.

Might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that metal directly spawned from the electrified blues of Hendrix and his neck-and-neck imitators, such as Cream and the Jeff Beck Group. And although all the major elements were worked out by Hendrix within six months of his getting a recording contract, metal sensu stricto was created by the efforts of Jimmy Page's Led Zeppelin, their main innovation being to dumb-down the lyrics and concentrate on the loudest and most bombastic arrangements imaginable. Within just a few years, bands like Deep Purple, AC/DC, and Black Sabbath had adopted the mind-bogglingly stereotyped, testosterone-ridden, lily-white formulas that still smother the genre.

Lord Foul wrote:Might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that metal directly spawned from the electrified blues of Hendrix and his neck-and-neck imitators, such as Cream and the Jeff Beck Group. And although all the major elements were worked out by Hendrix within six months of his getting a recording contract, metal sensu stricto was created by the efforts of Jimmy Page's Led Zeppelin, their main innovation being to dumb-down the lyrics and concentrate on the loudest and most bombastic arrangements imaginable. Within just a few years, bands like Deep Purple, AC/DC, and Black Sabbath had adopted the mind-bogglingly stereotyped, testosterone-ridden, lily-white formulas that still smother the genre.

Well, yeah! That's just what I said!

'underground' (Hendrix, Cream, Jeff Beck, et al)
+ 'disco' ("dumb-down the lyrics and concentrate on the loudest and most bombastic arrangements imaginable")
= 'metal' ("mind-bogglingly stereotyped, testosterone-ridden, lily-white formulas").

Hey man, be careful around Zeppelin. They are still an unbelievable band in their own right. Remember that they also had songs like "Babe I’m Gonna Leave You" and "Kashmir" which defied the standard rock format. It's also impossible to leave Stairway on the wayside.

The Dreaming wrote:Hey man, be careful around Zeppelin. They are still an unbelievable band in their own right. Remember that they also had songs like "Babe I’m Gonna Leave You" and "Kashmir" which defied the standard rock format. It's also impossible to leave Stairway on the wayside.

Page nicked "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" from Anne Bredon (it was originally credited as "traditional, arranged by Jimmy Page", then "words and music by Jimmy Page", and then, following legal action, "Bredon/Page/Plant"). But, yeah, it's still a great tune, and I'd rather listen to Zep's version anyway.

And don't get me wrong: Zep's in my top five (and was my favorite band for years).

Edge wrote:

Lord Foul wrote:Might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that metal directly spawned from the electrified blues of Hendrix and his neck-and-neck imitators, such as Cream and the Jeff Beck Group. And although all the major elements were worked out by Hendrix within six months of his getting a recording contract, metal sensu stricto was created by the efforts of Jimmy Page's Led Zeppelin, their main innovation being to dumb-down the lyrics and concentrate on the loudest and most bombastic arrangements imaginable. Within just a few years, bands like Deep Purple, AC/DC, and Black Sabbath had adopted the mind-bogglingly stereotyped, testosterone-ridden, lily-white formulas that still smother the genre.

Well, yeah! That's just what I said!

'underground' (Hendrix, Cream, Jeff Beck, et al)
+ 'disco' ("dumb-down the lyrics and concentrate on the loudest and most bombastic arrangements imaginable")
= 'metal' ("mind-bogglingly stereotyped, testosterone-ridden, lily-white formulas").

You're taking my quotes out of context, but I see where you're coming from (not that I agree).

I really dislike the "urban ghetto rap" genre that came out in the early 90's, Vanilla Ice etc...! ugh

Grammar edit

I like your description, Foul. Want to review music for me? But what I meant to say is, Queensryche seems to me to be an exception to the descriptions I'm hearing of metal. Queensryche actually seem intelligent.

Dragonlily wrote:I like your description, Foul. Want to review music for me? But what I meant to say is, Queensryche seems to me to be an exception to the descriptions I'm hearing of metal. Queensryche actually seem intelligent.

Oh yes, there's always exceptions in every genre (like Tool, for example). Or is Tool metal? Correct me here, Syl?

I hate country and rap.




And I love 'metal' and classical symphony.

Dragonlily wrote:Queensryche seems to me to be an exception to the descriptions I'm hearing of metal. Queensryche actually seem intelligent.

Lyrics are not as important to me as the music itself; nevertheless, Metallica's lyrics are certainly not only intelligent, but capable of surprising emotional power, when I bother to actually read them. I'm not familiar with Queensryche, though.

Baradakas wrote:I love 'metal' and classical symphony.

I think there does exist a strange but complementary relationship between metal and classical music...