(I DID NOT WRITE THESE RULES. I GOT THEM OFF OF THE NIGHTWISH FAN FORUM.)
The 101 holy, absolutely necessary rules you MUST follow in order to be a successful, well-know, female-fronted metal band:
The 101 Rules Of Female-Fronted Metal
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1. No matter how many members your band has, at least 40% of your promotional photos must be of your female vocalist with no one else in the picture.
2. At least an additional 30% of your promotional photos must feature the entire band, but in those shots, the female vocalist must be front and center and the rest of the band must be in the background.
3. At least one promotional photo of the female vocalist must feature her reaching towards the camera in some fashion, whether beckoning, pointing, holding an object of some sort, or just plain holding her hands out.
4. Only the female vocalist is allowed to smile in promotional photos. All other band members must look meditative, disinterested, apathetic, or, better yet, not be looking directly at the camera at all.
5. While not an absolute necessity, it is recommended you should be Dutch, Italian, Norwegian, or Finnish. Please note this is far less strict than the "if you are a black metal band, you are from Norway, even if you're not" rule.
6. Never allow yourself to be tagged with just one genre description like "gothic" or "power" or "progressive." Always combine at least two genre descriptions, at minimum adding "symphonic" to one of the others.
7. As a corollary to Rule #6, for best results, make up your own genre description, preferably one which sounds impressive but can't really be defined.
8. Say in interviews you are sick and tired of everyone comparing you to Nightwish, Lacuna Coil, Within Temptation, and/or Evanescence.
9. Privately wish you were as popular as any of them.
10. Dramatic poses are important. Practice them. A lot.
11. For female vocalists, headbanging while performing live is perfectly acceptable, but if you have long hair, try not to get too close to other band members while doing so lest you whack one of them in the face.
12. Change band members frequently.
13. Whatever band member leaves should shortly thereafter start his or her own group.
14. Preferably another female-fronted metal band. This is effectively reproduction by cellular division.
15. If it's the female vocalist who goes, make sure whoever replaces her is deemed a "controversial" choice by the fanbase.
16. Write songs with melancholy subjects centering around pain, tragedy, relationship troubles, and loss. Then...
17. While in interviews, express dismay over people calling you "gothic."
18. Your female vocalist must change her outfit at least once during live shows.
19. The other members of the band may not.
20. Your female vocalist should be...at least temporarily...romantically involved with another member of the band.
21. Alternately, she can be related to another member of the band.
22. If she is neither, at minimum try not to let her marry a rich businessman. That would only lead to trouble.
23. Remember: You don't need sex to sell your music.
24. That said, lingering cleavage shots in music video shoots are still acceptable.
25. So are stage outfits which expose 60%+ of said cleavage.
26. Furthermore, it is also perfectly acceptable to have a depiction of a nude or scantily-clad woman appear on your album cover. It's artistic.
27. If said nude or scantily-clad woman happens to resemble, or better yet be, your female vocalist, so much the better.
28. If Rule #27 is applied, make sure her pose is such that nothing 'naughty' is shown. It's better left to the imagination.
29. Make sure your female vocalist does guest appearances with other bands and projects. Cross-pollination is good marketing.
30. Likewise, see if you can get another female vocalist to do a guest appearance on at least one of your albums.
31. Express dismay in interviews if you are compared to the guest female vocalist from Rule #30.
32. Male vocalists should be able to do deathgrowls and/or black metal rasps.
33. Not necessarily well. He's not the important one, after all.
34. If your male vocalist absolutely cannot do deathgrowls or black metal rasps for whatever reason, he can be, at your option, grudgingly allowed to just do clean melodic vocals.
35. At least until you fire him and hire someone who can to replace him.
36. Regarding Rule #34, see Rule #33.
37. If your female vocalist can actually sing in operatic style, by all means have her do so.
38. If she can't but thinks she can, let her do so anyway. Just cover it up with the addition of symphonic orchestra parts.
39. Lots and LOTS of symphonic orchestra parts if necessary.
40. The more members of your band, the better. Five is the minimum, but six or seven is preferable.
41. Eight or more is acceptable if the additional members play something like violins.
42. Not that too many people are going to remember the names of any of your band members besides your female vocalist anyway.
43. Go more mainstream with each successive album.
44. Make sure your band name sounds melancholy yet vaguely-defined.
45. Or ends in either "A" or "IA."
46. If people have to look it up to find out what it means, so much the better. Makes you seem more deep and mysterious.
47. If you can sing in operatic style, try to be Tarja Turunen.
48. If you can't but you can still carry a tune and have a voice that is more sultry than sweet, try to be Cristina Scabbia.
49. If, on the other hand, you can carry a tune and your voice is more sweet than sultry, try to be Sharon den Adel.
50. But please don't wave your arms around in live shows quite so much.
51. If you can't do any of the above, gargle with a cup of hydrochloric acid before each show and try to be Angela Gossow.
52. If you follow any of Rules #47-49, while in interviews, express dismay over how people say you're just cloning somebody else. See Rule #8.
53. Do not try to be Floor Jansen. You will fail in the attempt.
54. Female vocalists should wear their hair long and straight. This makes it look more impressive when the wind machine blows it around in live shows.
55. Remember: Dramatic. Epic.
56. No, more dramatic than that. Keep working on it.
57. And more epic!
58. If you happen to speak a language other than English, write at least one song to be sung in that language.
59. Especially if it's a language most of your potential audience doesn't understand. Makes you seem more deep and mysterious.
60. Or at least throw in some Latin phrases occasionally.
61. Make sure your band logo is easily readable. Unless you are female-fronted death metal or black metal, in which case your logo should still be at least semi-readable.
62. Unless you chose "progressive" or both "progressive" and "power" as part of your genre-description portions back on Rule #6, do not allow your lead guitarist to play solos that go on for any longer than eight bars of music, if any at all. Remember, he's not the important one.
63. See Rule #62 except substitute "keyboard player" for "lead guitarist."
64. See Rule #62 except substitute "drummer" for...okay, you get the point.
65. If you did choose "progressive" as part of your genre-description, please understand you will most likely never be completely accepted by the self-proclaimed "true" prog metal fans.
66. But that's all right because they don't completely accept anything that's not a clone of Dream Theater's Images And Words album anyway.
67. Write at least one song to be performed by just your female vocalist accompanied only by acoustic guitar, piano, strings, or any combination of the three.
68. Conversely, practice at least one cover tune to play live with male vocals only so your female vocalist can take a break and rest her voice.
69. Regarding Rule #68, see Rule #33.
70. Frequently close your eyes when singing live, especially during more melancholy moments. It's more dramatic.
71. Try not to trip over anything onstage while doing so.
72. Female vocalists must at least occasionally symbolically reach out towards the audience while singing.
73. Open-handed, palm up, specifically.
74. The other band members must settle for throwing the horns or raising fists skyward in classic metal fashion.
75. Do not get a suntan. Ever.
76. Twenty-five good words to use in lyrics, album titles, or even band names: Despair, Blood, Cold, Ice, Snow, Frozen, Rain, Rose, Tears, Black, Crimson, Darkness, Hide, Eyes, Blind, Pain, Agony, Silence, Torn, Soul, Drown, Lies, Forsaken, Alone, Apart.
77. Should you use four or more of the above words in the lyrics of any given song, see Rule #17.
78. Do not ever write a song about beer, partying, or similar frivolous subjects. Remember, you are a serious artist!
79. Regarding Rule #78, see Rule #24.
80. Your female vocalist's wardrobe should be at minimum twice as expensive as that of the entire rest of the band put together.
81. And custom-designed if at all feasible.
82. Your female vocalist should be a fan of at least one of the following artists: Tori Amos, Janis Joplin, Kate Bush, Bonnie Raitt, Stevie Nicks, Grace Slick, Björk, Tina Turner, or Ann and Nancy Wilson.
83. None of the other band members are required to honestly care too much about any of the previously mentioned artists.
84. With the possible exceptions of Ann and Nancy Wilson, because "Barracuda" is seriously metal.
85. But just to be on the safe side, they should say they are fans...or at least greatly respect those artists...if asked when interviewed.
86. If they are ever interviewed, that is.
87. Never say you were the first to do something, because someone might be able to prove you wrong.
88. Instead, always say you were one of the first to do something, whatever that something happens to be.
89. If your female vocalist is offered an opportunity to do a photospread for a "men's magazine," she should turn it down.
90. Unless it's done at least relatively tastefully and it's really more of an interview than a photospread.
91. Not that most of the men who buy the magazine get it for the interviews anyway.
92. You're not being melancholy enough. Think about something really, really depressing, like the memory of a beloved pet that died suddenly and unexpectedly when you were just a little girl. That ought to help.
93. When filling out the "Sounds Like" section of your MySpace page, always list your own band name first to imply you don't sound like anybody else.
94. If you do happen to sound a good deal like somebody else, you can mention them in the "Influences" section.
95. But only if you think it's absolutely necessary.
96. In any given one of your videos, your female vocalist must at some point be either squatting down, emphatically throwing her arms out to her sides, running her hands over the sides of her face, staring upwards while singing, or any combination of the above.
97. While not strictly necessary, she should also wear at least two different outfits over the course of the video, even if it is only three minutes long.
98. The other band members, if visible at all, should be playing their instruments with overt, near-violent conviction, no matter how slow the song is.
99. None of them should look directly at the camera for more than two seconds at a stretch unless they are delivering male vocals at the time.
100. Remember, no matter how much others may think you look or sound like another band, you know you have your own unique style and you know you want to stand out amongst the crowd. Therefore...
101. Never follow all the rules.
I laughed pretty hard when I read that one.
(I can't wait to hear what comes of her new project/group with Jorn Viggo Lofstad.)
