Band allowed to play different genres?

[ranietz]

My band and I have just started to make our own music, and we dont know what genre we should play. We like death metal (behemoth), black metal (dimmu burgir) and gothenburg metal (in flames, at the gates).
My question is: can we play all those genres and put them on the same album? Either mix all genres in one song or make straight death/black metal songs?

If an album looked like this:

Track 1. Intro
Track 2. Death metal
Track 3. Death metal
Track 4. Black metal
Track 5. Black metal
Track 6. Black metal
Track 7. gothenburg metal
Track 8. gothenburg metal

What would you think? Oh, no! Another band that can't make up their minds, or is it OK to mix genres like this?

I hope you can understand what I mean. It's hard for me to explain...

 

[Obyeybyeogone]

Don't conciously mix anything.

Just start playing, and whatever you play will be influenced by what you like, whatever you end up sounding like will be your unique sound

 

[ranietz]

Originally posted by Oyo
Don't conciously mix anything.

Just start playing, and whatever you play will be influenced by what you like, whatever you end up sounding like will be your unique sound

I don't want to mix genres. It just happens. I am the main songwriter in the band, and I usualy make music that sounds like the last record I listen to. I don't mean to. It just happen.
At this moment we have some songs that sounds like In Flames, and some that sounds like Behemoth...

 

[Don Corleone]

i think it's great the way it looks. theres no rule on earth that says all albums must be of the same style.

 

[phon1c]

that'd be fucking cool actually, if there was a distinct gap

 

[Jim LotFP]

Originally posted by ranietz
My band and I have just started to make our own music, and we dont know what genre we should play.

If you're actually consciously worrying about this ahead of time, please, go no further.

 

[YaYo]

Yeh play whatever you want. If you copy those other genres completely you will fail. If you however write songs that are a bit more death than black, or a bit more black than gothenburg (and so on) then ALL your styles will probably end up mixing together and you'lll find there is an underlying consistent 'sound' beneath them all. You'll also need a consistent production to make an album enjoyable (it seems silly, but its entirely true, we like albums to sound the same all the way through, otherwise they dont flow for us and are simply a random collection of tunes).

But like the others have said, if your asking other people what you should play then thats not a good start. Play what you want without restriction. If you think an album like that would be cool and you'd buy it, then do it.

If you're viewing music as genres and feeling that things will specifically fall into those then thats not a good start either. Play the style you most enjoy (and write lots of songs so that you develop your own style) and then the listener will seek to classify you as closely as possible. You'll just end up as a useless genre band otherwise. Music first, genre later.

Heres the thing. If you released an album like that there would be people who thought both "ah shit" and "ah cool". If you truely do what you want and it appeals to you, then it will appeal to other people like you, and thats all you can do. You have to make a decision of who you care about pleasing.... and the answer should be 'nobody', you should only care about your own opinion of the music, though using other people to see different ways to view the music and such (to help you see whats wrong in the music, to help you be a bit more objective about your own music), but its up to you to make music you would love if you heard another band doing it.

 

[ranietz]

Thanx for the input everyone...

Originally posted by Jim LotFP
If you're actually consciously worrying about this ahead of time, please, go no further.

It's not something I worry about. It's just that I write a song and play it to the other band members and they say; "it's a cool song but it's death metal and I want to play gothenburg metal". And I think; "Fuck, I want to play the music I make, no matter the genre!".
I'm just wondering if I should start several bands. One death metal band. One Black metal band. Or should I combine all genres in one band...?

 

[Pancakes]

...mix 'em all up and sell it as prog. You'll make it big

 

[MadeInNewJersey]

Originally posted by ranietz
I'm just wondering if I should start several bands. One death metal band. One Black metal band. Or should I combine all genres in one band...?

I think one band is plenty. Look at Phil Anselmo, he's got a band for every style of metal around and they all suck.