Breakdown research

[senorjaredito]

Hi all,

I'm a third year university student from the UK, as well as a huge metal fan, and I've finally been able to do what I've always wanted and write a paper on heavy metal! I'm looking at the way the breakdown functions in the genre - principally how it is conceived of by fans and by artists, and this is where YOU come in! I have a questionnaire to fill out which shouldn't take more than about 5 minutes, and I'd be super appreciative if a few people were prepared to fill it out. The link is below - in the meantime, prepare yourselves for a kickass breakdown in Code Orange's My World!

https://goo.gl/forms/ckLN6vTWUbgIdy9f2

Thanks all!

 

[Serjeant Grumbles]

That Code Orange band you cite is a hardcore punk band at its core. Just having a look at the album in which that song appears, you can see that the primary genres are "Metalcore, Hardcore Punk." While you might say that metalcore is a subgenre of metal, it is just as much if not more so a subgenre of hardcore punk. In fact, the type of metalcore that has a lot more to do with metal is labelled by rateyourmusic.com as the separate genre of "melodic metalcore", which is heavily influenced by Swedish melodic death metal.

I don't intend to impugn your enjoyment of metallic hardcore such as Code Orange However, as you are planning on writing a paper on "heavy metal", it would be very off base when your source material is bands such as that. Breakdowns are an integral part of metalcore of both the metallic hardcore and the melodic metalcore varieties. However, the breakdown is not a a large part of metal as a whole, and it's especially rare in black metal.

 

[Sophii]

As said above, breakdowns aren't so much of a major draw in metal. Its mostly solos and riffs.

But if you want some songs that have breakdown-like structures, I will provide.

Soen - "Oscillation"
-Any Pantera song ever-
Crowbar - All I Had I Gave (I believe has one)

I think one of the riffs in "War Pigs" is considered a breakdown before they all bust out into soloing.

Its very hard to find chugging breakdowns in most metal. Until you get into about the mid 90's.

 

[senorjaredito]

That Code Orange band you cite is a hardcore punk band at its core. Just having a look at the album in which that song appears, you can see that the primary genres are "Metalcore, Hardcore Punk." While you might say that metalcore is a subgenre of metal, it is just as much if not more so a subgenre of hardcore punk. In fact, the type of metalcore that has a lot more to do with metal is labelled by rateyourmusic.com as the separate genre of "melodic metalcore", which is heavily influenced by Swedish melodic death metal.

I don't intend to impugn your enjoyment of metallic hardcore such as Code Orange However, as you are planning on writing a paper on "heavy metal", it would be very off base when your source material is bands such as that. Breakdowns are an integral part of metalcore of both the metallic hardcore and the melodic metalcore varieties. However, the breakdown is not a a large part of metal as a whole, and it's especially rare in black metal.

Thanks for this - I should probably have been more specific in my original post. There is very little academic research on heavy music styles at all, and so even a rudimentary definition of the breakdown isn't readily available. As such, part of my paper will be attempting to codify and explain the extent of the breakdown across heavy music styles in general, as it's clearly a cross-sectional phenomenon across various genres and subgenres. I recognise that the breakdown itself isn't a huge part of metal in general, but I think many fans and artists would argue that it's nonetheless important, and and such I think it still merits research!