Cheesy Metal

pretty maids used to be the cheesiest band around (except for manowar, of course). check out their - aptly titled - jump the gun to learn a thing or two about cheesiness incarnated. :D

rahvin.
 
Cheesy sounds to me like weak you know, like lack of strenght, that's cheesy, it could be Skylark or Angra, when you try and try but you never hear the guitar power
 
Originally posted by NastyJoan
Cheesy sounds to me like weak you know, like lack of strenght, that's cheesy, it could be Skylark or Angra, when you try and try but you never hear the guitar power
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In those terms, I would say Artch is the cheesiest band I've ever heard. Those guys are weak.:eek:
 
Alright, sorry to bump such an old thread, but I was going to create the topic anyway if it didn't exist. I want to ask people what they think constitues a "cheesy" band. The inspiration for this discussion came from a post Cyth made in the "Controversial Opinions" thread:

Cythraul said:
Really? All metal bands have some cheesy element? You ought to be careful about making such bold claims; there are bound to be a number of significant counterexamples. But even ignoring all that, your judgment of "cheesy" is totally fucking arbitrary. First of all, since nobody even has a clear sense of what that term means, except that it's vaguely associated with a negative reaction towards a piece of art or entertainment, then one can literally count almost anything as cheesy. It's clearly quite dependent on your preferences and what you're willing to take seriously, and your judgments in this respect are clearly colored by your preferences. Please, tell me what the fuck cheesy is.
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I really agree with most of this statement, but I want to debate the idea of inherent "cheesiness" in music as a general attribute.

Where does the element that constitutes something as "cheesy" derive from? We typically use this phrase to describe bands that are "over-the-top" or "extravagant;" but it is not always negative. Plenty of people here love bands despite their "cheesiness," and will admit it.

I'm going to posit that "cheesiness" increases as the element of theatricality in a work of art increases. I'll define "theatricality" as the awareness of an artwork (or, rather, an artist) of its being a work of art, or the awareness of its being observed. Art critic Michael Fried condemned theatricality as anathema and opposed to art because of this effect; it draws away from the true purpose of art, which is to be "absorbed" by it, and instead offers a kind of voyeuristic sensation that actually separates the audience from the work.

Music is often commonly associated with this idea of theatricality because, as a medium, it has become accepted as what I'll call "performance entertainment" (along with films and stage productions). I personally don't approve of this association because I'm a huge music fan and I have trouble seeing how all forms of music adhere to this concept of theatricality, thus making them "not art."

Anyway, my point in bumping this thread was to talk about this idea of theatricality in different mediums of art (not only music) to try and see if we can come to a conclusion about whether or not music is more theatrical than art that is visual or literary. If all art is theatrical in some way, then is it all "cheesy?" Can we actually separate, within the medium of music, bands/albums/songs that are theatrical and those that aren't?

Lastly, do others even agree with my equation of cheesiness with theatricality? Because if not, then we have to determine where exactly this element comes from.
 
Nice bump... I don't care about the topic, but there's something fascinating about seeing a whole bunch of users with thousands of posts that I have never seen or heard of before.
 
Attempted theatrics coming across cheesy.....I offer up Iced Earths latest trilogy effort as an example. I see cheesy generally going to metal that attempts "epicness" and fails. Bands that achieve it are not considered cheesy but still maintain the theatrics.
 
Einherjar86 said:
Art critic Michael Fried condemned theatricality as anathema and opposed to art because of this effect; it draws away from the true purpose of art, which is to be "absorbed" by it, and instead offers a kind of voyeuristic sensation that actually separates the audience from the work.
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See, I disagree. I've always sided with Andy Warhol over Clement Greenberg in the whole "kitsch" debate. There's a reason that pop-culture icons hold the status that they do: they affect us, entertain us, draw us in. Why should we not embrace that which appeals to us--why do we have to seek absorption in the increasingly abstract and inscrutable? Life is vibrant and should be celebrated (which I suppose will put me in conflict with many of the doom/black metal fans here.); that which is popular should not be disdained merely for being such. And I've always felt Greenberg misunderstood Pollock. His fever-dream painting technique was a celebration of vivacity, not a withdrawal from it. As for voyeurism--he let himself be photographed painting, didn't he?

That said, I do partially agree that cheesiness feeds off of theatricality. More specifically, it is the earnestness and presumption of grand importance laid over a frame of philosophical air. Hence, the inherent cheesiness in power metal: the music is eager, insistent, howling out its own self-importance. But very, very few bands manage to back this up with anything interesting or original to say. (This last part is indeed true of most metal--the genre is fabled for instrumentation far more than introspection.)

But to jump right back onto the first hand, who the hell is to tell me this is a bad thing? I like soaring, epic music that spurs me to try and accomplish something. And fantasy, mythology, and hero's-quest drama play just as great a factor in culture and cultural advancement as philosophy and politics. So no, I don't believe art needs to be stuffy and highbrow--I tend to think of most modern-art as an endless game of philosophical one-upmanship that has lost sight of any attempt to actually connect with those taking in the art, anyway. My drawing of a dragon is just as much art as your twelve-foot phallic obelisk--and mine is probably more likely to be enjoyed by an observer.

In any case, at the end of the day, metal is an inherently theatrical genre of music that inspires its followers perform this ritual: :headbang:. So I have a bit of trouble seeing how it doesn't carry some cheesiness. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
 
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