Controversial opinions on metal

[The Ozzman]

Music is more than just entertainment to me

 

[Zephyrus]

Metal is an art form just as much as most other genres of music. We have every right to be connoisseurs of this specific art. We find something within Metal that connects with us deep down, and so when there is a flood of sub-quality music competing with what truly speaks to us, shouldn't we have the right to feel threatened?

 

[Garen]

Dying Fetus, Pantera and Meshuggah are heavy metal whether you like them or not. What else are they?

I know they are, don't you people know what barely means?

 

[mutantllama]

I personally think most metal with clean vocals is nothing but a terrible joke. To each his own, I guess.

I could say the same about extreme growls. Espicially brutal death metal vocals. I mean, they sound like the dudes burping into the mic!

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Care to point out a single post where I've stated my opinion as if it were fact (or, rather, where I've done so to any greater degree than the folks who disagreed with me)?

I didn't think so.

Actually, this is pretty damn easy.

I don't listen to music exclusively from the 90s - I'm perfectly thrilled to listen to great music from any era or style, I just don't spend a lot of time listening to music that duplicates what I already like in crappier variations (i.e. not a lot of late 80s hardcore or post-1995 black metal). I see no great virtue in listening to mediocre music for the sake of pretending to be 'open-minded.'

Now I expect a retort in which you claim that all post-90-something black metal (hell, ANY metal) is incontrovertibly "bad" because it doesn't have the same 'essence' as the 'old guard' did, or make some other kind of silly value judgment passed off for evidence of why new music is objectively bad. this is getting to be so predictable I could notice it AND shoot it down in my sleep.

 

[Zephyrus]

Listening to only 90's Black Metal is like listening to only Baroque-era music. It may be superior, and laid the groundwork for what followed, but why should that prevent me from enjoying Mozart and Beethoven and Wagner?

 

[waif]

Listen to her moan my name, AMIRITEGUISE?!

Metal is an art form just as much as most other genres of music. We have every right to be connoisseurs of this specific art. We find something within Metal that connects with us deep down, and so when there is a flood of sub-quality music competing with what truly speaks to us, shouldn't we have the right to feel threatened?

I agree. I think we think of metal as more artistic because we connect with it more deeply and thus can connect with it's artistic side better. However, nothing is intrinsically artistic, imo, metal included. I agree with scissors for the most part.
However, when he says it's just entertainment - music is what you make of it. To you it's noise, to me it's art, and to the media it's the propoganda of the devil. Music is a series of sound waves - everything else depends on you.

I know they are, don't you people know what barely means?

Um...but they're not anywhere near the edges of what is metal, they're right smack in the middle. Some would say that they collectively contain almost every metal cliche known to man.

 

[Black Friday]

I'm going back through the pages to see how the hell this started.
Edit: I'm disappointed at the lack of off-topic arrogant trolling and holier-than-thou flaming.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

How is this any different multiple lists of albums "better" than Xasthur/Leviathan that others provided? Nobody was qualifying those statements. Or is this just a case of one standard for people you agree with, another for those you don't?

Because those are very clearly expressed as opinions, whereas the post I highlighted of yours was full of funny ways of trying to make your opinion seem factual by basing your evidence--you guessed it--entirely on conclusions you made using your own opinions.

The NKOTB example is actually funny, though, because it assumes people who listen to NKOTB would actually have that kind of quandary (oh my god NKOTB is SOOOOO ARTISTICALLY RELEVANT!)

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Art that is immortal is not objectively better. The longevity of art is just another way of judging it.

 

[Alter]

However, I'm mostly posting to call your crediblity into question for editing the wiki of a black metal band on Last.fm in order to promote Interpol by claiming they were an influence on the band somehow, since that pretty much proves that you don't have any.

I see see what you see on my last-fm wiki. I did not mean to say they were an influence. I just read an interview and guess what. he drops Interpol as an influence. So yeah.

 

[Black Friday]

I see see what you see on my last-fm wiki. I did not mean to say they were an influence. I just read an interview and guess what. he drops Interpol as an influence. So yeah.

Nu-Metal bands name Black Sabbath as an influence all the time, go figure.

 

[Alter]

I did not read an interview with them citing Interpol influence. I was just writing random shit. You are not seeing my point.

 

[Janga666]

I could say the same about extreme growls. Espicially brutal death metal vocals. I mean, they sound like the dudes burping into the mic!

You mean they aren't burping into the mic??

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Really? So where are the qualifiers here? I mean, it looks like it's been phrased as a statement of fact to me...



It kind of looks like you're taking issue, not with my failure to qualify my opinions as opinions (which people tend not to do, since it is self-evident), but with my use of humorous analogies. Which is pretty silly. There's no difference between a straight assertion and an assertion made with jokes (except that the latter is more fun to read...and write).



My assumption is that the people who actually like New Kids on the Block don't give a rat's ass about art or entertainment or anything else. But then again, we're not talking about people who like New Kids on the Block, we're talking about the implications of saying, "All art is equally valid." Good of you to deliberately misrepresent my argument, though.

I wasn't even trying to represent your argument at all, I was actually just making a comment on it, hence the smiley I thought I'd tack on to show the lightheartedness.

If you can't see that it's obvious that the people listing those albums are just listing what they think are better albums than what MasterOLightning suggested is the best album of the last ten years, and put those posts up against yours and think that you and the other posters are both stating things as pretty much just opinions, then you're silly. You are essentially saying "well, I mean I like GREAT MUSIC from every era of music ever, but I mean if you guys like shitty facsimiles that's your prerogative" which is trolling (not allowed on forums br0). Then again I cannot expect anything more from ANUS. I think it's time for you guys to switch up tactics so this isn't so boring.

 

[General Zaroff]

wow strong battle discussion

 

[skeptik]

In my experience, the opposite is true: people who feel insecure about the cultural products they consume tend to take refuge in a vague relativism that allows them to wage a blanket defense of those products without actually having to, you know, defend them. It always comes across as a bit of a cop out to me: "Yeah, well, it's all equally valid!"

But that doesn't pass the fundamental smell test, because it's hard to credit that anyone would seriously believe the obvious implications of such a statement (that, say, the New Kids on the Block reunion tour is as artistically valid and significant as a Beethoven sonata). It's sort of the intellectual equivalent of ignoring the dead skunk in the road: you can close your eyes real tight and hold your nose for dear life, but are you really convinced it's not there?

Probably not.

Personally, I'd say there's always room for disagreement, discussion and debate, but that such discourse ought to be handled in an intellectually honest fashion. You don't have to like what other people like. You don't have to derive enjoyment from the 'classics' because everyone assumes you should. You can enjoy stuff that, in your heart of hearts, you know is piffle. It doesn't make you a bad person. Or stupid. Or inferior to someone with more exacting tastes. But if you're going to defend the artistic validity of a particular choice of yours, at least do so in a manner that allows for conversational give and take, instead of trying to head off any discussion with broad platitudes which admit no room for discussion.

I think more people should pay attention to this post.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Oh I agree with the great majority of his post, but it's in direct contrast to him saying only a page earlier pretty much exactly what I said above.

 

[Alter]

I wish we had more full-on debates about stuff like this that had real substance.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

It's hard to inject substance into a discussion mainly about opinion and the nature of artistic relativity, aesthetic theory, etc. I mean, it can be done, but I bet we'd all find glaring flaws in each other's points that the person making the points simply could not detect for obvious reasons.