Death metal and thrash talent?

[slipnuts]

hey im not really new to thrash or death metal but im not a musician so i don't know what is talented and whats not.

how do thrash bands like sodom, ripping corpse, exodus, artillery, and death metal bands like decapitated, Spawn of possession, Demilich, and gorguts compare to the classics like juda priest, van halen, or other bands on the radio making millions.. as far as talent goes.
are death metal and thrash bands just as talented or are they just for the sake of brutallity.

you cant hate death metal to answer this question.

 

[SouthernAbyss]

Comparing them bands talent wise is a road that'll never end. I love both thrash and death metal, but you can't compare talent. Every musician has a different musical mind, for example i play guitar, but i'm not very useful in fast death metal or proper thrash, i tend to play traditional heavy metal and/or slower thrash, that doesn't mean i can't play actual songs like that, but in my mind, i can't just go out there and make a riff like them, you know? As i was saying, it's a never ending road of opinions.

 

[SteelFireRecs]

Stuff that is on the radio has nothing to do with talent. Guys in thrash and death metal band are just as talented if not more than stuff you hear on the radio, but you're not going to hear thrash on the radio (except for some metallica). These genres just arent socially accepted and people dont really understand the terms and they give it a bad rap right off the bat.

 

[Sonolin]

As described above, talent is very hard to measure. Mostly because, there are a lot of things that talent means - usually, a musician is talented if they can "shred", they're also talented if they play with "feeling", and they're definitely talented if they can mix genres and introduce something new into the mix (this is my favorite flavor of talent).

So, that being said, a lot of bands fall into all these categories. Black Sabbath is probably one of the most talented bands IMO, because they created a new sound and helped take the blues roots from rock. Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and others, took this further by totally stripping the blues out of it and creating a movement called NWOBHM... I won't go into a history lesson, but that alone gives these guys huge props.

That being said, most Death Metal and Thrash Metal artists, are usually more technically talented than some of the early Heavy Metal bands. But I think that comes from progressing the genre more than anything - the original Heavy Metal bands were very technically talented of their time as well, and still seen as pretty technically talented (there's some crazy Iron Maiden stuff, and those guys can shred better than Kirk Hammet can in their sleep).

Anyway, its mostly subjective.

 

[Spiderchrist]

Many musicians in Death/Thrash bands usually aren't limited to "brutal" playing. Gar Samuelson and Chris Poland were jazz-fusion musicians before they joined Megadeth. Flo Mounier is pretty damn good in jazz, Derek Roddy can play just about anything as well as George Kollias. It depends on the musician. For example, Pete Sandoval, as far as I know, doesn't have a ton of experience in playing different genres of music besides Death Metal/Grindcore.

 

[Sonolin]

Many musicians in Death/Thrash bands usually aren't limited to "brutal" playing. Gar Samuelson and Chris Poland were jazz-fusion musicians before they joined Megadeth. Flo Mounier is pretty damn good in jazz, Derek Roddy can play just about anything as well as George Kollias. It depends on the musician. For example, Pete Sandoval, as far as I know, doesn't have a ton of experience in playing different genres of music besides Death Metal/Grindcore.

Very true, I sort of missed that side in my post. It seems like all the "classics", in whatever genre, have that sort of side to them. Opeth, for example, is a good showcase on where Death metal doesn't need to be super technical, yet Mikael is a wonderful musician in the fact that those compositions are great. (IMO at least, there seems to be a lot of Opeth haters...)