stefan86 said:
Notice that this is a respectful, intelligent way to disagree.
I also agree about Lightning.
Does "anyone" like Reroute?
- Thread starter Inflames626
- Start date
Notice that this is a respectful, intelligent way to disagree.
I also agree about Lightning.
Villain
Doctor BenQuillity
And what's wrong with it being common? You know, the "clean" singing is much more common and you don't seem to have problems with that. Me, I find growled vocals much more original and appeasing. I take good quality growls over good quality "cleans" any day. Heck, I might even take poor quality growls over average quality "cleans" nowadays - although I do like a small dose of clean vocals now and then (like they are used on Skydancer and Projector).Inflames626 said:
I think Bruce Dickinson is way below Mikael Stanne as a vocalist - simply because Bruce doesn't growl while Mikael does, and I happen to like growls.
And about your music instructors: I doubt they (assuming that they would play together) would ever come up with a song like, say, Hours Passed in Exile, no matter how great they are with their instruments - simply because they most probably wouldn't bother doing anything like that. I don't care if someone can play better / write better songs / perform better than Dark Tranquillity, as long as they are not making records and selling them somewhere - if they are, I'll buy what they make. The simple fact remains: In 24 years of my life I haven't found a single band / artist who could make music that has such a strong psychological effect on me like Dark Tranquillity does. There's nothing more to it; I don't think their music is above everything else - it is just the best kind of music to me, at least at the moment.
Btw, did you find the tab for Silence, and the Firmament Withdrew? I noticed my first link didn't work like it should, so you need to go to the main-site (www.dsrmusic.com/metaltab) and find it from there.
-Villain
Villain
Doctor BenQuillity
About Macros / Robotech (the latter is just an "americanized" version of the former): Despite all my anime-enthusiasm and my general liking to mecha-genre, I simply can't stand either of these. For a long time I thought it was due to my long-standing relationship with the boardgame BattleTech, which is partially derived from Macros and which uses some of the same mecha - having accustomed myself with Wasps, Stingers and Phoenix Hawks of the game, I never could get into the Valkyries of the anime. However, I recently realised my real reason for disliking them: the series really suck big time. The old 80's animation is simply often below my standards and the stories are too unrealistic to me. My flaw and my loss, I guess.
The only great anime-series from the 80's (although I think it was aired around the change of the decade, so it is perhaps not eligible to be called an "80's anime") I have seen this far is Vampire Princess Miyu. Altough very episodic and "monster-of-the-week" like, it does have a great mood all through the series and a wonderful soundtrack by Kenji Kawai that compliments the many extremely emotional (most often sad) scenes very well. And it has a loose overall story that, despite being perhaps a little cliched, works well in the end. Animation is good even by today's standards and just like its main character, there are only small hints of Miyu's true age - it could have been made last year and look exactly the same!
There's also a four-piece OVA-series that was made before the TV-show. It is not quite as great, but enjoyable nevertheless. A note to those who have seen one of the series and want to see the other: The backgrounds of the main characters (Miyu and Larva) are told somewhat differently in these (probably due to time-constraints on the OVA), so don't pay too much attention to the differences - they are more like two different possibilities for their history and the viewer can choose whichever one he/she wants to be "real".
-Villain (yawning)
The only great anime-series from the 80's (although I think it was aired around the change of the decade, so it is perhaps not eligible to be called an "80's anime") I have seen this far is Vampire Princess Miyu. Altough very episodic and "monster-of-the-week" like, it does have a great mood all through the series and a wonderful soundtrack by Kenji Kawai that compliments the many extremely emotional (most often sad) scenes very well. And it has a loose overall story that, despite being perhaps a little cliched, works well in the end. Animation is good even by today's standards and just like its main character, there are only small hints of Miyu's true age - it could have been made last year and look exactly the same!
There's also a four-piece OVA-series that was made before the TV-show. It is not quite as great, but enjoyable nevertheless. A note to those who have seen one of the series and want to see the other: The backgrounds of the main characters (Miyu and Larva) are told somewhat differently in these (probably due to time-constraints on the OVA), so don't pay too much attention to the differences - they are more like two different possibilities for their history and the viewer can choose whichever one he/she wants to be "real".
-Villain (yawning)
@Villain
I think you could count Lupin The 3rd in with the 80's
anime, not that I have seen more than 2 movies, but
still, I found those very funny, somehow I have a feeling
that they are not truly anime tho?
I think you could count Lupin The 3rd in with the 80's
anime, not that I have seen more than 2 movies, but
still, I found those very funny, somehow I have a feeling
that they are not truly anime tho?
Villain said:
Battletech was directly a ripoff of Robotech. I like 80's anime because it was the original anime, before it got really commercial about 5 years ago. The shitty Macross II aside (that Carl Macek, the American liason for Harmony Gold and head of the American Robotech, had nothing to do with), I like 80's anime because, again, it's the real deal, like 80's metal compared to now...which is more honest, more unique and original for its time, and fresh? I've seen so much anime now, mostly in the form of chat icons for various sites, that I'm even sicker of it than I was when Wizards of the Coast bought TSR and "kiddified" D&D from its old 80's glory of college kids who were just a bit too nerdy for their own good.
I got into Robotech when Palladium Books, an RPG book company, created a system for Robotech that should be used in any roleplaying game adaptation of it. The only drawback is that the system gets so technical that gameplay grinds to a halt unless you have a really good game master...which means it would rock if all the dice rolls and percentages to hit were done "under the hood" for a PC game. I also got into Golgo 13 based on the two NES games based on the anime franchise, and would be interested in seeing more work done with it.
The 80s anime artwork was primitive by today's standards, yes, but the stylizations, etc, set the standard for Akira, Vampire Hunter D and Princess Monoke. I've watched all those, even bits of Tank Girl, and nothing hit me like Robotech. The dialogue, whether or not because it was badly translated or because the show was meant for 11-14 year olds, could occasionally be cheesy, but when the story was fleshed out. matured up, and published in a series of Del Rey sci fi books, I really liked it. Why do I not like anime now? Too avante guarde...and that's bad, especially when it's trying to be avante guarde, and it shows.
As far as Robotech, I've bought all three series on DVD, that is, Macross, Masters, and the New Generation/Invid invasion...and was severely pissed with the plot holes (people have been going on for 18 years now not knowing what happened to the SDF 3), but that's why the Del Rey books are good, totally original stories.
Battletech is definitely dumbed down since Mechwarrior 2 broke it into cult status, I liked the first one and the 3028 timeline better, pre-clans, than the clans thing...now, I'm just not interested because it doesn't take the story to such varying places as Robotech (although Robotech could be sappy and or just plain weird with a lot of the Masters stuff especially)
Next post is on Maiden...
I have one question for Inflames626: If you think everything has been done before, and everything is so boring and so on, why do you make covers of songs and not try to create something original?
As for Silence being the best Gallery song, sorry sir, but to me it's one of the most boring on that cd. There are other much better songs on there (and nothing better than Lethe, that one gives me chills down my spine every time i listen to it).
As for Silence being the best Gallery song, sorry sir, but to me it's one of the most boring on that cd. There are other much better songs on there (and nothing better than Lethe, that one gives me chills down my spine every time i listen to it).
Villain said:
I appreciate the link, but I haven't looked. I'm working on some originals at the moment, then some Killing Joke. Gothenburg metal will have to wait until I procure a C/C# guitar...since all of my guitars have floating whammies, you need to have an axe preset for each tuning. Since a floating whammy works on tension like a bow, it sucks ass trying to retune it and to get it to stay.
Nothing's wrong with it being common, just that a distinction needs to be made between the sum of the parts and the parts themselves. Again, who has helped all the euro metal bands sound great is Fredrik Nordstrom. Studio Fredman has been instrumental in making all these bands sound great. The way Nordstrom worked the dials in studio to get the ambiance of my favorite DT song, "Undo Control", is what saved a very simple song from being average metal to being very good metal.
All I can tell you is, when you start studying music, it's kind of like when you're trying to broaden your vocabulary. You being to realize your habits, and what you do daily, what words and expressions you use over and over, and you become very introspective...
A good way to determine whether or not you've got anything going is to ask yourself: "What am I offering that thousands of other bands like mine don't?" Every now and then, you get a winner.
Tool was a simple concept, musically and idea wise. But it was Adam Jones unique videos and artwork that made the band "mysterious". All the same, when I heard Projector, I swore it was a Swedish Tool. When I bought Mind's I, I realized how wrong I was.
Everyone growls...why be another body taking up space when you can be the life of the party? I like a certain amount of growling, but eventually, it becomes a moot, passe thing. In the early 80's, when vocal pitch shifters, distortion boxes, etc., were invented, guys like Napalm Death really exploited something that at the time was really neat (the original intent was to sound like a demon, presumably). But now, it's just...tired.
They wouldn't come up with Exile probably not because they couldn't, but because they've more or less "grown out of it". It depends on the individual instructor. One of my favorites, a guy named Danny Gill who used to play with a nu-metal band called Speak No Evil, started out as much of a neo-classicist Maidenite as anybody else (I'm assuming he's around 40...so he was in that time period of techniqueship). I used to go to Danny's OC every Friday, and he helped me figure out the names of the sounds I like and how to communicate it to other musicians...the difference between a "Maiden harmony, Slayer harmony, In Flames harmony"...it was essential in order for me to reproduce what I liked to hear.
Danny is kind of a bridge between old and new school, he's a technique monster, and very melodic, but he doesn't do it anymore because he got tired of it, and relies on other means to sound different, namely very unique sounds he can make with a guitar, and sliding from octave to octave and sounding like the neck is a mile long (something I still haven't mastered). Why he went nu-metal beats me (nu metal isn't exactly it, more like old Machinehead), but he just wanted a change. The reason why a lot of the stuff I liked wasn't appealing to him was because I guess he was seeing the "Maiden" skeleton underneath, over and over...I've heard it said that thousands of the most popular songs use about a half dozen chord progressions...and after a while, you start feeling constrained...like EVERYTHING possible has ever been done, and yet every few years someone comes back with a new or ignored or forgotten concept. When Chemical Wedding was new...I took it to him, and I swore it was the coolest thing...and he said "You know, I've heard Bruce's voice so much over the years, it's great, but, it's Maiden...". Even favorite old books one gets tired of rereading...he even made a joke about the DADGBE octave down riff at the beginning of King in Crimson sounding like "front-al lo-bot-o-my..." over and over, and how hard it was to get a good tone tuned that low that wasnt muddy...
I myself have even gotten tired of it a bit...I started humming a riff earlier, and thought it was DT, as I broke it down more, I realized it was actually Dimension Zero's "Your Darkest Hour"...it's all beginning to muddle together, although Glenn Ljungstrom made In Flames In Flames, and he's seriously underappreciated...when Bjorn started playing, they began to go poppish, like Colony.
Most of my music instructors like music for music's sake...they can find grains of worth in anything, even if they detest the style. But they're very "musician-y", which means it can be sterile. Many examples of when I was there (99-00) were taken from Dream Theater's then-new Falling Into Infinity...Petrucci's a great musician, don't get me wrong, but Dream Theater sounds so...overdone sometimes. Most of the rock guys like stuff like Paul Gilbert and Racer X, very technical, demanding stuff that demands hours and hours of practicing...at the same time, my private instructor (the one who spent the most time with me), loved Randy Rhoads even though he knew old Ozzy was kind of passe now. But most of the music instructors are looking for ways to be new and different, which is why they like their modes and weird world music and afro-cuban jazz...
So, although I can't be in their head an answer for them, they could definitely perform Time Passed in Exile...why don't they? Maybe you should have asked them 10 years ago.
About Skydancer, and clean vocals, Shadow Duet was the best, and also Firament on Gallery, because they're so mellow and melodic. Again, I tend to hate songs like Dissolution Factor Red and Atom Heart 243.5 because theyre a flurry of notes and it's done. I prefer writing fewer, longer songs, as few as 8, as many as 10, and try to make each one as distinct as I can...if I find I'm running out of material, just make the record shorter.
Gardenian on the other hand, I loved "Heartless" on Sindustries, and yet everyone tried to imply that Jim couldn't sing...I liked everything about Gardenian, I felt they were the heaviest band out of the In Flames camp, and Jim's voice was a more pleasant growl than Mikael's. Mikael's and, especially Anders Friden's, have kind of irked me sometimes, because Anders especially wants to sing high now, like newer Death, Carcass or Cancer, and yet still distort his vocals...it's almost as bad as Mikael's part that you can't understand, just before "We're entering the dimension behind space..." or whatever...sometimes it sounds like he's wheezing or has a chest cold...
So, sorry for the long post, but your reply really made me think, and all I can say is..DT has a lot in common with other bands, but you like the details that make DT DT in the same way someone might prefer Danzig over Type 0 or Manson over NIN. But I tend to see music in what makes it...the chords, the tuning, something all music shares...once you start studying the alphabet of the music, and seeing how the same musical "words" that make up DT make up Shania Twain (just used with different inflections, or in different ways), it tends to become one sea of sameness.
That's why a lot of people don't want to be technical musicians...they think it kills the fire...but I wrote a power ballad a while back, with a ton of guitar parts and little intricacies, and without my background, I would have never gotten past Green Day or Nirvana type riffs. It's a mixed blessing.
So if I'm ever down on a band, keep in mind, the fan part of me says yes, DT rocks and is original, but the musician and fan are intertwined and inseparable now, and where they overlap, the musician is always more skeptical and harder to please.
Here's something to consider...and now you'll see part of a musician's dilemma maybe...
How can metal get any heavier? It's been slow (Crowbar) it's been blazing fast (Slayer), it's been tuned to hell (Korn), it's even had its novelties (Slipknot)...
So how would you, in an up and coming metal band, make yourself stand out? All of it has been tried...
Siren said:
The covers are for fun, if you saw an earlier post of mine, I do covers to entice people to listen to my originals (hey, if he likes band X, which I also like, maybe his stuff will rock)...the covers are for fun/exposure/practice.
Also, I tend to play in a very Maidenite way...if I play a Corrosion of Conformity cover, a very different approach, it works different parts of my playing ability that wouldnt normally get done.
Lethe I have a few problems with...the levels when the bass plays alone just drop to nothing...and it's just...a flurry of notes, like all other stuff, when I think of DT, I think projector, when I think projector, I think slow mellow stuff like freecard or Undo Control, my favorite DT track...so firmament is definitely up my alley...I like DT more as a mysterious, Tool-ish like band that makes melodies and Ex Nihlio kind of creepy stuff than I do as, again, a barrage of 16th notes at 220 bpm...whereas I think of In Flames as the traditional Upon an Oaken Throne kind of vibe...and Gardenian as the heaviest of the three, but also the most poppish, in places. I like how Niklas Englin sounds jazzy in solos sometimes (actually, he's just playing the relative major, I think, which adds a sweeter tone to a normally minor solo...)
How does playing fast in Punish differ from playing fast in Dreamlore? It doesn't...everyone here talks about Skydancer's mellow tracks like Shadow Duet being best, and I love Ebony Archways...why? Because they're different, not just..."double bass for the next 2 hours, Anders..."
I like playing fast, don't get me wrong, but Damage is the best record since Projector because it has the heavy intro song, the melodic second song, the creepy final song, and my favorite on the CD, the oft neglected Poison Well and I, Deception. Pulling a Pantera and writing 12 songs that sound the same and go rawwrrr fuck you is just not enough...
And it has all been done...metal's very stagnant right now. Worldwide.
My original songs to this point are as follows
Man on a Mission (4:06)
Frailty (of the Human Atlas) 5:35
The Search (6:24)
Desolate (5:37)
Foresight (4:50)
Don't Ask Me Why (5:12)
Terra Incognita (in progress)
Destruction (5:38)
Like One Vast Bedlam (in progress)
last, untitled song in progress
Jesus fucking H, give it a bloody rest already, enjoy
the damn music and songs and don't fucking analyze
everything.
I am so damn glad most musicians actually have
brains and don't overthink like you do.
You should really go to the Opeth forum, those
people are just as anal as you, I'm sure you would
fit right in.
the damn music and songs and don't fucking analyze
everything.
I am so damn glad most musicians actually have
brains and don't overthink like you do.
You should really go to the Opeth forum, those
people are just as anal as you, I'm sure you would
fit right in.
Salamurhaaja said:
The only reason we look so intelligent is because there are hand-to-mouth ignoramuses like you who don't ask questions.
I didn't make you fucking read it. Mayhaps you should save 45 seconds and put me on ignore, so you don't have to see/reply to me.
If you think I'm anal, well, I've heard rumors about Mustaine's guitar techs...
Inflames626 said:
Who said you looked intelligent?
And who said I don't ask questions?
I just don't pick apart everything I like, I enjoy it and no I
don't have to understand all the technical shit to know if I
like something, I can listen to my feelings, not some fucking
text book on guitar wanking.
Inflames626 said:
Nah, I am like Arch in that sense, I like getting you drunk
on illusions of grandeur.
Dark_Jester
Unrepentant sentient
Villain
Doctor BenQuillity
I'll quote here only the parts I'm replying or referring to below:
I generally agree about Fredman, although I doubt you can really tell what's exactly his doing and what just comes from the band soundwise. Nevertheless, I admit my favorite songs could sound a lot worse if he weren't involved in the recording process.
Also agree with you on Ljungström - Worlds Within the Margin is still one of my all-time favorite In Flames tunes, possibly because it is so different from all the rest.
Why didn't your music inspectors do it 10 years ago then? Or if they did, where can I buy the album? My point remains: if they don't use their abilities to make music that I like, they have no musical value to me whatsoever.
And I definitely agree with you about the short fast songs vs. long melodic songs, although even here I prefer variety (within a song) the most - songs like Punish My Heaven, Tidal Tantrum, Nether Novas and Damage Done are at the top of my list because they change so abruptly from "flurry of notes" to extremely melodic. I also enjoy some of the more brutal songs, although generally not to the extent I enjoy the more varied ones. And I do know some people, who think Dissolution Factor Red & co. are the best DT-songs! That kind of people are just a very small minority around here.
Btw, do you like Opeth? From your description above, I would think yes, but I know many people have some issues with the band's approach - personally, I like them quite a lot.
And about the details in music: I think you hit the nail right here. It's amazing how such minor things can have such an effect on a person's mind - the reasons behind my liking of DT are probably unexplainable without a thorough psychoanalysis (and even that wouldn't necessarily be enough), but it is definitely based at least 99% upon irrational processes within my brain (or nervous system) - as I lack the knowledge to analyse the music, I will never stop enjoying it, unless the said processes change (which is of course possible through time).
You, however, remind me of my friend who studies movie-making. We watched together through the special edition of the Fellowship of the Ring (being both Tolkien-fans) a while ago. Less than 20 minutes into the movie, my friend tells me that there was a mistake in the cut: a shadow that should have been over someone's face disappeared when the camera-angle changed, telling my friend that it was not from the same shooting, but a piece of another shooting cut in there between. That was enough to break the illusion for my friend and it took him the next half an hour to "get back in" the movie once again! Which brings me to the conclusion that:
I'm pretty damn happy I never studied movie-making or music-theory.
Also, I sincerely hope that the "fan-side" of yours will never completely submit to that "musician-side" of yours.
Of course, there are some pieces of art that are probably above such loss of value caused by the knowledge of the spectator. No matter how much I studied literature, I doubt I would ever enjoy reading Silmarillion less than I have enjoyed reading it these past 25+ times. I wish the same would apply to many other things.
-Villain
Inflames626 said:
I generally agree about Fredman, although I doubt you can really tell what's exactly his doing and what just comes from the band soundwise. Nevertheless, I admit my favorite songs could sound a lot worse if he weren't involved in the recording process.
Also agree with you on Ljungström - Worlds Within the Margin is still one of my all-time favorite In Flames tunes, possibly because it is so different from all the rest.
Why didn't your music inspectors do it 10 years ago then? Or if they did, where can I buy the album? My point remains: if they don't use their abilities to make music that I like, they have no musical value to me whatsoever.
And I definitely agree with you about the short fast songs vs. long melodic songs, although even here I prefer variety (within a song) the most - songs like Punish My Heaven, Tidal Tantrum, Nether Novas and Damage Done are at the top of my list because they change so abruptly from "flurry of notes" to extremely melodic. I also enjoy some of the more brutal songs, although generally not to the extent I enjoy the more varied ones. And I do know some people, who think Dissolution Factor Red & co. are the best DT-songs! That kind of people are just a very small minority around here.
Btw, do you like Opeth? From your description above, I would think yes, but I know many people have some issues with the band's approach - personally, I like them quite a lot.
And about the details in music: I think you hit the nail right here. It's amazing how such minor things can have such an effect on a person's mind - the reasons behind my liking of DT are probably unexplainable without a thorough psychoanalysis (and even that wouldn't necessarily be enough), but it is definitely based at least 99% upon irrational processes within my brain (or nervous system) - as I lack the knowledge to analyse the music, I will never stop enjoying it, unless the said processes change (which is of course possible through time).
You, however, remind me of my friend who studies movie-making. We watched together through the special edition of the Fellowship of the Ring (being both Tolkien-fans) a while ago. Less than 20 minutes into the movie, my friend tells me that there was a mistake in the cut: a shadow that should have been over someone's face disappeared when the camera-angle changed, telling my friend that it was not from the same shooting, but a piece of another shooting cut in there between. That was enough to break the illusion for my friend and it took him the next half an hour to "get back in" the movie once again! Which brings me to the conclusion that:
I'm pretty damn happy I never studied movie-making or music-theory.
Also, I sincerely hope that the "fan-side" of yours will never completely submit to that "musician-side" of yours.
Of course, there are some pieces of art that are probably above such loss of value caused by the knowledge of the spectator. No matter how much I studied literature, I doubt I would ever enjoy reading Silmarillion less than I have enjoyed reading it these past 25+ times. I wish the same would apply to many other things.
-Villain
vagabond
your average stalker
No, im afraid you are mistaken.Inflames626 said:
You see i won DT off Mikael Stanne in a drunken poker game, hence MY Dark Tranquillity, hence MY forums, hence MY thread.
Please stop assuming ownership of this thread or you will hear from my lawyers (Kindly lended to me by James Hetfield)
Thankyou.
Dark_Jester
Unrepentant sentient
Post more vagabond 
As a law student, I'm curious to know, who exactly IS James Hetfields lawyer?
Villain said:
A few things here...
I got my ass showed to me by a few guys who I thought were pussy-ish and unmetal. I paid for assuming that something was only good if it is good to me. Although I hate jazz, I have a constant inferiority complex with it.
I watched a thing on PBS on night about 3 am...this guy showing grade schoolers the difference between merengues and salsas and latin jazz and all that...I hated the music...it sounded so..."off noodling" somewhere and never really made a point...it sounded like elevator music
but I'm scared shitless of it...why? It's harder to play than metal, once metal's physicalness is mastered (no mistakes, etc.)
I've seen the Tolkien phenomenon, and it often deals with more than just that...usually anything with a "cult" status, X Files, anime, Anne Rice, what have you, and it will probably draw all the kiddies and freaks out of the woodwork to see yet another upcoming goth-vampire sexy chick in leather (Kate Beckinsdale) psuedo-lesbian BDSM film fuckfest that is Underworld. But back to my point. Usually people who do that have already overcome the "fan" phase and it begins to become something more akin to a craft...
Example. I like Baroque better than modern art. Why? Because I see art, music, etc., as more of a craft overcoming the difficulty of the skill than I do as an artform. The art is in the skill and the painstaking difficulty of it all, not in the creation of an artistic metaphor. I could shit on a canvas and say it represented the merit of Salad's opinions, and some people would think it's the greatest thing in the universe (a la Jackson Pollack) because of what it REPRESENTS and not what it IS. I'm not interested in conceptual relationships...I'm interested in how painstakingly you can create something visually stunning like the Sistine Chapel. Why? Because I can say "Hey, shit represents Salad's brain functions." and it's over...any novelty in the relationship ends right there, and only because the artist +wants+ it to be that way. Why is the technical stuff more impressive? Because its very existence validates the gee-whiz effect, and you need no subjectiveness to evaluate the majesty of it all.
Something else. Why is it important for me to know what Fredrik Nordstrom does? Because I want to do that job...most people see a musical career is a couple things that are totally untrue, being 1) a fantasy life full of ideas and an ideological crusade of comicbook proportions (Marylin Manson-ites, NIN--this goes away usually sometime in the mid-twenties) or 2) a drunken 24/7 party in which practicing and taking it seriously are totally unimportant as long as the lifestyle is kept intact (Oasis, KISS). Most people either have a wall between what they want to do/are doing, in which "Man I'd love to do that job, but there's no way I will." or, they simply assume it's too hard and don't bother. I see the bridge between garage band and signed act being quite poreous, depending on the kind of musician.
There are three kinds of musicians, however. There are superstars, there are medium range bands, and there are studio musiciains. The last is hardest and least gratifying of it all. The first is the easiest and most rewarding, while being very stressful. The middle gets elements of both. Superstars are mass produced and created by musical genres no matter how counter-culture it tries to be...Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax being a case in point. These guys have such immense respect it's gone beyond what they make, just that they make.
The middle teer is where I see our beloved Gothenburg movement. Because the bands often don't have the required money or exposure, a lot of things that need to get done are assumed by the band. They usually know a bit about producing themselves (Anders Friden), are awesome musicians, or are artists that dabble in other things to help the band movement (Sundin). These guys are still of the garage-band mentality not to forget that it's about the music, but they've made it big enough to a point to where they can dabble in idealism (monochromatic stains video, creating a band "sound/concept/mythology"). They work the tenuous middle ground, often too preoccupied with day to day things to go way over the top, but comfortable enough to where they can engage in the band's "cult of personality".
The studio musician is the hardest, and his job is what most "fans" can't stand because it objectifies all tastes and novelties for the sake of being efficient and a good worker. These guys work in films, on CDs of major artists like Sting and Paul Simon, and they're the guys people like my teachers tended to accept most. They're too busy going job-by-job to make a living, and have to be the most competent musicians ready to play any style with the same ability when asked. Views like salad's of anti-overanalyzation will not work here, because, while the musician may have a preferred style, is primary goal is to create what his employer wants...music on demand. And for that to happen, you have to work without getting burned out, which means you have to kind of emotionally distance yourself from your work with expressions like "...a jazz sort of vibe..." etc. Eventually, it all becomes music, and less and less a phenomenon or some cool trend that nobody can do save God's disciple sent to earth Trent Reznor. Eventually, the ideology view begins to look quite juvenile. Why is the studio musician so prevalent? Because these people often can't develop a uniqueness or what have you in an overcrowded musical market, or an on stage persona (theyre often too serious for that), but they can offer what 9/10 people can't do...thousands of hours of musicianship skills. They support the "personalities".
Maybe this is the studio musician part of me, but if you're spending thousands of dollars in studio, don't make songs that sound the same. It's a waste of time...make firmament, make undo control, make tongues, make ebony archways, and put them on the same record. Sometimes though, ideas just don't come to you, and that's cool, but my point is, every song should have a hook, a strong point...and tongues, although it sounds a lot like the other fast songs, is one of the better ones because again Anders drumming saves the day (IMO). I'd rather have a Nevermind kind of album in which every song gets a video, and only make one record, than to have 200 songs and have 20 be hits.
I haven't had the time much to get into Opeth. Right now I'm acquiring all the Arch Enemy stuff, then probably Grip, Inc.
So, I see your point about the Tolkien thing. I have a friend who is a walking "fantasy fiction" trivia box, even going back to the old 80's animated LOR. But he doesn't want to write such things himself, probably because he's a manager and is too much of a realist to engage in such things.
For some people it kills it, for some it doesn't, The funny thing is, the "personality" people and the ideological "rockstars" are usually the first ones to get burned out when it gets technical or musical, because all they want to do is save the whales (the hilarious thing is, they take themselves so seriously, they think a stupid band's record is going to change the world). The people who don't have much to say create things like "Fields of Gold"...
In conclusion, I think the ideologues are a lot like little kids in a store...buy me that, buy me that, when they don't realize that it takes mommy's credit card to make it happen. They want the success and attentions via a public relations shortcut. Because they know they're not all that creative/talented, they team up with people who make them into entities, Manson, N'Sync, etc., because they can't get people's attention musically or ideawise, they have to create something larger than life to compensate. There are exceptions (Prince), but for most of these people, they want the KISS part of being a rockstar, and none of the Dream Theater...
I'd be ashamed of myself, with such a view.
Dark_Jester
Unrepentant sentient
Villain
Doctor BenQuillity
About BattleTech:
BTech as a whole was definitely NOT a ripoff from Robotech/Macros - only a few of the early mecha was taken from there, but the real strength of BTech was always the socio-military-politically heavy background that made the game unique. There was a huge amount of thought put into the first House Books, making the whole idea of 31st centure feudal lords fighting each other with huge robotic warmachines - if not quite realistic - at least believable within its own concept. Too bad Stackpole, Nystul & co. were allowed to ruin all that - the Clans were basically a good idea to prevent the world from stagnating (around year 1990), but it was executed very poorly, resulting in the huge inherent contradictions between the older and newer source-material. MechWarrior 2 had very little to do with the fate of BTech, as the downhill started before it already, IMHO.
Still, the game is great, even with all the recent stuff (although I do prefer the 3020's era storywise) - it just takes so damn long to play, that only very rarely we get to play it anymore (not even once this summer, although I have a nice full scenario made...)
I will get into anime tomorrow, but this line here requires a short comment:
This is like saying: "I know what kind of music Gardenian is like, I saw the backcover of their latest album", or: "I know what kind of car the new Ferrari is, I saw a picture of it in the net".
Or do you usually review movies by movie-posters? Huh?
The few anime you mentioned are all barely average, apart from Princess Mononoke, which is definitely about as good as any 80's Studio Ghibli film - it doesn't necessarily differ muchin style from its predecessors, but the story in it is definitely unique in anime.
I recommend you watch some modern anime TV-series through and then compare them to Robotech & co. You should see how far anime has gone in less than two decades, especially quality-wise. Series like Neon Genesis Evangelion, Noir, Berserk, Last Exile, X (TV-series, not the movie) are way above anything done before them in their respective genres (and some of them are very hard to put within any genre, simply because they are so original in concept). Comparing them to Robotech & co. is more like comparing modern metal to medieval folk-music: the same roots are there, yes, but the gap is huge.
Oh, and remember to watch all your anime in Japanese, many English dubs leave huge gaps in the plot - just follow the subs and listen to the original superior voice-acting.
-Villain
BTech as a whole was definitely NOT a ripoff from Robotech/Macros - only a few of the early mecha was taken from there, but the real strength of BTech was always the socio-military-politically heavy background that made the game unique. There was a huge amount of thought put into the first House Books, making the whole idea of 31st centure feudal lords fighting each other with huge robotic warmachines - if not quite realistic - at least believable within its own concept. Too bad Stackpole, Nystul & co. were allowed to ruin all that - the Clans were basically a good idea to prevent the world from stagnating (around year 1990), but it was executed very poorly, resulting in the huge inherent contradictions between the older and newer source-material. MechWarrior 2 had very little to do with the fate of BTech, as the downhill started before it already, IMHO.
Still, the game is great, even with all the recent stuff (although I do prefer the 3020's era storywise) - it just takes so damn long to play, that only very rarely we get to play it anymore (not even once this summer, although I have a nice full scenario made...)
I will get into anime tomorrow, but this line here requires a short comment:
Inflames626 said:
This is like saying: "I know what kind of music Gardenian is like, I saw the backcover of their latest album", or: "I know what kind of car the new Ferrari is, I saw a picture of it in the net".
Or do you usually review movies by movie-posters? Huh?
The few anime you mentioned are all barely average, apart from Princess Mononoke, which is definitely about as good as any 80's Studio Ghibli film - it doesn't necessarily differ muchin style from its predecessors, but the story in it is definitely unique in anime.
I recommend you watch some modern anime TV-series through and then compare them to Robotech & co. You should see how far anime has gone in less than two decades, especially quality-wise. Series like Neon Genesis Evangelion, Noir, Berserk, Last Exile, X (TV-series, not the movie) are way above anything done before them in their respective genres (and some of them are very hard to put within any genre, simply because they are so original in concept). Comparing them to Robotech & co. is more like comparing modern metal to medieval folk-music: the same roots are there, yes, but the gap is huge.
Oh, and remember to watch all your anime in Japanese, many English dubs leave huge gaps in the plot - just follow the subs and listen to the original superior voice-acting.
-Villain
