Impure Metal: How Underground Heavy Metal Became Mainstream Heavy Music

[Laeth MacLaurie]

But the article isn't about *metal* history in general, it's about how metal gets diluted and watered down by outside forces.

The article tries to draw a line of cause and effect between the most obvious sell-outs of the late 80's/early 90's (in truth, speed metal as a genre had sold out long before in that the bands continued to make music in a style whose creative possibilities were exhausted) and the metalcore phenomenon of the first years of the new millennium. This is only viable if he can show a continuing impact on metal during the intervening years, otherwise, it is, at best, an example of parallel development (and not really even that, since metalcore never had any sort of genuine credibility to begin with). Since he has completely failed to account for the musical strains that dominated those intervening years, all he's actually managed to develop here is 50 pages that prove that yes, Metallica sold out and, no, Lamb of God has no artistic credibility either.

It comes across as just so much scenester bullshit. "Well, all these sucky bands aren't really metal anyway." It doesn't really matter whether the Black Album (or The Black Dhalia Murder) are "metal." The fact is, they fucking suck, but no more so than derivative crap with purely (or at least acceptably) metal pedigrees like Coma of Souls and Municipal Waste.

He didn't touch on the Columbia-Earache fiasco, which is the only valid item I would think fits both your criticism here and what Dave was focusing on.

Which is the point. He's skipped the intervening years because they do not support his model, but for the direct connection he insists on to exist, it would have to be in evidence throughout the 90's as well and be found somewhere outside the American speed metal scene. His argument falls apart because if fails to account for the dominant strains of metal or the decade or more between the first series of events he describes and the current era.

Yes, it happens now through corporations and record labels, but such things are irrelevant to people interested in music as art.

If you're interested in art as communication, the only way you're ever going to get that art to the people (i.e. exist as something other than just another demo only band no one outside town is aware of) you want to communicate with is through the corporate distribution system.

An individual can record without financial backing, he can publish his music on tape, vinyl, CD, MP3, or however he wants, he can sell those items to individuals or distributors as best he can.

Of course, and a composer of the 18th century could have stuck to street busking and playing in the local church, but that's not the same as actually reaching a significant audience, just as a self-released album isn't the same as actually having label support.

Bullshit. You can't claim that no musician in 1000 years pandered to an audience and that only innovative, ingenious music was made.

Yeah, and the crap wasn't retained for posterity, whereas I will have to spend the rest of my life being assaulted by prole shit like the Beatles every time I venture into public. Friedrich von Bumfuck is lost to history, "Enter Sandman" is here for eternity.

Just for shits and giggles, explain to me the difference between "the community" that shaped folk music and "the commercial system" that shapes popular music.

Let's see, I mean, there can't possibly be any difference between a local community making free music solely for its own enjoyment and edification and the commercial development of music to be distributed and sold as a commodity, right?

Individuals may have "no fully independent existence", but they have the full capability of arranging different sounds in specific order, they have the full capability of then presenting that music to other people however they think is possible. Creative freedom does exist.

No one argued that it didn't I don't see how the possibility of creative freedom is relevant to the discussion at hand. Individuals still exist within a structural context and behave in a fairly predictable manner based upon the interactions with those underlying social, ideological, psychological and economic structures. The dissipation of youthful anger and revolt in the absence of larger goals or ideals is well understood and inevitable, and it explains why angry outsider artists inevitably become complacent insiders of one sort of another unless they have some sort of continuing motivation.

... and if it doesn't, musicians today still have a much larger musical universe to draw inspiration from than anybody from the classical era.

And yet, they do far less with greater known possibilities... Not a great argument for the current system.

I fail to see how the old ways of doing things is any less restricting. I don't see how you can argue about commercial systems and bands that rehash their material, and then complain that true talent not being able to be heard.

The old system removed the clutter, and largely ensured that artists with nothing to say didn't get to say anything. What was truly worthy and excellent rose to the top and was given the time to develop fully, and everything else was silenced. There is no perfect system, but the old ways were far closer to the ideal than what we have now.

Is your complaint really that there are no "transcendent talents" today

Of course there are transcendent talents, but these get buried under a tidal wave of shit because it's far easier (and more profitable) to market shit music to stupid people than to locate and develop transcendent talents that will appeal to the few truly superior people. The old system ensured that the power was in the hands of those fit to wield it; the commercial system privileges the idiot masses. Fuck that. Most people are barely smart enough to tie their shoes, a healthy system would ignore what they want. They are unfit to have opinions.

Direct quotes and references are "masturbatory self-congratulation"?

They are certainly filler fluff when the argument they are pulled out to support is as weak as this one was. That's masturbatory in my book.

 

[Laeth MacLaurie]

Again, this is not a comprehensive history and that means it is not an all-inclusive linear history of metal in the broadest sense of the term. I chose an event and then provided some case studies of the effects this prior event had on the present—this is an exploratory piece in some respects (this is why articles are written) and is not a seamless and flawless piece of work, but something that is designed to raise points and pass along some information that I believe is important.

The problem is that the point you've raised can't actually be demonstrated without reference to what happened between the to two event horizons you describe. You can't draw a causal relationship between something that happened in 1991 and something that happened in 2003 without tracing in through, say, 1997. It would have been worth noting, for instance, that the Gothenburg 'melodic death metal' scene of the mid to late 90's was one of dominant influences on contemporary metalcore. But this was a product, not of any deliberate sellout or pressure from the metal press, but rather of bands turning going the "roots" route in the wake of death metal's post-1995 creative obsolescence, so it didn't fit within your hypothesis and thus, was ignored.

If someone was to write a history of how black metal became mainstream music (the road from Emperor and Mayhem to Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir) you would have to include a detailed discussion of nu-metal in this history of black metal using your logic.

Only if nu-metal was a direct influence on the end product. However, a direct line between those bands can obviously be drawn, and the history of the collapse of black metal can be understood through an analysis of the structure and internal history of the subgenre. An internal analysis of the history of speed metal doesn't tell us how we arrived at Shadows Fall.

It was a genre of metal that dominated metal during the time period, but really would have little to do with black metal. But you are probably one of these people who believe that any black metal not made in a dank, unfurnished basement and hand numbered with blood-tinged goat semen by the light of a candle made with the fat of a skinned wombat might as well be Korn. Again, this is an exploratory and somewhat fragmentary history of "underground heavy metal" not black metal or death metal.

Personally, I believe that any band, black metal or otherwise, that substitutes the phony elitism and social pandering of limited releases and the like for creating actually elite art and having something to say might as well, as you say, be Korn. I'm content to leave that kind of crap to the FMP kiddies.

As your comments above prove Laeth MacLaurie, Planetary Eulogy, or whatever the hell you chose to call yourself next time you post--many people regarded black metal and death metal as some great evolutionary leap that had revealed heavy metal to be something inferior and idiotic and did not care if bands made music after 1986, 1988, 1991 or whatever other arbitrary date you choose to deem something to be too commodified to be worthy of consideration.

Certainly death metal, and, in particular, black metal, developed the conceptual (artistic) basis of metal further than the previous generations of metal artists did, but this was as giants standing on the shoulders of giants. Was speed metal creatively dead before the 90's ever hit? Certainly. Does that invalidate what it produced between 1981 and 1987? Of course not. But to attribute the genre's demise to some sort of vast media/corporate/top band conspiracy rather than its own internal obsolescence is silly.

Is using a different screen name a way to disassociate yourself from the previous statements you made or is this just the electronic equivalent of a political Astroturf-campaign--

I switched usernames because I was having problems with my Laeth MacLaurie login. Good of you to attribute ulterior motives where there are none though. I shouldn't be surprised that you see conspiracies everywhere after wading through 45 pages of your paranoia and persecution complexes...

 

[Occam's Razor]

If Dave's 45 pages are so petty, paranoid and flawed - why do you spend so much time on commenting on them? - Do you want to improve that "scene" you allegedly hate so much?

 

[Occam's Razor]

Another thing: what does it say about the superiority of black metal when it has hardly had an influence on thrash/power/speed/goth/whatever, but has itself adopted a lot of elerments from these genres?

My-genre-is-better-than-yours is a stupid game. It's good or bad music - in any style.

 

[Laeth MacLaurie]

I give you that Coroner-reference (as an influence in some riffs, but no downright copying), but other than speed combined with technicality, I see no "cloning" of the Cynic-demos (you mean their last ones before "Focus").

I'm thinking specifically of Reflections of a Dying World and the 1990 demo, which sound a lot like Human without the kiddie metal choruses.

What is candy-coated about songs that most musicians nowadays fail to cover in an appropriated way? - I'm thinking of everything from "Human" on...

I don't know, could it be the silly pretense of wrapping stupid simple songs in superficially complex musicianship and selling it as 'different' to the gullible?

But this behaviour of yours is quite usual for people who praise little Varg's oeuvre as complete genius - no mosh, no core, no fun, you know - and therefore no "real metal" or "life metal", as Schuldliner explained it.

How about "no crappy, derivative 'metal' that completely inverts everything metal stands for ideologically and conceptually"?

He was probably not beyond criticism, but for sure a person of integrity, unassuming and honest

Yep, nothing says "integrity" like ditching your band the day before an overseas tour because you think you can make more money recording a new album with other musicians. There's a reason Schuldiner could never keep a lineup together from one album to the next, and the reason is that he was an insincere, disloyal dickhead, who spent much of the last years of his life sniping at other bands in the press and generally disparaging death metal to the delight of the pseudo-intellects who desperately wanted to believe his music was somehow "different." Not to mention his carefully cultivated Christ-complex and all the other rock star bullshit, or the ridiculous, revisionist hagiographies that emerged in the wake of his none-to-soon passing.

 

[Laeth MacLaurie]

Another thing: what does it say about the superiority of black metal when it has hardly had an influence on thrash/power/speed/goth/whatever, but has itself adopted a lot of elerments from these genres?

1. Who said anything about superiority? That seems to be your concern. I couldn't care less.

2. You know, usually one has to, you know, pre-date others to be a significant influence. Power and speed metal were already established entities (indeed, deep in the thralls of creative rigor mortis) by the time modern black metal exploded in the early 1990s, and all the "goth" metal I've come across has pretty substantial influences from the early 90s Norse scene.

 

[Laeth MacLaurie]

If Dave's 45 pages are so petty, paranoid and flawed - why do you spend so much time on commenting on them? - Do you want to improve that "scene" you allegedly hate so much?

They deal, however ineptly, with an interesting question. I merely provide an alternative interpretation, which Dave seems to have interpreted as a personal attack (not uncommon among the insecure, I know, but still a silly response).

 

[Laeth MacLaurie]

Beethoven, Bach and many others had an immense output not only because they were talented, but because they were forced - work on clerical obligation to make a living for family with numerous children.

But the system didn't demand a process of forced novelty with each piece, allowing natural artistic development to occur over time.

You cannot blame the recording business only for leaving no "time to develop" - distractions have grown over the years, the more so with new media, and modern day systems don't allow the muse to unfold herself, nor do they appreciate it.

And why are the other distractions an issue? Because the recording industry wants it to be so. They want lucrative tours and demand that their artists pimp things for the media, that they play ball with the marketing games etc. The "distractions" are all of the industry's making. The industry is part and parcel of the media, and they're the ones who don't want artistic development, which is costly to them and interferes with the next-big-thing cycle marketing scam.

 

[Occam's Razor]

the kiddie metal choruses.

For example, Mr grown-up-listener?

I don't know, could it be the silly pretense of wrapping stupid simple songs in superficially complex musicianship and selling it as 'different' to the gullible?

Burzum's "Rundgang um die trasnszendentale Säule..." repeats 3 notes on keyboard for minutes on end and nothing else without lyrics: that is indeed not simple, very different and metal both ideologically and conceptually.

How about "no crappy, derivative 'metal' that completely inverts everything metal stands for ideologically and conceptually"?

You have eaten that concept and iedology by pails, haven't you?

Yep, nothing says "integrity" like ditching your band the day before an overseas tour because you think you can make more money recording a new album with other musicians. There's a reason Schuldiner could never keep a lineup together from one album to the next, and the reason is that he was an insincere, disloyal dickhead, who spent much of the last years of his life sniping at other bands in the press and generally disparaging death metal to the delight of the pseudo-intellects who desperately wanted to believe his music was somehow "different." Not to mention his carefully cultivated Christ-complex and all the other rock star bullshit, or the ridiculous, revisionist hagiographies that emerged in the wake of his none-to-soon passing.

There is two sides of your "ditching"-story, the entire truth will probably remain unknow forever. Seeing how the "abandoned" ex-musicians behaved back then and how they are still basking in the afterglow of their former association with Death, my sympathy is clearly on Chuck's side.
A core line-up was cristallizing towards the end, indicating that Chuck had learned from his own mistakes. There are certain people he was sticking to all the time (Steve DiGiorgio). The music was not pseudo intellectual or better or wore than any other, yet unique - say what you will. Then, the star-bullshit was cultivated by others, the more so after his death. Remember what happened to people killed and others going to prison for that?

 

[Occam's Razor]

But the system didn't demand a process of forced novelty with each piece, allowing natural artistic development to occur over time.

Nonsense, Bach had to deliver novelty for Sunday church on a weekly basis at times.

And why are the other distractions an issue? Because the recording industry wants it to be so. They want lucrative tours and demand that their artists pimp things for the media, that they play ball with the marketing games etc. The "distractions" are all of the industry's making. The industry is part and parcel of the media, and they're the ones who don't want artistic development, which is costly to them and interferes with the next-big-thing cycle marketing scam.

it is not the recording industry that developed mass media, it just makes use of it, no news from you here...

 

[DBB]

The article tries to draw a line of cause and effect between the most obvious sell-outs of the late 80's/early 90's (in truth, speed metal as a genre had sold out long before in that the bands continued to make music in a style whose creative possibilities were exhausted) and the metalcore phenomenon of the first years of the new millennium. This is only viable if he can show a continuing impact on metal during the intervening years, otherwise, it is, at best, an example of parallel development (and not really even that, since metalcore never had any sort of genuine credibility to begin with). Since he has completely failed to account for the musical strains that dominated those intervening years, all he's actually managed to develop here is 50 pages that prove that yes, Metallica sold out and, no, Lamb of God has no artistic credibility either.

This is nonsense. You are reading things into the article that are just not there. The article is about the marketing of heavy metal and people like Leander Gloversmith are the ones attempting to draw a line between the classic metal of the past and the metalcore of the present--not me. At no point do I make the argument that Metallica, Anthrax, etc. are directly responsible for metalcore. You want to turn this into a conversation about the musical evolution of metal in the broadest sense of the term, so you have a platform to air your views on music appreciation instead of actually focusing on the material presented in the article--the way that classic, traditional, heavy metal is packaged and marketed by the media, labels, and bands mentioned in the article.

I could be mistaken. If so, please point out to me where in the article I claim that metalcore is a direct product of older thrash bands.

You are free to draw whatever you want out of the article, but you should at least make an attempt at honoring the argument and topics contained in the article instead of typing about any subject that pops into your head.

It is a waste of our time to talk to each other though. You cannot even bring yourself to say the word "thrash," a term that was in circulation before your cutoff date of 1986 (e.g. Razor "Thrashdance") because of the half-baked ideas it conjures up in your brain and I regard much of what you would consider art of the highest order to be little more than self-centered tripe. But I am glad that the article has elicited such a strong reaction from you (maybe you should try your hand at it, instead of rambling on incoherently with no evidence beyond your opinion to back up what you say). I wrote this with an audience in mind and it was not designed to appeal to disgruntled Burzum fans who wish that only 999 or 665 other people possess the same sound recording, so, in the end, I cannot say that I am surprised at your reaction and am pleased by it in all honesty.

As for misinterpeting your earlier statements as attacks because I am insecure, I could point out that you called my maturity into question, Jim is "Jackoff Jim," Chuck S. is a "cocksucker," and accused me of writing this piece for financial gain before I really started to get a bit testy, but it would be a bit of a fib if I said that these were the only reasons--because anyone who thinks that Varg V. is a genius worthy of emulating is considered a spank right out of the gate and it is incredibly difficult for me to converse with them without letting ridicule seep in around the edges from the get-go.

 

[DBB]

prole

And fucking proud of it.

 

[Occam's Razor]

And fucking proud of it.

great!!

 

[Laeth MacLaurie]

For example, Mr grown-up-listener?

Every single song on the album, but the worst offenders are "Suicide Machine," "Together as One," "Lack of Comprehension" and "Vacant Planets." The last three consist almost entirely of chorus. FAIL.

Burzum's "Rundgang um die trasnszendentale Säule..." repeats 3 notes on keyboard for minutes on end and nothing else without lyrics: that is indeed not simple, very different and metal both ideologically and conceptually.

It's an ambient piece, for starters, and makes no pretense of being metal. That said, it is far more in line with the nihilistic spirit of metal than any of Chuck's liberal hogwash.

There is two sides of your "ditching"-story, the entire truth will probably remain unknow forever.

Bullshit. The entire truth is ALREADY known. Chuck found out that some guys he wanted to record with were free and figured out the Euro tour was going to be a big money loser for the band, so he just fucked the rest of the band over to satisfy his own impulse. It was shitty move no matter how you spin it.

A core line-up was cristallizing towards the end, indicating that Chuck had learned from his own mistakes.

What core lineup? He had a different lineup on EVERY SINGLE ALBUM.

There are certain people he was sticking to all the time (Steve DiGiorgio).

Nevermind that Steve Digiorgio last played with Death on Individual Thought Patterns in 1993.

The music was not pseudo intellectual or better or wore than any other, yet unique - say what you will.

Unique? It was always a dumbed down rehash of the work of others. There are no ideas anywhere in Death's catalogue that originated with Chuck Schuldiner, and no amount of fanboy revisionism will change that.

 

[Laeth MacLaurie]

Nonsense, Bach had to deliver novelty for Sunday church on a weekly basis at times.

Not at all. Like choir masters and organists today, Bach had an enormous catalog of already existing music to choose from, and often did (and it should be noted that many of his organ pieces are improvistional works based on existing music).

it is not the recording industry that developed mass media, it just makes use of it, no news from you here...

The recording industry was never seperate from the mass media. It is and always was a part of that media.

 

[Laeth MacLaurie]

This is nonsense. You are reading things into the article that are just not there. The article is about the marketing of heavy metal and people like Leander Gloversmith are the ones attempting to draw a line between the classic metal of the past and the metalcore of the present--not me. At no point do I make the argument that Metallica, Anthrax, etc. are directly responsible for metalcore.

Bullshit, you make the direct charge that the actions of bands like Metallica and Anthrax made it "safe" for bands to use metal as a cover for moneygrubbing, and that this allowed labels and the press to successfully associate metal and non-metal. You can go back and retroactively deny it, but that doesn't change the fact that you've advanced an argument that is the intellectual kissing-cousin of "Dissent emboldens the terrorists." And, of course, the structure of the article itself implies a connection between the two. The problem is that you never get around to constructing an actual argument in favor of the conclusion you clearly want people to make. Now, having been called on your bullshit, you're backpedalling and trying to claim you didn't actually say what you said.

It is a waste of our time to talk to each other though. You cannot even bring yourself to say the word "thrash,"

"Thrash" refers to the skateboard subculture and the punk/speed metal hybrid musical form that emerged from it (D.R.I., C.O.C. etc.) and was only retroactively applied to speed metal when a few people began (improperly) associating the speed metal tag with bands like Helloween in the mid-80s.

But I am glad that the article has elicited such a strong reaction from you (maybe you should try your hand at it, instead of rambling on incoherently with no evidence beyond your opinion to back up what you say).

As opposed to you, who presented evidence that doesn't actually have any connection with what he wishes to imply? I manage to make a point in 3 paragraphs and you manage to glob together sloppy prose for 45 pages without ever actually demonstrating the point you attempt to make and I'm the one who is rambling?

I wrote this with an audience in mind and it was not designed to appeal to disgruntled Burzum fans who wish that only 999 or 665 other people possess the same sound recording, so, in the end, I cannot say that I am surprised at your reaction and am pleased by it in all honesty.

Wow, the best you can come up with is some sort of backhanded jab at the FMP mentality? FAIL.

As for misinterpeting your earlier statements as attacks because I am insecure, I could point out that you called my maturity into question,

Yes, after you acted like a spastic child when faced with an alternative interpretation of events.

Jim is "Jackoff Jim,"

His rag is noted for it's nearly sexual love of masturbatory writing and masturbatory music. The moniker is perfect.

Chuck S. is a "cocksucker," and accused me of writing this piece for financial gain before I really started to get a bit testy,

Are you that incapable of distinguishing between sarcasm and an actual accusation? Even an idiot shouldn't have any trouble parsing the comment and getting to its meaning; you replied with two fairly lengthy paragraphs where a single sentence would have conveyed exactly the same information.

because anyone who thinks that Varg V. is a genius worthy of emulating is considered a spank right out of the gate and it is incredibly difficult for me to converse with them without letting ridicule seep in around the edges from the get-go.

In other words, actual art is of no interest to you, but you were deeply saddened to see populist garbage like Metallica become even more populist garbage, thus ruining the sense of individuality and worth you got from listening to musical product... I see.

 

[Occam's Razor]

It's an ambient piece, for starters, and makes no pretense of being metal. That said, it is far more in line with the nihilistic spirit of metal than any of Chuck's liberal hogwash.

Couldn't care less about amateur-ambient...I do not feel any ambience there. The style defines for me "elevator music" anyway...

Ah, "liberal hogwash"...I see where the wind blows now...

If metal for you in its essence is nothing but nihilism you have understood nothing about it.



If you read carefully what has been written in numerous interviews with him and others involved, you quickly realize that some of those people (Hoglan, DiGiorgio) have not been at hand at certain times as much as he would have wished it. Don't get me wrong, i do not want to defend any hero of mine here, it is just beyond me how you can flog a dead man here. There are probably many other people who'd deserve to be dragged through the dirt for not-so-noble behaviour.

DiGiorgio played last on the Control Denied album and will finish the still unreleased postmortem sophomore, as he tells on his board and to me personally when Sadus where over here in Europe a couple years ago.

Go read your Vikernes-masturbation and tell me about fanboy-revisionism. I wonder if one could "dumb down" that guy's high brow philosophies...

 

[Jim LotFP]

OK. Here's the way things are going to be:

I don't want to be a censor, but this is well out of hand. No blatantly racist language in either the post or a signature will be tolerated. Anyone holding those views are still welcome to post here with their opinions on other topics. Any post containing such language will be completely deleted from this point forward, so uncheck that 'include my signature' box when posting.

If anyone wants to continue to discuss the merits of Burzum, start a new thread. Any further post addressing the subject in this thread will be deleted.

If anyone wants to continue to discuss Chuck Schuldiner, start a new thread. Any further post addressing the subject in this thread will be deleted.

If anyone wants to discuss my writing style, again, new thread.

Posts discussing, agreeing with, or criticizing the content or writing style of the Impure Metal article are still open, and should be the only things happening in this thread. We will all stop the insulting language immediately.

 

[Occam's Razor]

Yes, dad.

 

[DBB]

Bullshit, you make the direct charge that the actions of bands like Metallica and Anthrax made it "safe" for bands to use metal as a cover for moneygrubbing, and that this allowed labels and the press to successfully associate metal and non-metal. You can go back and retroactively deny it, but that doesn't change the fact that you've advanced an argument that is the intellectual kissing-cousin of "Dissent emboldens the terrorists." And, of course, the structure of the article itself implies a connection between the two. The problem is that you never get around to constructing an actual argument in favor of the conclusion you clearly want people to make. Now, having been called on your bullshit, you're backpedalling and trying to claim you didn't actually say what you said.

I am not “backpedaling” about anything. You were making statements such as "Metallica wanted more money, and hired Bob Rock, therefore Avenged Sevenfold." and commenting on the influence the Swedish style of melodic death had on metalcore to expose my supposed ignorance of how music evolves over time without any reference to the material or arguments contained in the article. As I said before, I really didn’t want to lead people through my article by the nose pointing out what everything meant and beating people over the head with my viewpoints, and this approach/methodology accounts for some of the less than clear conclusions you mention above.

I deliberately left the article a bit open ended at times in order to let people draw their own conclusions from the evidence I present--this can be frustrating for some, but, unlike you, I have faith in people’s ability to make a reasoned judgment about what I am saying and what they make of it. Hell, I have not gone and read over the article since it was posted, and I can guarantee that if I sat down and read it this afternoon, there would be issues or points that would appear new or different to me. In other words, it is an article written by a human hand about human beings, so to construct an absolutely infallible or omniscient narrative is impossible, but I can live with this and believe that I came close to the heart/truth of the matter.

The reading of the evidence you present above is somewhat close to what I would draw from it, so you are certainly getting warmer but not quite there yet. I would not, as you implied before, go so far to say that metalcore as a musical form would never have existed if the redefinition of metal chronicled in the second section of the article had not occurred--but such a fast and loose use of the term has certainly enabled Terrorizer and lord knows who else to argue that bands like TBDM, Arch Enemy, etc are living embodiments of “classic metal values,” emptying these values of all meaning by not taking the past (or the present for that matter) into account and allowing others to present Wolf Eyes, Lightning Bolt and bands of this ilk as metal--that is another story though.

As I said before, you are free to walk away (you are having a great deal of trouble walking away from it though )from the article with whatever impressions you want. Obviously, I have struck an unsympathetic chord somewhere deep in side you and you are deeply disturbed by the manner in which I chronicle events/actions in the article and, at risk of repeating myself, given the dismissive and derogatory opinions you appear to hold about everything and everyone, I am not surprised at your reaction or attempts to dismiss the article out of hand.

If you sat down and wrote a similar article, I and many others would do the same about your take on the mess that is metal in the broadest sense of the term--probably quite a bit more in your case, since you have such a narrow base of taste. I am not delusional, and when I wrote this I knew that there were going to be numerous people out there who would not agree with me or even respect what I had to say, so it was a bit of a fool’s errand from the beginning, but this did not stop me and it will probably not do so in the future. I am also secure enough about what I have written to let you have the last word or continue to flail about attacking and insulting me while disingeniously claiming not to be doing so and will be busy with other matters that do not involve staring at a computer screen for a few days, so knock yourself out.