With the exception of some articles forwarded to me by Ben, this was my first exposure to LotFP, or any other web-zine for that matter. I must preface my review by saying that I'm a child of the 80s, a 40-something, west-coast metalhead, and if we were to check the METAL borometer, I'm on the more popular side of 80s metal than the underground side. Coming from a small coastal town, I didn't know about METAL until I saw an Iron Maiden T-shirt in abouts 1983, and never heard METAL until I saw Judas Priest on MTV. I didn't get Metallica from an underground tape, but read about it in Kerrang or some other mag. But I suppose to my credit, 'tallica hasn't done anything since AJFA IMO. But, I digress as I notice James Edward Raggi IV does on occasion, so at least he can relate. On with the review.
Like another reader, didn't care much for the cover. My wife called me at work saying I had a package from Sweden. So I had her open it, and she didn't care much for it, so you can guess the rest. We're practicing Catholics, and though I'm pretty rugged with religious jokes, jabs and general art, I thought it a bit too far to compare the two. But, I suppose it makes for good METAL. It didn't bother me much, but I just think it's a little too "forced." (more on the whole corporate discussion later).
I was surprised to read Raggi's editorial. I'm not needed, not wanted, and I'm a Fuckin' idiot all in the span of four paragraphs? C'mon Jim, we're all adults here, the whole "Rebel Metalhead" thing is growing as thin as my hair, isn't it? By now, most of us do have jobs, do have kids, do have the trappings of real life. It would be unrealistic to think that the majority of the world could live on the fringe - there would be no fringe then after all. However, one comment I did like was the "digital outlaw" jab, which I could not agree more about. Unless you drop some hard-earned bread, it is really hard to appreciate anything. Too many choices (free ones at that) leads to too many doubts about your choices - and ultimately dissatisfaction. Dropping an investment requires one to put forth the effort into that investment, to make it good even if it's just okay. Probably part of the reason I love my old stuff the best - it cost alot (at the time)!
However, having said all that - no matter how much I want to dislike Raggi, I simply can't. The dude can write, has a great sense of humor, and is truly passionate about his crusade. The writing is dense (meaning many lines per page), so after I got used to the style, the writing became quite easy to read. There are some great one-liners - nuggets if you will - in Raggi's writing (along with the other writers). Very very cool prose. Raggi and Crew definitely do their homework with the topics and have a great grasp of the subject. I personally could not listen to one CD for days on end - through headphones no less - so it's nice to know some folks who can and then live to write abou it.
One small critique I had of the writing - and very nitpicky no doubt - was that it took a few articles to finally figure out that the individual song titles are capitalized. They sort of blend in with the prose and is cumbersome at first. I kept wanting them to be set off with quotes or italics or underlines or some such. No biggie.
I especially liked the reviews of Assaulter, Battlewitch, Blood Seal, Chaos Theory, and some of the other postive reviews. I will definitely be checking out those (that are available - too bad about Chaos Theory though, sounds like a real winner).
I can't stop without addressing the whole corporate thing. The "Corporate is killing metal" drum beat is out of tune in my opinion. There have always been companies, there has always been music, and there has always been sales of music. It just IS. It will never be not IS. So, can we move onto something else? A corporation is a living breathing thing like anything. It survives by eating and shitting, usually eating something smaller and shitting on something comfortable. Everyone poops - everyone gets pooped on. It's the cycle of life. It would be almost impossible for a band to become known without some sort of connection to commerce. In fact it seems oxymoronic for a band to want to have monetary success without commerce. The opposite is utopian, but not realistic. The company survives by providing a product or service to it's clientelle, the clientelle buys what it wants, and the company survives. The band wants to survive, it needs to sell, it does not have the resources to sell, but the company does. It just IS and will aways be. Has the mass-media helped to dumb-down the listener and feed them crap? A definite HELL-YES! Is it the company's fault? I'm not sure, since survival depends on getting the most for putting out the least. I lay the dumbing down to the hands of society in general, not necessarily the companies.
Is LotFP helping to combat this dumbing-down and lack of knowledge of how good METAL can be? HELL YES!!
In the end, I really liked the mag. Thanks James.
.
Like another reader, didn't care much for the cover. My wife called me at work saying I had a package from Sweden. So I had her open it, and she didn't care much for it, so you can guess the rest. We're practicing Catholics, and though I'm pretty rugged with religious jokes, jabs and general art, I thought it a bit too far to compare the two. But, I suppose it makes for good METAL. It didn't bother me much, but I just think it's a little too "forced." (more on the whole corporate discussion later).
I was surprised to read Raggi's editorial. I'm not needed, not wanted, and I'm a Fuckin' idiot all in the span of four paragraphs? C'mon Jim, we're all adults here, the whole "Rebel Metalhead" thing is growing as thin as my hair, isn't it? By now, most of us do have jobs, do have kids, do have the trappings of real life. It would be unrealistic to think that the majority of the world could live on the fringe - there would be no fringe then after all. However, one comment I did like was the "digital outlaw" jab, which I could not agree more about. Unless you drop some hard-earned bread, it is really hard to appreciate anything. Too many choices (free ones at that) leads to too many doubts about your choices - and ultimately dissatisfaction. Dropping an investment requires one to put forth the effort into that investment, to make it good even if it's just okay. Probably part of the reason I love my old stuff the best - it cost alot (at the time)!
However, having said all that - no matter how much I want to dislike Raggi, I simply can't. The dude can write, has a great sense of humor, and is truly passionate about his crusade. The writing is dense (meaning many lines per page), so after I got used to the style, the writing became quite easy to read. There are some great one-liners - nuggets if you will - in Raggi's writing (along with the other writers). Very very cool prose. Raggi and Crew definitely do their homework with the topics and have a great grasp of the subject. I personally could not listen to one CD for days on end - through headphones no less - so it's nice to know some folks who can and then live to write abou it.
One small critique I had of the writing - and very nitpicky no doubt - was that it took a few articles to finally figure out that the individual song titles are capitalized. They sort of blend in with the prose and is cumbersome at first. I kept wanting them to be set off with quotes or italics or underlines or some such. No biggie.
I especially liked the reviews of Assaulter, Battlewitch, Blood Seal, Chaos Theory, and some of the other postive reviews. I will definitely be checking out those (that are available - too bad about Chaos Theory though, sounds like a real winner).
I can't stop without addressing the whole corporate thing. The "Corporate is killing metal" drum beat is out of tune in my opinion. There have always been companies, there has always been music, and there has always been sales of music. It just IS. It will never be not IS. So, can we move onto something else? A corporation is a living breathing thing like anything. It survives by eating and shitting, usually eating something smaller and shitting on something comfortable. Everyone poops - everyone gets pooped on. It's the cycle of life. It would be almost impossible for a band to become known without some sort of connection to commerce. In fact it seems oxymoronic for a band to want to have monetary success without commerce. The opposite is utopian, but not realistic. The company survives by providing a product or service to it's clientelle, the clientelle buys what it wants, and the company survives. The band wants to survive, it needs to sell, it does not have the resources to sell, but the company does. It just IS and will aways be. Has the mass-media helped to dumb-down the listener and feed them crap? A definite HELL-YES! Is it the company's fault? I'm not sure, since survival depends on getting the most for putting out the least. I lay the dumbing down to the hands of society in general, not necessarily the companies.
Is LotFP helping to combat this dumbing-down and lack of knowledge of how good METAL can be? HELL YES!!
In the end, I really liked the mag. Thanks James.
.
