Metal without solos

Originally posted by MetalMaiden1777
WELL DEPENDS ON YOUR DEFINITION OF "WANKING"THE BANDS I LISTEN TO GENERALLY DO NOT "WANK" MAYBE YOU ARE REFERRING TO GLAM BANDS.. SEEMS TO ME THEY DO WANK! YOU ARE RIGHT THOUGH, A SOLO SHOULD BE MINDBLOWING- FORTUNATELY THERE ARE TONS OF METAL BANDS THAT HAVE TALENTED GUITARISTS.
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To me wanking is putting showing off before the music. As I hinted at before, there are a very, very small number of metal mucisians who are truely world class, in league with Joe Pass or Yo-Yo Ma or someone like that. Many are excellent, better than me, but so what? If you want to hear amazing musicianship, rock music isn't really the place to look, with some exceptions, like Yngwie.
To me, rock is about attitute and songwriting more than mucianship. I like it when a band are great mucisians, don't get me wrong. I just don't think that displaying their skill should not be their first priority. The songs and attitute should be. If a solo works in that context, fine. Oterwise, what's the point? Might as well listen to Frank Gimbali.
 
:rolleyes: So true! Good tunes are not about a display of how many notes per second you can play, it's how you play them. To me, I love it when there are notes all over the place throughout a song with a heavy sound and the heavy chords to go along with it all. 'ATTITUDE' is sooooo much a part of what sucks me into a song! The tightness and the dynamics! I love music where all the band members are playing their instruments with everything they got!! Y'know, 100% whether that being fast speed or slow fucked up timing shit. In metal music, the drums, bass, guitar (s) and vocals for sure got to be giving all they got. The more intense and the more one's pushed to the limits, the more you have to be focused on what your playing, never mind wanking or twirling drum stix. :Shedevil:
 
Solos rock! I really like some of the Metallica solos from for example Master of Puppets but then it turned to trash as they began to use some of them over again...Megadeth also has some interesting solos, Mustaine was awesome. Arch Enemy plays some very melodic solos as well. I'm new to the whole Swedish/European metal deal so I'm guessing a lot of it is like that. Testament plays some brutal solos, they're probably me favorite right about now.
On another note, fuck guitar solos, whatever happened to DRUM solos? This is what makes jazz such a complicated style to play. The only difficult aspect to metal nowadays is keeping track of your left and right foot! I think they should integrate some drum solos into metal.
 
To me they're loads of "braindead" solos. I often refer to them as "Slayer solos" - Just speeding away with no mention of melody or anything. When I play solos myself it's excactly the same; 200 mph with no melody! The only decent solos I've ever heard from Slayer is Jeff Hanneman's solos on "Seasons in the abyss", "Ghosts of war" (when the song slows down) and maybe "213". I've never heard Kerry King do a decent solo - it's all kind of braindead "wanking" as you say.
Besides the soloes I've just mentioned these solos are the only ones that come to mind:
Pantera "Floods" and Guns N' Roses "Double talkin' jive". The GN'R song has probably the best guitar solo I've ever heard. It doesn't sound complicated or hard or anything, but it has melody and it fits the song very well. I think Slash is very good at doing soloes, he always make soloes that fits the song and doesn't seem braindead. The Pantera song also has a great solo with lots of melody. I think that Dimebag often do braindead solos too, maybe fitting for the song, but nothing I will remember 5 minutes after the song is over, except "Floods".
I have a lot of jazz records, but jazz often tends to just play the melody for a half minute then do piano/guitar/bass solo for 4-5 minutes and it gets tiresome listening to it. I can find jazz that is extremely avesome, but they haven't that much soloing either. Oscar Peterson's "Wheatland" has solos, but is a fantastic song and I don't think that the soloing ruins the song. I can recommend this song to everyone as it's a fantastic song as I said. Buy the record ("Canadiana Suite") or download it or some shit. Beatufil stuff!
 
Ya! What about drum solos!!?? It seems that nobody has any energy these days and not to mention these wimpy little 3 piece drums kits. ( Although, I suppose if you are a good drummer you can make a 3 piece sound like a huge kit ex. Buddy Rich!) Without the drums kick'n in wicked, creative drum bits that fill up songs, so much is missing! Guitar solos are great, but drummers deserve more solo spots - if they can handle it!! Ha!;)
 
Originally posted by SculptedCold
The world needs more bassguitar solos!!!!
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That's the way... put everyone to sleep ;) HAHA!

Nah but seriously, to the topic... a song shouldn't *need* one to be good, but they rule so why not put them there? :D And yeah, duelling guitars like Priest, Scorpions, Maiden, Megadeth etc. kick arse.

And on the issue of the wanking solos... I agree that wanking can pretty much be defined by putting showing off in front of thinking about how it will help the song. Having talent as a guitarist allows you to do more stuff to enhance the song, but when you take away from the song by simply wanking, its crap.

I think lots of prog bands do that unfortunately. Whereas I think guitarists like Eddie Van Halen's flamboyant style seemed to enhance the songs as it fitted in with what the band was about. Even Vinnie Vincent who alot of people consider to be really self indulgent (and some of his main solos in the songs are), most of his stuff althuogh wayyy over the top adds to the ear shattering intensity of Vinnie Vincent Invasion's sound.

Guitar solos rule. :headbang:
 
There's one more solo I think is good, it's Van Halen's "Hot for teacher". I think Eddie Van Halen's solo on Michael Jackson's "Beat it" is crap though! It seems like he "has" to do tapping on it, instead of making something that sounds good.
 
I'm all for songs stuffed full of kick ass guitar solos. They're not always appropriate, though. I think that more bands with good drummers should do more drum solos in the middle of songs. Kinda like Lombardo's little double bass solo on Angel of Death. Oh, if there were only more of those..
 
I just bought the Van Halen record with "Hot for teacher" on it and the solo wasn't as I remembered it. It's a good solo, but I think the guitar stuff I had in mind was the intro as I remember some tapping or stuff like that.
The video is great too! Check out Alex' bad dance moves!!!
 
Solos arent necessary, but they are a nice asset. To me they arent just the person's showing off. Solos are a way to prove the musician's talent. However when every song is a 30 second lead guitar solo, it gets rather boring (Unless of course your name is Yngwie Malmsteen). I think bands should add in more bass and drum solos. Still, a band shouldn't go 3 years without putting out a guitar solo... Slipknot
 
I certainly don't think that guitar solos are a "must have" in a metal song.
Tristania is a great band and they have almost no guitar solos (though they have some cool violin solos)... They even have only one guitar player nowadays. They, for example, focus much more on vocal melodies (with 3 singers, choir and guest singers).

Formally, I think solo means that one instrument is playing (or even improvising) while the rest are playing a repeating "back ground music"... In that case my favourite solos in songs are not really guitar solos, they are just parts with no vocals.

I really like many Blind Guardian, Megadeth and Death's Guitar solos, though they are not really only guitar solos...
 
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