MJR's opinion about nu-metal

[Grom Hellscream]

Cool music(IMO)= Music I like. Of course it is only my opinion. Nowhere in my post did I say otherwise. I did not say that anyone who disagreed me with me was stupid nor did I bash the ones who have already done so in this thread. I simply said that it(nu-metal)was okay in my book.

But, I must ask you: How is nu-metal unnatural(as a whole)and unprofessional? Especially that unprofessional bit bothers me, because you will be hard pressed to find more professional production than in the commercial nu-metal. With unnatural, I assume you were referring to the very mainstream bands like P.O.D. and Linkin Park. I can agree with this to a certain extent, but there are lots of nu-metal bands out there, and far from everyone has a million-dollar contract with Sony and get their videos played constantly on MTV. Just thought I`d let you know that.

I react strongly(this is not directed towards you, Grom)to those who say all nu-metal bands consist of crappy musicians. There seems to be this silent consensus that speed is what a musicians value should be measured by. I think this is wrong. One does not need to play lightning-fast arpeggios and 8-finger tap sequences to be a quality musician. I believe much of the criticism directed at nu-metal is a product of its huge success. If nu-metal had been an underground phenomenon, it would have gotten much more respect from these circles than it gets now. You may like or dislike the music, but you cannot deny the fact that nu-metal has been innovative and the early(and a few of the new ones)bands tried to do something that had not been done before.

I'm tired of void quarrels, so I'll be short. I don't like new metal, because it sounds like shit (for me)(no comments), and is unnatural (for me)

(being unnatural for me is to produce music with very primitive effect on human consciousness like: verses: (not loud) CHORUS : (BOOOOM - YEAH - YEAH - YEAH - BOOM - YEAH - YEAH - F**K YOU!), very intersting and harmonic music! comes from the depth of Nature!),

and unprofessional (for me )

(that means NOT they have bad producing etc., but having claimed them unprofessional I ment that they had no professional approach on music creating. Good music is ART, not BUSINESS. Professional musician must be a professional artist, his(maybe her) music must come from his soul, must express his feelings, thoughts and philosophy. I see slightly other things in nu-metal.)

The second but not last reason I dislike nu-metal, is that this style of music is a child of vogue. It's cool while it's fashionable. Demand begets supply. I do not accept fashion in music. Good music must not be created due to fashion's requirements.

 

[Hyoukinmono]

"you cannot deny the fact that nu-metal has been innovative"

Innovative?!?!?! Maybe a couple of bands have done something a little bit new, but most of it is a de-evolution, and major dumbing-down.
Saying that nu-metal is innovative is like trying to say that Nirvana didn't just rip off riffs and melodies from late-70s and early-80s punk bands (with less bathing, of course).
There's nothing "new" about "nu" metal. Just because you haven't heard it all before, that doesn't mean that it's new (or innovative, or creative, or whatever).
There are definitely nu-metal bands that do what they do well. If that's what somebody likes, that's fine. But innovative? I'm inclined to think that that comment was made sarcastically.

 

[Harp Heaven]

(being unnatural for me is to produce music with very primitive effect on human consciousness like: verses: (not loud) CHORUS : (BOOOOM - YEAH - YEAH - YEAH - BOOM - YEAH - YEAH - F**K YOU!), very intersting and harmonic music! comes from the depth of Nature!),

Neither System of a Down or Mudvayne do this, unless you want to call Metallica and Megadeth unnatural music. Since you were so nice to give YET another unwarranted comment on my posts(on my initial post, that is), I will now proceed to scientifically analyze your argument.

You must realize that the harmony most of the bands in prog-metal(assuming that is your definition of "natural music")today use is derived from western classical music harmony. Concepts ranging from scales to chords and meters are an artificial construct to aid composition and communication between musicians. Thus, one must assume that the more entrenched one gets in scales and theory, the farther away you get from the "natural" music. Why do I say this? Because "natural" music, the music of the whales and birds do not follow western classical rules of harmony and rhythm. Olivier Messiaen, the great french composer, made an effort to notate the song of birds and make them into compositions, but to do this he had to simplify the patterns they used: The patterns were just too irregular to notate verbatim.

Your argument that "interesting and harmonic music comes from the depths of nature" is unfortunately completely fallacious, because almost none of the music recorded and written down is even remotely close to coming from the depths of nature. A case might be made for that "natural" music is music that appeals to your sense of rhythm(makes you wanna dance), but if you are to follow that line of thinking, nu-metal(at least your uninformed and ignorant definition of it)will be more natural than prog-metal(once again assuming that that is your definition of "natural" music).

Good music is ART, not BUSINESS. Professional musician must be a professional artist, his(maybe her) music must come from his soul, must express his feelings, thoughts and philosophy. I see slightly other things in nu-metal.)

Now, what is your definition of professional? Lets have some fun with semantics!

1. 1. <LI type=a>Of, relating to, engaged in, or suitable for a profession: lawyers, doctors, and other professional people. <LI type=a>Conforming to the standards of a profession: professional behavior.
   <li>Engaging in a given activity as a source of livelihood or as a career: a professional writer. </li><li>Performed by persons receiving pay: professional football. </li><LI>Having or showing great skill; expert: a professional repair job.

I assume that you will pick number 4 as your definition of professional. Unfortunately, as BastrdDrmr pointed out, Mudvayne show great skill at their instruments and play complex music. Slipknots drummer is great at double bass and plays some really difficult shit. Add to that, how do you define skill in music? Speed? Technical ability? That would make The Beatles less professional than Majestic for example...It quickly becomes a mess. In the end it comes down to number 2 and 3. They make music for a living, thus they are professional musicians. Michael Romeo is a professional musician, and so is Fred Durst(don`t flame me). Whether they are good or not at what they do is completely subjective and all that jazz.

But I digress. I must comment on your assumption that nu-metal is not professional because it does not come from the soul, nor does it express the artists thoughts and philosophy. Hmm... Are producers like Warren Affanasief(produced for lots of pop artists) and Mutt Lange(no comment)then unprofessional because they write lyrics that don`t necessarily relate to their life(they write about lost love when they have been happily married for 10 years), and treat music like business? It`s ridiculous to attribute professionality to things like expression of thoughts and ideas through art. Artistic integrity is something else, and I must agree that artists like Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park are lacking in that department. Mudvayne and System of a Down, however are not. System of a Down have acute political lyrics, and the frontman Serj Tankians views are clearly shown through them. The aggressive music is there to reinforce the lyrics` aggressive message.

The second but not last reason I dislike nu-metal, is that this style of music is a child of vogue. It's cool while it's fashionable. Demand begets supply. I do not accept fashion in music. Good music must not be created due to fashion's requirements.

Prog rock was fashionable once at a time you know...Just because a style of music is in vogue does not mean that EVERY band, EVERY song, EVERY musician sucks and is not worth listening to. There is good stuff there out in the mainstream. You just have to be open for it.

And now to some other posters:

Cradle o' Crap sux like hell, y'all

heh lolololol i totaly agr33! i liesten teh tr00 m3tal liek sX, i r itnellagent!!!

Finally, here's my reasoning behind me saying nu-metal sucks balls.

It went something like this. "Okay, so I listened to nu-metal before, right? Then I started listening to other types of music, and then I discovered that I liked them more than nu-metal. And then there are the fans. If you go to them and try to talk to them if they wear a shirt of a band you like, they are like "fuck you". So nu-metal sucks ballz". I`m not convinced.

Funny how SX is good and Korn is shit. How is that relevant?

Entirely subjective. I like some Korn. But as someone pointed out, The difference between tuning down a 7-string and tuning down a 6-string is quite big. It`s just not the same thing.

 

[the_satanic_rabbit]

I agree with Grom on this one.
And Driedle of Filth are not nu-metal, they are symphonic-goth metal (if you really want to put a label on them).
I have never liked nu-metal, Korn came around and all the followers and then Sepultura came out with Roots and I hated it. Nu-metal has also invaded Anthrax and Slayer and its tragic. If Symphony X starts playing nu-metal I will be crushed.

 

[Harp Heaven]

"you cannot deny the fact that nu-metal has been innovative"

Innovative?!?!?! Maybe a couple of bands have done something a little bit new, but most of it is a de-evolution, and major dumbing-down.
Saying that nu-metal is innovative is like trying to say that Nirvana didn't just rip off riffs and melodies from late-70s and early-80s punk bands (with less bathing, of course).
There's nothing "new" about "nu" metal. Just because you haven't heard it all before, that doesn't mean that it's new (or innovative, or creative, or whatever).
There are definitely nu-metal bands that do what they do well. If that's what somebody likes, that's fine. But innovative? I'm inclined to think that that comment was made sarcastically.

The extremely down-tuned guitars, the rapping(which evolved from Faith no More, if I remember correctly)and the angsty lyrics were innovative back in their day. Note that I say that nu-metal has been innovative. (It is an evolution, not a de-evolution. Just because it is simpler and harsher than what`s made before does not mean that it`s the opposite of evolving, if you get my meaning.) Now you just see tons of bands playing what`s fashionable to get money and blowjobs. If I`m wrong, please correct me, but you should do better than just say "there is nothing new about nu-metal". Give me some examples of where the original bands on the scene took their influences from, and I might be willing to change my position.

 

[BastrdDrmr]

If Symphony X starts playing nu-metal I will be crushed.

I don't think we have to worry about that.

 

[SyX-Fan]

I don't think we have to worry about that.

I wonder how good a rapper Russ is...
Not to mention who should be their DJ...

NO! *Deletes images from mind*
*MentalBackspace MentalBackspace MentalBackspace*

 

[rockmanxpr]

Scratch that Vynyl Pinnela!

 

[Grom Hellscream]

Neither System of a Down or Mudvayne do this, unless you want to call Metallica and Megadeth unnatural music. Since you were so nice to give YET another unwarranted comment on my posts(on my initial post, that is),

It was a generalization , know this word? I'm sorry, do I have to ask you for a permission to comment your post? Ok, boss...

I will now proceed to scientifically analyze your argument.

Oh! You are a scientist! You just didn't mention it. How decently! Maybe you have a kind of scientific degree? Wow! So young and so brilliant!

You must realize that the harmony most of the bands in prog-metal(assuming that is your definition of "natural music")today use is derived from western classical music harmony.

I never had given a definition of "natural music". And I don't think that progmetall overall "natural music". It is hard to say what is natural but for all that it is simple to say what is unnatural

Concepts ranging from scales to chords and meters are an artificial construct to aid composition and communication between musicians. Thus, one must assume that the more entrenched one gets in scales and theory, the farther away you get from the "natural" music. Why do I say this? Because "natural" music, the music of the whales and birds do not follow western classical rules of harmony and rhythm. Olivier Messiaen, the great french composer, made an effort to notate the song of birds and make them into compositions, but to do this he had to simplify the patterns they used: The patterns were just too irregular to notate verbatim.

Btw, you know natural the reason of bird's singing? Why the nightingale sings so damn beautiful? The reason is similar to why male dogs piss over the posts. Territory marking. Natural interspecific aggression.

Your argument that "interesting and harmonic music comes from the depths of nature"

I'm sorry, where did you get that? From my posts? Where?
Maybe the language barrier is too high, but "unnatural" is the closest word to what I wanted to say. I can't just translate into English our idiomic phrase, more precisely describing my thoughts about nu-metal.
Repeating "encore une fois": unnatural = commercial. commercial = unnatural. That is simple. What is made for money may not be treated as good music. Please don't commence again with your deffences of commercial music. Yes, they are all good guys. I just don't like their music. At all.

is unfortunately completely fallacious, because almost none of the music recorded and written down is even remotely close to coming from the depths of nature. A case might be made for that "natural" music is music that appeals to your sense of rhythm(makes you wanna dance), but if you are to follow that line of thinking, nu-metal(at least your uninformed and ignorant definition of it)will be more natural than prog-metal(once again assuming that that is your definition of "natural" music).

May be it was late night ?? I don't understand, whose post were you reading? Mine??????????????? No comments.

Now, what is your definition of professional? Lets have some fun with semantics!

1. 1. <LI type=a>Of, relating to, engaged in, or suitable for a profession: lawyers, doctors, and other professional people. <LI type=a>Conforming to the standards of a profession: professional behavior.
   <li>Engaging in a given activity as a source of livelihood or as a career: a professional writer. </li><li>Performed by persons receiving pay: professional football. </li><LI>Having or showing great skill; expert: a professional repair job.

I assume that you will pick number 4 as your definition of professional. Unfortunately, as BastrdDrmr pointed out, Mudvayne show great skill at their instruments and play complex music. Slipknots drummer is great at double bass and plays some really difficult shit. Add to that, how do you define skill in music? Speed? Technical ability? That would make The Beatles less professional than Majestic for example...It quickly becomes a mess. In the end it comes down to number 2 and 3. They make music for a living, thus they are professional musicians. Michael Romeo is a professional musician, and so is Fred Durst(don`t flame me). Whether they are good or not at what they do is completely subjective and all that jazz.

I don't know who is Fred Durst, so I won't flame you. I already gave my definition of a word "professional" in that context. It was made to simplify your understanding of what I was saying. Instead of that you turned this argument to a kind of scholastic shit. You find it funny? Pleeeeeease...

But I digress. I must comment on your assumption that nu-metal is not professional because it does not come from the soul, nor does it express the artists thoughts and philosophy. Hmm... Are producers like Warren Affanasief(produced for lots of pop artists) and Mutt Lange(no comment)then unprofessional because they write lyrics that don`t necessarily relate to their life(they write about lost love when they have been happily married for 10 years), and treat music like business? It`s ridiculous to attribute professionality to things like expression of thoughts and ideas through art. Artistic integrity is something else, and I must agree that artists like Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park are lacking in that department. Mudvayne and System of a Down, however are not. System of a Down have acute political lyrics, and the frontman Serj Tankians views are clearly shown through them. The aggressive music is there to reinforce the lyrics` aggressive message.

All right. I'm not an artist, so I can't say what is a professional approach.

Prog rock was fashionable once at a time you know...Just because a style of music is in vogue does not mean that EVERY band, EVERY song, EVERY musician sucks and is not worth listening to.

Once again, it was a generalization

I think, logic is your trouble.
How you deal with mathematics? logic? and so on?
Yes, does not mean. Or you think I'm so stupid to think that it really means that every band , every song, in every genre that is in fashion automatically becomes shit?
Here we may use theory of probability and math. statistics.
Due to it, fashionable music styles are good shit factories.
You can't argue with statistic!

To be serious.
Maybe you won't agree, but every music style has an approximate demographic orientation.
Stubborn statistics say that Brittney Spears, Eminem, nu-metal, etc. have similar groups of interest. Teenagers. And due to it's simplified influence on infantile personalities, and taking into consideration gregarious instinct this music becomes very popular and comercially succesfull. and so on..

Final comments . MUST READ! (Harpy hag (did you play Heroes III?)
1. I don't want to be shallow. And I don't want to listen music assigned for hormonally immature adolescents.
2.Have you seen some little frases in brackets the post you were quoting?
It says FOR ME. I don't have pretensions of being objective. Only my thoughts.
3. Maybe they are not UNPROFESSIONAL in general definition of this world, I'd say they are .... well it's too hard to say it all shortly , let's say, they are NOT FOR ME. ok

 

[Hyoukinmono]

"The extremely down-tuned guitars"

How was that innovative? It's just one part of the standard music arsenal.

"the rapping(which evolved from Faith no More, if I remember correctly)"

Again, there were already bands that were playing with adding (c)rap to the songs. Anthrax even did it, for heaven's sake! If you want to get right down to it, Blondie was more of a pioneer of that than any nu-metal band.
(And how is talking innovative, anyway?! "Hey, I can't sing, but I can talk in rhythm and do goofy poses!" If I want to listen to some guy talk about life in the ghetto, I'll get a Bill Cosby CD. At least it's intentionally funny.)

"angsty lyrics were innovative"

There have been angsty lyrics in songs for as long as whiny little brats have been around. Those horrible protest songs in the 60s. Punk in the 70s. The less intelligent parts of the thrash scene in the 80s. Nirvana and the other unwashed whiners in the 90s.

"back in their day"

The problem is that "their day" was before nu-metal. It's just all being recycled. THAT'S why it's de-evolution. None of it was new when bands decided to use it and become nu-metal bands. The stuff isn't even being used in a truly new way. Just simpler and harsher and louder, and if that's innovation, it's rather pathetic innovation.

Looking scary or strange or dangerous isn't innovation either. Neither is wearing a sock on your head (lumberjacks have been doing it for years) or having your pants hang down showing your butt (mentally retarded kids used to have the market on that one).
That's just fashion, but still, it's just recycling and trying to pass it off as something new.

And most of it was crap when it was done the FIRST time. A bad meal doesn't get better when it's warmed up a week later.

 

[the_satanic_rabbit]

Grom brought up a good point with the Target Audience. For nu-metal, or "Mallcore" as I like to call it, the target audience is teenagers. It was the same with Metallica, but now they are trying to appeal to everyone from teenagers to old folks. For progressive bands, the target audience is not teenagers for sure. The target audience is simply: whomever likes it. I think it is awesome that some teenagers listen to prog. (good to get em started young ) Mallcore also relies heavily on "Image", where as progressive bands don't give a shit. And as Hyoukinmono said, none of it is innovative. I believe Carcass and Napalm Death tuned their guitars down before any Mallcore bands did. And every time I see one of these Mallcore bands, it seems like they are just trying to be "cool". That's all it is. Just because you talk about political stuff doesn't make you intelligent. I've heard so much stupid shit, especially lately, when it comes to politics and world events. What the fuck do these idiots know about that shit anyway? Unless you have studied it extensively or have done it yourself, you don't really know all that much.
Mallcore will soon enough fall by the wayside, and I doubt that it will ever resurface.
Now, I will also have to take a shot at Phil Anselmo here. No doubt, the most hypocritical person in all of metal. When I saw Pantera in 2001, he said "For the last 11 years, Pantera has fuckin..." blah blah blah, whatever... Do the math, that's 1990, when Cowboys was released. What about "Power Metal" in 1988? This album is pretty close to "Cowboys" in style, Cowboys being a little more on the groovy side. It's a great album, but never talked about, never released on a label. Why? Because he is too concered about that "tough, hard-core image". What the fuck is that?! What a goddamn waste. Not to mention the three glam-metal albums that came out before that. The first one sucked, but the rest are ok.
Now, Pantera has influenced so many bands from SymphonyX to many nu-metal bands. In the case of Symphony X or Dream Theater, they are influenced by the musicianship of Pantera, which is good for the most part. But for nu-metal, they are influenced by the groove, screaming vocals, and first and foremost, that hardcore image.
It's all about creating an Image and then some shitty music to enforce that image.
And yes, everyone please do take into consideration language barriers. The other day I said the word "crap" on the radio, which is no big deal at all in America, but over here it got translated into "shit", because that's really the only way to translate it. So, we had to apologize for it. There are some expressions and words, that simply cannot be translated into English. That makes it very difficult for someone who isn't a native speaker to engage in a scholastic argument.

Sorry for the long rant.
Have a happy day everyone

 

[Velocity]

One of the first nu-metal stuff and what started the whole shit i think, was the teamwork between Aerosmith and Run DMC and that song walk this way. Have never liked that song and i don`t like n-metal at all!

 

[shredmaster]

Agree

 

[rgbeach]

...and I'll never understand why some people are so passionate - rather, angry - about music they don't like. Why waste the energy?

Seems to me that it goes beyond expressing an opinion to (1) trying to convince others to change their opinions, and (2) failing that, bashing anyone who disagrees.

It's OK to dislike music or hate music or be indifferent to music, but do we really need more "nu-metal bashing" or "Dream Theater sucks" or "what bands you don't like" threads? I think not.

 

[scanner313]

I always hated that collaboration between Run DMC and Aerosmith as well. Probably because I hate everything Aerosmith has done in the last 10 years or so. I've never really liked anything they've done all that much. And I don't like rap either. So...

I think there are decent songs out there from some of these nu-metal bands, but a lot of their music has way too much of the "hood" influence which really annoys he shit out of me. There's nothing worse than a bunch of white guys trying to sound like they grew up in the ghetto. It's so freakin' phoney! I think that's why I hate Eminem so much too! However, there are times when they put out a pretty cool song, usually when they aren't rapping too much and actually show they can sing.

 

[jimbobhickville]

Using the image as an argument against nu-metal is shortsighted. The image of someone dressed up in leather and spikes, or wearing corpsepaint, or dressed up like Lord of the Rings characters is entirely more disturbing than the image in nu-metal. I don't care much for nu-metal, but c'mon, the image is rather palatable compared to the image associated with black metal, early 80s metal (like Judas Priest), or cheesy power metal (Gamma Ray, Manowar, Rhapsody, etc).

I just wanted to comment on the image part; the music is an entirely different argument, but to me, unless they rap it's just downtuned thrash.

 

[The Yngster]

Flame war, YAY!

 

[sweepking]

I am getting tired just reading all of these long posts. I just don't listen to the radio anymore...that ensures I don't hear stuff I don't want to such as nu-metal, pop, or country. I think I play each SyX cd at least once a week in my car to be honest. MJR's Dark Chapter gets played frequently as well.

 

[the_satanic_rabbit]

Using the image as an argument against nu-metal is shortsighted. The image of someone dressed up in leather and spikes, or wearing corpsepaint, or dressed up like Lord of the Rings characters is entirely more disturbing than the image in nu-metal. I don't care much for nu-metal, but c'mon, the image is rather palatable compared to the image associated with black metal, early 80s metal (like Judas Priest), or cheesy power metal (Gamma Ray, Manowar, Rhapsody, etc).

I just wanted to comment on the image part; the music is an entirely different argument, but to me, unless they rap it's just downtuned thrash.

You will never find those bands you mentioned in my CD player, except some Priest once in a while. But the Image I was referring to is more than just the appearance. It is that hard-core additude they bring forth. I like music that is just music, there doesn't have to be any attitude brought with it.
And yes, it pisses me off too with all the studded crap and shin gaurds.
Bullets are cool though

 

[Yngvai X]

the image is rather palatable compared to the image associated with black metal, early 80s metal (like Judas Priest), or cheesy power metal (Gamma Ray, Manowar, Rhapsody, etc).

I don't see anything wrong with the way I've seen Gamma Ray dress. Its just a part of bein metal, the biker jackets, black jeans/leather pants, long hair, etc. I mean, I dress like that lol. I think thats a LOT more palatable than some idiot wearing pants that fall off his ass. Also, I dont recall any powermetal bands dressing up like LotR characters hehehe.