So many sub sub subgenres

Susperia said:
I agree that some subgenres get silly, like Math Metal and Viking Metal, but not as silly as this one kid I knew in high school who didn't label music at all. I was telling him about this Black Metal band, and labelled them Black Metal and he threw a shit fit that I was labelling them because "labelling isn't right".

*Sigh.

Math metal is indeed stupid, but Viking metal?
 
math metal isn't stupid. it is a quite specific subgenre, but the term is often used by people who don't know what it means to describe bands that are more "tech" or "prog" or a bunch of other things.

math metal is derived from math rock, and is characterized by bands that use "standard" riffs/melodies (as opposed to virtuoso "tech" or atmospheric "prog" riffs) but in "math-y" shifting time signatures instead of 4/4. it makes complete and total sense. to me at least.
 
MasterOLightning said:
Subgenres are generally useful, especially the main five or so. These cover most bands, with a few needing combined ones such as death/doom, or black/thrash.

Some bands are indeed difficult to classify, but this is a rather small minority. So get used to using the following:
Death
Black
Thrash/speed
Power/traditional
Doom

These can be debated to a degree as well, but people will know what you mean when you use them.


what about Grindcore?
 
Anyone notice so called math metal bands have no sense of chord use ?

I don't really understand how an offbeat riff with distortion is hard to do.
 
ender7227 said:
Viking metal makes sense too, due to the subject matter

It isn't because of the subject matter, lyrics do not define a genre. It is the general sound that defines it ... and Viking metal bands typically have the whole Epic Folk Black thing going on. Some just Epic Folk but ... still.
 
Which is why the "Viking" tag is redundant and gay and should be obsolete in terms of genres.
 
Dodens Grav said:
Which is why the "Viking" tag is redundant and gay and should be obsolete in terms of genres.

I agree. There are several bands belonging to a wide variety of genres who play Viking-themed music. To classify them therefore as Viking metal is totally ignoring the musical content by which a band is classified as belonging to a certain genre.
 
Folk metal makes sense since folk is a sound. I judge genres based on sound.

I think any band with progressive elements should probably just be progressive so we don't have to do these things. You don't have to describe ever bands non metal elements when labelling the band. It's typical if you are a good musician or learning musician to be able to play something jazzy,folky or whatever because you can play your instrument, it really has nothing to do with a genre nor has to be mentioned in your music.

It's not hard to play a jazz chord, or whatever so we don't need to hear about it just because you put it in heavier music.

if you play guitar,etc.. you should be able to do things. It does not make you unique.

I'm so sick of stupid genres like tech metal,jazz metal,etc.. what if there was a classical solo in a country song, is it classical country ?. Is something blues metal if the guitarist knows blue scales.

What if a country song has a jazzy chord progression, is it country jazz ?

Do you hear someone labelling something jazz pop ?
metal is metal, pop music is pop music,etc...
 
Metal is better than pop and country and so forth, and therefore we get lots of pretentious, pseudo/wannabe intellectual labels that we can chatter on about in front of people and they'll have no idea what we're saying unless one of them is a right proper metalhead.


And I like to say Viking Metal. I will keep on saying Viking Metal because Vikings make me wet.
 
Country musicians are generally better than metal musicians and have more traditional musical values(not that some metal bands do not share simularities when playing instruments). I'm not into country music but a lot of people like it, saying what genre would be better is not fair. A lot of metal musicians do not seem disciplined musically enough to play good.

Metalheads think they're unique therefor having stupid genre labels.