The "Definition of Metal" Project

[Einherjar86]

^Sometimes it's better that way. Then people can interpret for themselves or investigate as to its meaning. Sometimes not knowing is more fun than knowing.

 

[skeptik]

I can certainly agree with that sentiment to an extent, though that isn't really relevant to what I said. I think that, in most cases, however, unless it is part of the intention of the artist, it is preferable to have the artist's understanding in mind when examining a work.

 

[Necro Joe]

Also, I strongly agree with and support Cythraul's post regarding expression. It is very important to view music, and art in general, as expression, and the artist's expression and interpretation very much is at the forefront in interpreting that artist's work.

I disagree, I don't think viewing art solely in terms of what the artist intended in useful at all. Art is, as I said before, more than just communication and the reason we care so much about music is that we get something from it that we could never get from straightforward verbal 'expression' in the same way. I have no doubt that there are artists who can play their audiences like a violin and know exactly what reaction their music is going to provoke (and thus exactly what it is really 'saying') but to my mind those are the artists who have a strong grasp of the style in which they work and can either a) produce the highest, most developed examples of that particular style (like the great classical composers) or b) produce art that prompts a response based on well-worn familiarity and the predictable simplicity of their audience's emotions (like pretty much any rock or metal band that simply sets out to play within an established genre).

Most musicians woth paying attention to (IMO) do neither of these things. They instead express themselves (somewhat) freely and are often unaware in advance (or even in retrospect) what their music is 'about' or expresses. Instead they express themselves, along with all the bits of themselves they half understand or could never properly explain, and more than that they express their social situation as the world which created them speaks through them and can, sometimes, reveal more about itself than the conscious artist ever thought they understood.

This is probably all vague, semi-incoherent drivel but that, I think, is the point. Using words to describe music is, and should be, very very hard.

 

[skeptik]

Applying an alternative and unintended interpretation to a work of art is turning it into a different work of art. I'm not saying that you can't see what you want to see in a piece of music, but that does not mean that that is what the song is about, and why it is art. Music as art is a vehicle of expression conveying the artist's intention. This intention may very well be for the listener to identify whatever he or she wants in the music, but barring that instance, to do so would be to make a new artwork altogether.

 

[Necro Joe]

Well I still disagree; the 'meaning' of a peice of art is defined socially, not by its creator. The artist can express things without meaning to and (like you were saying) whether or not some 'symbolic' markers are present in an artwork does not depend on whether the artist 'meant' to put them there. They either are, or they're not. The artist's interpretation is interesting but it is just one, of many, possible interpretations.

(However I'm still not saying interpretation is always (or even mostly) subjective).

 

[Necro Joe]

OK reading back you might not have actually said that but anyway my point still stands.

 

[skeptik]

I really don't see how one can reasonably dispute the idea that the artist's interpretation of his own work is the preeminent understanding. Of course you can appreciate other aspects of the work of art and even things in the work that were incidental or may not even in fact exist, but when you're looking at it as an artistic construct, a work of art as a work of art, then no, meaning is not socially defined, the meaning of a particular work of art as a work of art is the meaning that the artist gives to it, which may or may not include societal integration. While the artist's interpretation may be 'one of many,' it is, in fact, the most accurate, most prominent, most substantial, most important, and thus most relevant interpretation. Of course there is 'wiggle room,' but it can only go so far. There is a certain point at which an interpretation of an artwork is not merely a derivation of the original meaning but is, in fact, flat out wrong, such as interpreting a Marxist painting as anti-Marxist. This is simply not a valid interpretation insofar as it is viewed as a work of art created by an artist with specific intentions.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

I disagree on both counts, especially on art being defined socially. Art is never defined totally because even when an artist presents the compendium and paramount reason for its existence, other people who may be ignorant of this or are just really into subjectively thinking about things will view the art how they want to anyway, and nobody can stop them from doing this.

I agree more with Nec's theory that art is pre-eminently defined by its creator, since he has created it and instilled it with meaning in the first place. It's only logical to assume that other people's subjective interpretations thusly would be of a lesser magnitude than the original artist's own formulated idea.

 

[Manic Ferocity]

I would think the "art" would be based on how the artist intended it to be rather then the person observing it.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

Both are valid. If art was just a person saying "look, this is what this means", this forum would not exist. There would be nothing to discuss about music, or art in general.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Metal, just like every other form of music, just like every other fine art, et cetera down the line, is subject to the institutional framework in which it is viewed, and is in essence a very historical construct. It continually changes, evolves, and adapts, so any rigid, static definition of 'Metal' that can't account for this can't possibly be valid. A band like Deathspell Omega or Drudkh is no less of a Metal band than is Judas Priest or Black Sabbath, though they probably would not have been viewed as such if they were the ones to have been around in the 70s. In fact, their very existence depends upon the historical progression of the genre, so a definition of Metal, if such a feat is even achievable, would have to be open and adaptive to be able to incorporate further progressions in the genre.

That might be so, but I'm still skeptical. It's pretty hard to imagine a metal band that doesn't, say, perform with electric guitars. And it seems quite possible to be able to listen to any given band and discern whether the band has a metal sensibilities or not.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I really don't see how one can reasonably dispute the idea that the artist's interpretation of his own work is the preeminent understanding. Of course you can appreciate other aspects of the work of art and even things in the work that were incidental or may not even in fact exist, but when you're looking at it as an artistic construct, a work of art as a work of art, then no, meaning is not socially defined, the meaning of a particular work of art as a work of art is the meaning that the artist gives to it, which may or may not include societal integration. While the artist's interpretation may be 'one of many,' it is, in fact, the most accurate, most prominent, most substantial, most important, and thus most relevant interpretation. Of course there is 'wiggle room,' but it can only go so far. There is a certain point at which an interpretation of an artwork is not merely a derivation of the original meaning but is, in fact, flat out wrong, such as interpreting a Marxist painting as anti-Marxist. This is simply not a valid interpretation insofar as it is viewed as a work of art created by an artist with specific intentions.

This would be true if all art actually had meaning behind it. I'm pretty sure there are some artists who produce things without any goals in mind, or without any idea of what their work is supposed to amount to (i.e. automatistic art). If an artist is just 'feeling it out' as they go, how can you say it really has any meaning at all to the artist?

 

[Necro Joe]

@Nec: It ultimately comes back to the ideas I was discussing regarding 'effect'. I do not believe that 'meaning' in music/literature/painting/whatever is something you can simply extract independant of the experience which that peice of art provokes. Otherwise, why is art special in the first place?

I would (and did) write more on this subject but its late so I'll wait until tomorrow.

 

[skeptik]

Can you give me an example of a work of art that is a legitimate work of art that genuinely contains no aboutness? Even Dadaists, Pollocks, language poets, Duchamps, etc., had some meaning behind their work, had something to say about something in some regard. If you take a machine that randomly splashes paint up against the wall and it comes out as a visual masterpiece akin to the Mona Lisa, is it a work or art? No, it's random splashes of paint. The transformation from mere real thing to work of art comes in the intentional element of the artist.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

@vihris: Then the meaning is that they are creating something out of nothing randomly, and presenting it as a finished work to challenge art in an atavistic manner. As in what I do.

Though I do marginally compose afterwards, my "recording sessions" or initial products are final pieces themselves. It just so happens that I like to listen to and play with them afterwards. I consider my raw, spontaneous work to be akin to an artist's sketch before the REAL final product; sure some sketches by artists such as Alberto Giacometti and the famous Michelangelo are considered finished works, but they were refined to a finished work as defined by the artist.

I agree with Nec here; a machine or human operating a machine mindlessly (in a factory, for instance) is not creating art with its "final product." It is creating a product which has no intent or meaning other than its functional and definite implicit one. For instance, a factory that spews out metal folding chairs is not making lots of metal folding chair art; it's making objects that are functional and lack meaning other than that. Sure, the design my have a certain aesthetic, but only the original blueprints/design template have artistic merit in any way.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Can you give me an example of a work of art that is a legitimate work of art that genuinely contains no aboutness? Even Dadaists, Pollocks, language poets, Duchamps, etc., had some meaning behind their work, had something to say about something in some regard. If you take a machine that randomly splashes paint up against the wall and it comes out as a visual masterpiece akin to the Mona Lisa, is it a work or art? No, it's random splashes of paint. The transformation from mere real thing to work of art comes in the intentional element of the artist.

I'm only really thinking about stuff like automatism or improvisation. Or perhaps a work of literature that consists entirely of dream sequences, which somebody writes down and publishes simply because it "sounds cool". Is it really that hard to imagine an artist having no commentary to offer on their art?

 

[Zephyrus]

To take a different tack on this, we see how difficult it is to define metal as a genre completely independent of rock, yet they are nearly identical in terms of instrumentation. To give us an idea of how to distinguish metal from rock, why don't we follow the example of how other genres that have identical instrumentation are discriminated. What separates electronica from techno, rap from hip-hop, baroque from classical? If we can understand the fundamental ways of distinguishing other genres of music which are instrumentally identical, it might give us a clearer direction in our attempts to surgical cleave metal from its perceived ties with rock n' roll.

 

[Einherjar86]

I think that, in most cases, however, unless it is part of the intention of the artist, it is preferable to have the artist's understanding in mind when examining a work.

I agree. Well said. We can only understand what an artist is trying to say once we've established the circumstances and environment in which he was creating.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

To take a different tack on this, we see how difficult it is to define metal as a genre completely independent of rock, yet they are nearly identical in terms of instrumentation. To give us an idea of how to distinguish metal from rock, why don't we follow the example of how other genres that have identical instrumentation are discriminated. What separates electronica from techno, rap from hip-hop, baroque from classical? If we can understand the fundamental ways of distinguishing other genres of music which are instrumentally identical, it might give us a clearer direction in our attempts to surgical cleave metal from its perceived ties with rock n' roll.

That's pretty much what each of the conditions in the sound-based definition on the OP does. They each point out some way in which the standard rock setup is twisted in a way that distinguishes it from other rock subgenres/offshoots. Obviously no single condition is sufficient to isolate the "metal element", but together they paint a pretty clear picture of metal imo.

 

[V.V.V.V.V.]

The case of metal is non-analogous to the cases of electronica > techno, etc. Metal is its own thing and can't/shouldn't be compared to this stuff. I don't think we can draw comparisons between any kind of modern musical styles in this way.