The great innovators of Metal

[WhiteRaven]

Burning Witch! Or Khanate, whichever came first.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Exactly, that's why this thread is pointless. Aside from the obvious early stylistic developments, it's too hard to describe the many original creations since then. Blut Aus Nord, Opeth, Gorguts, Morbid Angel, Necrophagist, Arcturus, Agalloch, Emperor (with ATTWAD) etc etc have all made major progressions in metal that are too difficult to encapsulate in absolute terms or in one sentence.

The thread is far from pointless - it's always useful (and important) to be able to locate and identify originality in music. If anything, I'm just being too demanding about the requirements for listing bands. But the reason I'm doing that is so that we can have a meaningful list of musical achievements, as opposed to just a long string of names that offer no insight whatsoever as to what the artists' accomplishments were.

I can always just start tossing names up less discriminately. That would ensure that important bands don't get left out due to technicalities, but of course it'll give the list more inaccuracies.

There isn't a single right way this has to be done. If you all think putting less descriptive entries up would help things out overall, then I'm fine with that.

 

[challenge_everything]

The thread is far from pointless - it's always useful (and important) to be able to locate and identify originality in music. If anything, I'm just being too demanding about the requirements for listing bands. But the reason I'm doing that is so that we can have a meaningful list of musical achievements, as opposed to just a long string of names that offer no insight whatsoever as to what the artists' accomplishments were.

I can always just start tossing names up less discriminately. That would ensure that important bands don't get left out due to technicalities, but of course it'll give the list more inaccuracies.

There isn't a single right way this has to be done. If you all think putting less descriptive entries up would help things out overall, then I'm fine with that.

Well all it means is that we can only include bands which have created an obvious genre or style of playing and that basically discounts any innovations in the last 10 years because so much metal these days transcends genres.

It's like saying the Ramones invented punk and Black Flag invented hardcore and it would be impossible to include serious contributors who developed the sound, like The Clash or Dead Kennedys or Bad Religion, without resorting to vague terms.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Well, that would be the point of loosening the demands on descriptions for the list -- so we can start including serious contributors to a genre without having to point to only a single figurehead band.

I still think it's entirely possible, though, to have unambiguous entries for bands like The Clash and Bad Religion -- it's just a matter of people actually taking a close look at the music and picking out what's unique about each band's sound (obviously there's something unique about each of them).

 

[Hypnos]

Hm...

I'd say early BAN was innovative in the sense that it hugely incorporated clean vocals and lead guitar/solos in epic BM...anyone done that before...I dunno??

Ulver and In The Woods... incorporated clean vocals even earlier. Mörk Gryning had lots of solos on 'Tusen Ar Har Gått' back in 1995

 

[Zephyrus]

Hm...

I'd say early BAN was innovative in the sense that it hugely incorporated clean vocals and lead guitar/solos in epic BM...anyone done that before...I dunno??

Borknagar

 

[death metal black metal]

Black Sabbath
Judas Priest
Iron Maiden
Motorhead
Slayer
Hellhammer
Bathory
Morbid Angel
Suffocation
Deicide
Asphyx
Carnage
Atheist
Demilich
Burzum
Emperor
Gorgoroth
Ildjarn

that's about it

 

[challenge_everything]

Ulver and In The Woods... incorporated clean vocals even earlier. Mörk Gryning had lots of solos on 'Tusen Ar Har Gått' back in 1995

On that note, Ulver's Bergtatt (1994) would have to be a landmark in terms of incorporating folk into black metal.

 

[DrFleming]

I love this topic, please not let it die, thank you.
No, I don't know any more suggestions, thank you.

 

[Triton]

I love this topic, please not let it die, thank you.
No, I don't know any more suggestions, thank you.

We all love this topic too.

 

[NinjaGeek]

Ghoul
* Combined death metal and surf rock into a cohesive sound. (Splatterthrash, 2006)

I really think you should knock this band off the list. They aren't innovators unless they influenced other bands to follow their style. And I'm pretty sure a bunch of surf death bands haven't sprung up in 2007 so far. If you keep these guys on, then you better add Flametal(for fusing flamenco and metal) and a crap load of Avant-Garde bands for all the fusion genres that have been made.

I think you should keep the list short and simple to the bands that influenced metal, not every single band that did something crazy and different.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

I love this topic, please not let it die, thank you.
No, I don't know any more suggestions, thank you.

Well, I think we hit most of the obvious bands, and it's gotten to the point where we have to niggle over details of the list structure, who belongs on it, etc., which isn't quite as fun. But I have no intention of forgetting about the thread. I'll probably add to it periodically as time goes on -- and of course I'll keep adding entries that other people submit.

I really think you should knock this band off the list. They aren't innovators unless they influenced other bands to follow their style. And I'm pretty sure a bunch of surf death bands haven't sprung up in 2007 so far. If you keep these guys on, then you better add Flametal(for fusing flamenco and metal) and a crap load of Avant-Garde bands for all the fusion genres that have been made.

I think you should keep the list short and simple to the bands that influenced metal, not every single band that did something crazy and different.

Well, I wouldn't say that influence is required for a band to be innovative; but I have to admit that such a criterion would make the list more attractive (and probably more useful). One thing that influence does say about a band is that they innovated music in a way that people actually care about, as opposed to just tossing around random elements of music unconvincingly.

So... that said, I'd be willing to gear the list more toward influence and less toward pure innovation. And in keeping with that, I'll go ahead and get rid of Ghoul.

I guess Impaled Nazarene is another good candidate for deletion, as they have apparently done only one song in an 'industrial black metal' style, and no one seems to think they were very influential.

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Here are my deletions, just for reference, in case anyone decides to debate them.

Ghoul
* Combined death metal and surf rock into a cohesive sound. (Splatterthrash, 2006)

Impaled Nazarene
* An early experimenter with industrial elements in black metal. (Ugra Karma, 1993)

 

[thisisaformicatable]

Ghoul was a joke from the start to show how dumb it was to have Opeth on a list like this.

Could someone elaborate upon The Red In The Sky Is Ours being the first melodic death metal album?

 

[zabu of nΩd]

Ghoul was a joke from the start to show how dumb it was to have Opeth on a list like this.

Wouldn't it be a little more productive to actually explain why Opeth didn't belong on the list (which someone else quite adequately did later on) than to get some random irrelevant band no one's heard of put up as your own personal form of protest?

 

[thisisaformicatable]

I didn't think you'd actually put it on. I thought it was a fairly obvious parody of the Opeth entry that nicely illustrated the problems of including such bands but apparently it went over your head.

 

[cookiecutter]

You do have a habit of seriously defending questionable points

 

[ShredHeadJHJ]

I'm not reading through the whole thread, but I always thought Megadeth were a very important band with a very identifiable sound. Mustaine's voice really helps to set them apart from the pack.

 

[Satanstoenail]

I'm not reading through the whole thread, but I always thought Megadeth were a very important band with a very identifiable sound. Mustaine's voice really helps to set them apart from the pack.

And how exactly does that make them innovative?

 

[Crimson Velvet]

It seems that most people around here has problems separating a good gimmick from actual innovation.