Theocracy not inovative???

[Spyderman-Hyderman]

Here's a brief segment of a dialogue I'm engaged in. The thread has nothing to do with Theocracy, but because I mentioned it the thread has been hijacked. Kinda bleak....but thought I'd share. The final post in the thread is mine. under Aurora Dawn



Kevin ist krieg


Joined: 29 Sep 2004
Posts: 1074


Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 5:13 pm Post subject:

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raunchy wrote:
hahahaa ..cool pics..Gospel in my opinion is dead.It has the musical equivalency of a grade three reader in a public school.Music needs expeirmentation,clmax,peaks..etc.Heavy Metal has nothing to learn from gospel at all,in fact gospel needs to learn from heavy metal.However you made some excellent points Kev.


yea I'll agree there, Gospel died with Marvin Gaye.

Heavy power metal is a oxymoron... and you know it, yea Theocracy are pretty good but their soo god damn Generic there is nothing innovative about it. Hell Celesty is more creative then that. You can't really use power metal to support your christian theory CAUSE ALL POWER METAL BANDS SING ABOUT CHRIST.. the fantasy literary genre is just a offshoot of the bible, the bible was pretty fucking epic if you read it.

by the way do you play dungeons and dragons?

oh and I sure hope Theocracy didn't know what Theocracy really meant.
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I am Jesus's Flaming sword of justice

Last edited by Kevin ist krieg on Tue Jul 12, 2005 5:25 pm; edited 1 time in total


Aurora Dawn


Joined: 29 Jun 2005
Posts: 72
Location: Ottawa

Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2005 5:25 pm Post subject:

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theme has little to nothing to do with whether a band is inovative. And if you wanna talk about generics....every band that sings about wizards and warriors, knights and dragons, are certainly NOT inovative. Nor is death, satan and despair any more inovative or ungeneric.
Incidently....my band does a Christian theme, though I'd very much hesitate to call it gospel, albeit that's where the root of my themes stem. Preachy? No not at all. We don't sing "Jesus Loves me...." but even if we did...it would be heavy and rock. We leave our lyrics ambiguous enough that all you'd think was that we wrote a heavy song....but to knowledgeable people, the point is delivered.
does that mean my music is dead before it starts?
Pretty bleak outlook I'd say. Destined for failure if everyone thought that way.
I gotta hunch that YOU don't know what Theocracy means

theocracy

a word first used by Josephus to denote that the Jews were under the direct
government of God himself. The nation was in all things subject to the will of
their invisible King. All the people were the servants of Jehovah, who ruled
over their public and private affairs, communicating to them his will through
the medium of the prophets. They were the subjects of a heavenly, not of an
earthly, king. They were Jehovah's own subjects, ruled directly by him (comp. 1
Sam. 8:6-9).
in other words.....God rules.
So I'm pretty sure Matt Smith had a good idea of what he was doing when he chose Theocracy as a band name.
_________________
Line 6 and KRANK ownz!
Heavy Metals greatest instrument is the Oboe

 

[athensbum]

I thought it interesting that he "hoped" Theocracy didn't know what "theocracy" meant. . . does he think ignorance is better? So, for example, it would be "better" for the band to not know what their name meant, even if, say, some 10 year olds named a band "Hitler's Nazis" because they thought it sounded cool? Sorry to be so critical, but often people just don't think about what they are saying.

At any rate, if someone were to take his stance on innovation or the lack thereof, who, on earth, would be the least bit innovative? In music and in everything else. We build on what has come before us, we make it better and we personalize it.


Every now and again we have a Newton or an Einstein who says, "Hey, I came up with this idea. . ." that blows people away because it's new and completely different. But, come on, does he expect every band to suddenly create a new sound out of thin air? That's the idea of "innovation" I got from his post. Sheesh. Just goes to show you cannot please everyone!!

Sue

 

[Matt Smith]

It's OK, it doesn't bother me in the least when people say stuff like that. I've never claimed to be original. People's obsession with originality always makes me laugh--especially in popular music. There was so much originality in the 60s and 70s because none of it had ever been done before. By now everything has been done a MILLION times. We've heard so much stuff because there are SO many bands out there that its tough to have a really original sound without going completely off the wall. That's why I don't bother with it. Everybody takes something that came before and builds on it; that's just the way it is.

There are a couple of exceptions, but to me, usually when a band goes out of their way to try to sound "original" or to "break new ground", it ends up sounding really contrived and forced. "Hey look, we've got a theremin player in our band, and we all wear skunkskin kilts!!!" It seems some bands put all their creative energy into trying to do something different. Instead of that, I try to put all my focus into writing good songs. Because I don't care what anyone says, that is the bottom line at the end of the day. Why do we talk about Dream Theater clones and Stratovarius clones? Is it because they sound like those bands? Nope, it's because their songs aren't half as memorable as Dream Theater and Stratovarius songs, therefore they have no identity, nothing that sticks in your brain, and are only thought of in terms of style. If you come up with top-notch material, everything will fall into place; I firmly believe that. It's all about the songs!

Now, there is a line to be crossed. To me when a band tries to sound exactly like one other band, down to the singer trying to sing exactly like the vocalist of that band, that's when it bugs me. But all good bands just take an element of this and an element of that and filter it through their own personalities to create something new. If you look at the bands in Metal that are viewed as the groundbreakers from the 80s on, none of them reinvented the wheel, they just built on what came before, stamped it with their own unique personalities, and took it to a new and bigger audience.
Iron Maiden=70s progressive rock + punk. Metallica=Motorhead + Diamond Head. Dream Theater=Rush + Metallica. And so forth.
But most importantly, they wrote good songs.

 

[Der Schriftsteller]

You can't really use power metal to support your christian theory CAUSE ALL POWER METAL BANDS SING ABOUT CHRIST.. the fantasy literary genre is just a offshoot of the bible, the bible was pretty fucking epic if you read it.

Hmmm... he has some point here. I once posted a theory in another forum, that was in short that it's hard for Christian power metal bands to become popular since many power metal bands (especially German ones) sing about Christian themes or at least use a lot of Christian language and images.

 

[Spyderman-Hyderman]

Probably the best answer on the subject Matt....sorry Sue...your answer was good too but, who's the rock star here?

I have a feeling there are other reasons why Christian based metal struggles to enter the mainstream. If German metal for instance was already doing Christianesque themed music, then I would assume that Christian metal like Theocracy, Stryper, or to a far lesser extent myself, would be fitting in nicely and generating considerable success. Depending of course how you define success. Not sure what goals Matt and Theocracy have set for themselves, but I view them as successfull. Debut album, second on the way, and a growing fanbase. Others may say big deal...where's the millions of dollars?
There's a scism associated with everything and anything Christian, which unfortunately keeps it usually "in a box in the back" rather than first cd rack when you enter the store.

 

[Spyderman-Hyderman]

oh one last thing....I did kinda have the last laugh.
This same guy said he really liked Dol Ammad.
(incidently...so do I) but I caught him off guard when I told him it was just a "generic" mix of Therion, Luca Turilli, and Ayreon/Star One.

I feel good, yup....I do.

 

[Shawn B]

Opinions are like butt hairs, everyone has at least one

 

[Spyderman-Hyderman]

Opinions are like butt hairs, everyone has at least one

yeah but not everyones opinion stinks.

 

[Shawn B]

I didnt mean that everyones opinion stinks, I for one have alot of opinions that I am sure are very wrong, no one is perfect. That is why we have a forum to talk about stuff like this

 

[Spyderman-Hyderman]

I didnt mean that everyones opinion stinks, I for one have alot of opinions that I am sure are very wrong, no one is perfect. That is why we have a forum to talk about stuff like this

ah....I thought you were making that old joke...
"Opinions are like butts; everyone has one and all of them stink."

my mom used to always say that.

 

[Shawn B]

no problem at all