Yeah, pointless. At the same time, interesting. How much better is this than bitching about how Lopez isn't a great drummer, regardless of the opinion of 80 or so Opeth fans?
Benighted1 said:
Dude, deal with it, your wrong, most people here know it, Black Sabbath are metal. Next you will be telling us Bananas aren't yellow
Brilliant. No no, really.
fizz6207 said:
I very much agree with Cairath. It would make more sense to say modern bands arent metal because they arent like sabbath, cause sabbath were the original...so to speak...
Just because the genre has diverged doesnt mean old bands get kicked out. There are many types of metal to accomadate them all, black, goth, melodic, death, prog, etc etc...
Perhaps what we need to look for is a common tie between every single one of these genres, then we could perhaps begin to formulate what classifies metal to an extent...
See, this is what's motivating your argument. You guys are saying "well, it's not fair to kick people out just because time passed." You're not looking at things objectively.
CAIRATH said:
And I'll bet the opposite. Though it depends on what breed of "metalhead" you ask. If you mean the kind that has a Confederate flag tattooed on his arm and crushes beercans on his forehead at a Pantera show then no he probably wouldn't. Most "metalheads" (I really hate that word) that are a little more knowledgable (ie. have listened to metal for atleast 5 years or so) would easily recognize Sabbath as a metal band even without knowing beforehand who they are.
I'll ignore that for the moment.
CAIRATH said:
Excuse me? I think I backed up my statement/opinion pretty well.
CAIRATH said:
And I do not understand the rationale behind rewriting which genre a band belongs to based on the current state of said genre. If a band was a metal band in the 70's then they are a metal band now. The fact that metal that is produced nowadays sounds very different and has become more extreme does not change that.
Sure about that?
CAIRATH said:
Your definition of metal is just flawed beyond belief. Metal does not mean "heavier than everything else". By that definition loads of bands would already not be considered metal anymore because they have already been outdone by more recent bands that are heavier. And even more metal bands have never been "heavy" in the first place. Are you going to argue that Iron Maiden is not metal? They weren't even heavy for 80's standards, and certainly aren't by today's standards. And you did not at all refute my statement that bands do not lose their genre classification as the genre progresses.
Apart from the blues influences that you can find in Sabbath's music, everything else can be found in today's metal except nowadays the envelope is pushed further and those elements have been taken to a more extreme level. Black Sabbath was pretty much the blueprint for modern day's doom metal and the differences are not even all that big. Metal came forth out of a mixture of hardrock and blues so it's only natural that the early metal bands would wear those influences more clearly than the later era metal bands that started to develop their own sound. But it can all be traced back quite easily and you are completely exagerating just how different Sabbath sounds from plenty of contemporary bands. Like I said, downtuned distorted guitars, plodding guitar riffs, solos, a sinister/odd vocal approach, dark lyrical themes and imagery, all of those are important elements of metal that were present eversince the first Sabbath album and that made album a metal band and not a rock band.
They were a metal band then and they are a metal band now. Just because the metal genre has expanded to fit different elements into it that did not exist yet back then does not invalidate the elements and bands that did.
I can't believe I'm even bothering to argue this.
Now here's the other problem with your argument. You say "Sabbath was heavy then, it's heavy now, and retains other elements that make it metal." I say "Heavy is subjective, and the definitions have changed, thus Sabbath is no longer heavy. And the other elements aren't really there." Then you say again, "Sabbath was heavy then, it's heavy now, and retains other elements that make it metal." Then I say "I just told you, you can't call them heavy anymore, and a sinister vocal approach is apparent in modern classical pieces." Then you say again, "Sabbath was heavy then, it's heavy now, and retains other elements that make it metal." You can't argue something by saying it over and over. If you don't understand how you're wrong, let me explain it: You say, "They were heavy then, they're heavy now." But you see, heaviness is SUBJECTIVE. What was considered heavy in the 70's is CLEARLY not considered heavy now. A definition of heaviness depends on the time period. I think we can agree that an important aspect to metal is that a band be "heavy." Right? And if the only thing that made Sabbath metal was its heaviness, then we can conclude that Sabbath was not and is not metal. Right?
Well now, what other metal attributes might Sabbath have? You say, "downtuned distorted guitars, plodding guitar riffs, solos, a sinister/odd vocal approach, dark lyrical themes and imagery, all of those are important elements of metal that were present eversince the first Sabbath album and that made album a metal band and not a rock band."
Downtuned guitars? There are jazz guitarists that downtune their guitars, and if a guitar is clean and downtuned, it's metal? The point of downtuning in most bands is to get heavier; if Sabbath wasn't heavy, then their tuning was about inconsequential right? Same with distortion.
Plodding guitar riffs? I'd say most metal that is not doom is not plodding either. Plodding is unique to doom, a subgenre.
I believe there's a solo in "Stairway to Heaven."
Whining into a microphone is not sinister, though perhaps a bit odd. However, what is most common (and most prominent) in most metal vocalization is either the Halford/Dickinson pitch or the James Hetfield testosterone. Ozzy Osbourne did neither. In fact, you'd be better off making an argument for the vocal aspect of metal when they had Dio rather than Ozzy.
Lyrics? I thought we were talking about the musical aspects here? And I believe goths talk plenty about satan. If not, who cares anyway? We're talking about the music.
So, let's say I concede about lyrics. That gives Sabbath...lyrics and heaviness. Take away heaviness, and Sabbath is dark poetry. This is putting aside all the rock and blues elements that define the music to a much greater extent, not to mention the fact that, as I said before, nowadays Sabbath can be found far more frequently on a local classic rock station than any other.
As I said before, with any other genre, things are different. Different artists in a genre will keep the same distinctive qualities that define the genre. However, when a quality changes with time, that cannot occur. Heaviness changed. And that was the only thing keeping Sabbath "metal."
