- May 24, 2016
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As a tl;dr, I've underlined the most important terms so that you can just skim through!
Disclaimer: I am not in any way a music expert. There are many terms I am missing that would make my description clearer and which might be obvious to you. So please excuse the vagueness, I try to add examples to explain what I mean. I literally have no friends that listen to metal, so this post is really the first discussion in metal that I've ever had ^^
So here goes, I thought this was the best place to address this issue. I've been into metal for about 3 years now, ever since I accidentally listened to the YouTuber 331Erock's covers of different pop songs, movie themes and video game soundtracks. I've then tried listening to different genres to try and figure out what I really like about metal, and that's where the problem begins.
In theory, I love metal, as a concept, because of two reasons. The first is the "headbanging potential" this genre has, as I call it. Yes, headbanging is an iconic metal thing, but I also do it with certain types of electronic music (glitch-hop, drum and bass, etc...) Mainly, it means: how catchy the beat is all the while being "powerful." This means that the percussion (mostly drums) are usually crucial to whether I like a song/genre or not, and the beat is very often on the faster side.
The second reason is the melody. The song has to be melodious, something where the notes play after each other with harmony, going up and down, changing all the time. You might think "Wait, but that's the concept of music isn't it"? Well, what I mean would be the opposite of say, Thrash or Black Metal, where the guitar elongates the same notes loudly, and the instrumentals are often drowned by the growling vocals. I have nothing against growls btw. Coming back to the parallel of electronic music, I dislike Dubstep because the music is not structured as a "melody" that is flowing smoothly, but rather a series of different sounds, each playing for 1-3 seconds before giving way to the next. Of course, that's the whole point of dubstep, and to each his own.
However, they are guesses. It might be something else (based on my examples I give below), it might be these concepts which actually have names, and are typical to a certain subgenre.
Based on the two criteria mentioned above, the closest metal subgenres I thought I would like were melodic death metal, power metal, and symphonic metal (to some extent), but alas, no luck. A lot of melodic death metal sounds the same to me, with the guitars offering no distinctive melody I'd like, and power metal is great until I realised that, again, most of the power metal songs I heard sounded the same; the guitar would sometimes play melodies, but for the most part, it's a continuous playing of 3-4 notes and the drums are banging non stop. As for symphonic metal, it rarely satisfies the first category of "headbanging potential" as very often, the beat is too slow.
One way to help me would be to go through snippets of the songs below and use your seasoned ear to try and figure out what they all have in common. Another way is telling me the names of all these techniques/concepts I am trying to describe, making it easier for me to look for epic tracks in the future.
Examples:
Soilwork - The Living Infinite I,
Soilwork - The Living Infinite II,
Soilwork - My Nerves Your Everyday Tool,
All three songs mentioned above are amongst my top 5 all-time favourite songs of all time. They work perfectly; the melody is wonderful, the drums make an excellent beat, the vocals don't overwhelm the instruments; it works. I love the rest of the Living Infinite and Beyond the Infinite Album, but these three take the cake. I should mention that something I especially love about The Living Infinite I & II are the openings of the song which are purely instrumental, and that build-up the song oh so perfectly. Obviously, I've proceeded to check the band's other albums, but none of them really tickled my fancy.
In Flames - Delight and Angers
In Flames - I'm the Highway
In Flames - Only for the Weak
In Flames is another band many songs of which I liked. The vocals aren't my favourite, but the instrumental is amazing. I'm the Highway begins with a sequence that I absolutely adore; melodic and with a heavy beat (I believe it is called a riff?)
Moving on from Death Metal,
AC/DC - Back in Black
A song I love, it's a classic for a reason.
Machinae Supremacy - Hero (instrumental)
I prefer the instrumental version of this song as the vocals only drag the song down (imo). The solo at 3:10 makes me fall in love with the song even more every time I listen to it. It's very melodic and the heavy beat is prominent.
Monolith - Michael Mac ft. Bryce Goertzen, Charlie Parra & Eric Calderone
I love the song for the same reasons.
If you've read this far, thank you! If you've skipped till down here, still thanks! I'd love to hear your opinion.
tl;dr: I don't know what I like about metal. Pls help based on the songs above.
Disclaimer: I am not in any way a music expert. There are many terms I am missing that would make my description clearer and which might be obvious to you. So please excuse the vagueness, I try to add examples to explain what I mean. I literally have no friends that listen to metal, so this post is really the first discussion in metal that I've ever had ^^
So here goes, I thought this was the best place to address this issue. I've been into metal for about 3 years now, ever since I accidentally listened to the YouTuber 331Erock's covers of different pop songs, movie themes and video game soundtracks. I've then tried listening to different genres to try and figure out what I really like about metal, and that's where the problem begins.
In theory, I love metal, as a concept, because of two reasons. The first is the "headbanging potential" this genre has, as I call it. Yes, headbanging is an iconic metal thing, but I also do it with certain types of electronic music (glitch-hop, drum and bass, etc...) Mainly, it means: how catchy the beat is all the while being "powerful." This means that the percussion (mostly drums) are usually crucial to whether I like a song/genre or not, and the beat is very often on the faster side.
The second reason is the melody. The song has to be melodious, something where the notes play after each other with harmony, going up and down, changing all the time. You might think "Wait, but that's the concept of music isn't it"? Well, what I mean would be the opposite of say, Thrash or Black Metal, where the guitar elongates the same notes loudly, and the instrumentals are often drowned by the growling vocals. I have nothing against growls btw. Coming back to the parallel of electronic music, I dislike Dubstep because the music is not structured as a "melody" that is flowing smoothly, but rather a series of different sounds, each playing for 1-3 seconds before giving way to the next. Of course, that's the whole point of dubstep, and to each his own.
However, they are guesses. It might be something else (based on my examples I give below), it might be these concepts which actually have names, and are typical to a certain subgenre.
Based on the two criteria mentioned above, the closest metal subgenres I thought I would like were melodic death metal, power metal, and symphonic metal (to some extent), but alas, no luck. A lot of melodic death metal sounds the same to me, with the guitars offering no distinctive melody I'd like, and power metal is great until I realised that, again, most of the power metal songs I heard sounded the same; the guitar would sometimes play melodies, but for the most part, it's a continuous playing of 3-4 notes and the drums are banging non stop. As for symphonic metal, it rarely satisfies the first category of "headbanging potential" as very often, the beat is too slow.
One way to help me would be to go through snippets of the songs below and use your seasoned ear to try and figure out what they all have in common. Another way is telling me the names of all these techniques/concepts I am trying to describe, making it easier for me to look for epic tracks in the future.
Examples:
Soilwork - The Living Infinite I,
Soilwork - The Living Infinite II,
Soilwork - My Nerves Your Everyday Tool,
All three songs mentioned above are amongst my top 5 all-time favourite songs of all time. They work perfectly; the melody is wonderful, the drums make an excellent beat, the vocals don't overwhelm the instruments; it works. I love the rest of the Living Infinite and Beyond the Infinite Album, but these three take the cake. I should mention that something I especially love about The Living Infinite I & II are the openings of the song which are purely instrumental, and that build-up the song oh so perfectly. Obviously, I've proceeded to check the band's other albums, but none of them really tickled my fancy.
In Flames - Delight and Angers
In Flames - I'm the Highway
In Flames - Only for the Weak
In Flames is another band many songs of which I liked. The vocals aren't my favourite, but the instrumental is amazing. I'm the Highway begins with a sequence that I absolutely adore; melodic and with a heavy beat (I believe it is called a riff?)
Moving on from Death Metal,
AC/DC - Back in Black
A song I love, it's a classic for a reason.
Machinae Supremacy - Hero (instrumental)
I prefer the instrumental version of this song as the vocals only drag the song down (imo). The solo at 3:10 makes me fall in love with the song even more every time I listen to it. It's very melodic and the heavy beat is prominent.
Monolith - Michael Mac ft. Bryce Goertzen, Charlie Parra & Eric Calderone
I love the song for the same reasons.
If you've read this far, thank you! If you've skipped till down here, still thanks! I'd love to hear your opinion.
tl;dr: I don't know what I like about metal. Pls help based on the songs above.
