What defines 'alternative' metal

[Omni]

There is absolutely no reason why certain artists that existed in the 1960s are not alternative rock, such as The Velvet Underground, David Bowie and The Stooges, among others. You probably don't realize that alternative music predates punk music entirely but it's funny that you're trying to argue otherwise.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Who calls any of them alternative rock? The link you posted at the top of the page would disagree with your application of the term to those artists.

 

[Omni]

I posted the general Wikipedia article on alternative music because you asked what "alternative" means when applied to music. Nowhere did I state that I was using the article as a Bible on alternative music.

Also, music historians generally agree on all of those artists being alternative music pioneers as they're all directly influential on it and not substantially unlike it in any way. Their aesthetic, ethos, themes and musical content is all in line with what is considered alternative as well.

The funny part is that they're also considered some of the most influential artists on punk music.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Provide sources plz.

(Not in terms of influence, I fully acknowledge that they are influential.)

 

[CiG]

I agree with your Post-Punk point.

 

[Baroque]

Jazz really doesn't have such a big place in metal. I would definitely call even the first Cynic album alt metal with all of its full-on fusion segments and such. That's in contrast to an album like Unquestionable Presence which may be "jazzy" in some form but is basically built on thrash and death metal riffing, no matter how spastic or technical it may be. I would call earlier Mekong Delta pure thrash metal, as even though the arrangements of the riffs are classically influenced, the riffing itself is full of proper thrash chugging. Likewise, Schubert is not metal.

Jazz has a pretty big place in metal. Maybe not the metal you listen to, but there's a significant amount of jazz metal. Even more mainstream stuff like Dream Theater is jazz influenced. Ne Obliviscaris. Yeah Atheist, Cynic, Pestilence - Spheres, Ansur - Warring Factions, Spastic Ink, Spiral Architect, Watchtower... Mostly progressive metal I guess. But I listen to all of those.

 

[Baroque]

Schubert is not metal.

Obviously not because of the time frame. But the riffs and vocals are metal enough. If some band like Jag Panzer wrote the same song today with maybe drums added, people would call it neoclassical power metal or something. Just saying that it's difficult to even define what pure metal is. There are overlaps into other genres.

 

[Dak]

It's like 2009 up in here.

 

[Baroque]

It's like 2009 up in here.

Why's that?

 

[CiG]

Genre debates are outdated?

 

[Baroque]

Genre debates are outdated?

Probably, but I've never heard this particular spin on it, so it seems worth debating somewhat.

 

[CiG]

Agreed, though I personally tend to think about music more romantically, these debates are still interesting to read, even if MercyfulFate seems to be acting offended for some reason.

 

[no country for old wainds]

that's just a thing she does at all times

also hamburgerboy is super annoying to argue with (i'm sure he'll take this as a compliment)

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I've made my points fairly clearly tbh fam smh.

 

[The Butt]

As much as I disagree with Omni on many points, she is fucking annihilating HB.

 

[CiG]

She's coming off as a little too self-righteous and pearl-clutchy to me.

 

[The Ozzman]

What the fuck does 'fam' mean in that context?

 

[CiG]

Same as any other context, haha, the fuck?

 

[Carpe Mortem]

Even putting aside jazz metal, I've been under the impression most of my life that metal adopts VERY heavily from traditional jazz time signatures, having originally been rock doing the same thing.

 

[EternalMetal]

So if making something sound like crap makes it sound like black metal, it proves my point which is that black metal is an aesthetic without a unifying musical basis, and that any form of non-metal can be molded to sound like black metal with bad production.

Percussive and vocal elements perhaps? Ive read your arguments about this, and it seems like you are basing pretty much everything on the riffing, which is definitely limiting your criteria.

Otherwise, your point is hard to refute. The ambiance and atmospheric aesthetic of black metal is indeed often a result of poor production values. Black metal seems to be a pretty open genre these days, and almost any band that has an open sense of atmosphere and loose song structure seems to be lumped into this category. Thus, the labeling starts to become a slippery slope as to how to draw the line between black metal and something else. There has to be something missing from your objective criteria of defining black metal, but im not trained enough in the theory of music to identify exactly what. Surely there is more to defining metal than its riffing, however.

Also, you are forgetting that I posted songs from them in proper quality and that many have admitted that they sound like black metal.

So is your point that Ham is definitively not metal, and that there is a trick that somehow proves your point?

I think the problem lies in the idea that bands tend not to be retrospectively labelled based on future classifications. Genre classification is thus more of a pseudo-science in comparison to something like the taxonomy of life (which allows for change based on new data - like DNA sequencing for instance).