Revolllution said:
Look guys, I don't really "dig" the metal scene to the same extent that a lot of the posters on this board evidently do but what's the fucking deal with associating what you consider to be an inferior form of music (I've barely heard any bands that fit the general criteria for "metalcore" save for Trivium, Killswitch Engage and *vomits* Raging Speedhorn) with a sexual orientation?
You're not exactly macho for listening to more traditional forms of metal. It's only fair to bear in mind that the extreme metal scene as we know it today wouldn't exist without the speed and thrash metal of the 1980's, which itself wouldn't have come about without hardcore-punk influenced bands such as Metallica, Motorhead and Slayer. For me, the only time since then that hardcore punk and metal have become appropriate bedfellows (no pun intended) were in the relatively metallic leanings of late Black Flag and early Sick of it All in the latter years of that decade and I find the aforementioned "metalcore" bands to be just as insipid as the likes of Slipknot but what specifically makes it "gay"?
You mean "gay" compared to the "women aren't good enough to give us hard-on" dogma with regards to female inclusiveness extreme metal scene? The androgynous squealing of Immortal and Emperor and their penchant for white foundation make-up? The homoerotic imagery of Venomn? The genre's staunch, ideological opposition to mainstream morality that I should have hoped would draw in a relatively enlightened fan base? Well who am I kidding? When are metal fans going to learn to drop this kind of peurile, neanderthallic, boneheaded machismo?
Alright, thats a fair, seriously written post, so I will also write one.
Consider the following, especially to those of us who are older (no offence to the younger people here, but some of you may also have noticed this):
Since the death of Kurt Cobain in back in 1994, rock based music, inclusive of (to a lesser extent) metal (which I think was effected by the following LAST) has been overcome with a lack of pioneers.
The alternative scene is DEAD, nothing under the label alternative really exists (and I refer to the music, not the record labels).
Band after band have attrociously copied one another, emulating their peers and influences shamelessly to the point of plagiarism in an effort to make the leftism of the 90s become trendy.
They have succeeded.
Their emulation has ceased to be an influence, but rather ingredients to a FORMULA of sales protection. The glory of music in the 90s and decades prior, be it metal, house or skatepunk has become the a mish-mash of music, simply to be called
DILUTION.
The theory of evolvement now is to remix, to copy, to remaster or re-release. The same is clearly evident in films from America.
Musical, theoretical, lyrical technicality and brilliance are things which in the public eye, have ceased to exist. For the most part, the youth of today know nothing of bands which might release music based on mythology or nature as we know it.
From a mainstream perspective music follows fashion. However the fashion now is simply to bring back what was done before, but with a modern twist, or, with a modern REMIX.
Thus, we come to musical examples such as metalcore: a by-product and direct result of all of the above, an attrocious worthless pile of shit steaming on the grass, waiting to polute potential musical minds of millions of kids around the world into nothing but blind sheep awaiting acceptance into the pathetic masses of a glutonous public obsessed with stardom and vanity.
Kids will rarely know the brilliance of Mudhoney, the politics of Public Enemy or NWA, the breathtaking work of Soul II Soul, Black Box or FSOL, the bloodied Viking seas of Bathory, the black depths of Burzum, the searing heat of Egypt in Iron Maiden's Powerslave or the industrialised cold war in Megadeth. The soul of music itself is dead.
Listeners are now subject to samples, snippets, materialistic wealth, shallow teenaged binge drinking and fucking as subject matter, effectively cutting out the ponderous nature of many musically-minded people out there who really want to learn for knowledge.
Despite the above, there are now a minority, a group of people who do stay under the surface seeking and creating new music and pushing boundaries and we are the lucky ones to get to experience this.
Everything comes full circle, the Epitaph dominated charts will come to an end as dance music already has (live music in Australia right now is making a massive comeback and many nightclubs are either closing to changing to accomodate the change). For now, we can only wait in earnest to have the end of this diluted patheticism come to an end and real music, regardless of genre comes back, where artists have a BRAIN.