- Aug 22, 2007
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If this is a stupid fucking thread then that's cool, make fun of me for it.
But I spent most of my life listening to anything but metal. It's not that I ever disliked it, I just never liked it. Until I eventually got into it... and I think it's just such a ridiculously excellent genre. Probably the greatest genre ever. It really irks me how metal doesn't get respect from music snobs. There seems to be the general inclination for people to consider playing soft as virtuous and playing heavy as low-brow. This is exemplified by the whole MTV Unplugged thing, which blatantly implies that if you can't play soft then you aren't as great of a musician. Which I think would be fine... if the reverse was represented to. But nobody ever tells James Taylor or Bright Eyes that they have to prove their skills by playing a metal show.
But that's not really my point. Maybe I think too much about this stuff, but I think metal's style is freaking genius, and in a lot of ways it's a hell of a lot more impressive than any other genre.
Firstly, there's the vocal dichotomy. No matter what non-fans think of death vocals, it's harder to sing like that than to sing in the normal pop-rock style. It must take vocal chords of pure steel to go out every night and sing like that. More importantly, no other genre has half the dichotomy of your average death metal band. There's probably not a single non-metla band that has ever gone that far of a range from the death growl scream to the angelic choir-esque singing, and that's a commonplace attribute of modern metal bands.
Secondly there is the PRECISION of metal. I adore the earthy swagger of rock, punk, and pop, but metal is completely beyond that. It's just tighter. The way that metal bands will do full stops at random moments in songs is fucking brilliant. It shows such control over the music that other bands can't reach. It's so powerful. Most music is based on maintaining a specific groove throughout, while metal has the balls and ability to start and stop and move. Metal also has so many more segments in the music. A David Bowie song will have on riff and chords for the chorus, whereas a metal song will have like 8 riffs and a few solos. It's a different mentallity.
Thirdly, of course, there is the technical ability issue. It's cool that people prefer Jimmy Page, Robert Johnson, and whoever, I love those guys too. But those guys would never be able to play the stuff that metal guitarists play. The music is so advanced. And that brings me to another aspect of metal that amazes me, it's constantly evolving. It keeps getting more advanced and more powerful, the metal bands from twenty years ago end up seeming archaic (but still great) compared to the new stuff that's going on. Lots of people think metal is a subgenre of rock... but I think those are people who don't understand metal and think Black Sabbath is the most advanced metal band.
But I spent most of my life listening to anything but metal. It's not that I ever disliked it, I just never liked it. Until I eventually got into it... and I think it's just such a ridiculously excellent genre. Probably the greatest genre ever. It really irks me how metal doesn't get respect from music snobs. There seems to be the general inclination for people to consider playing soft as virtuous and playing heavy as low-brow. This is exemplified by the whole MTV Unplugged thing, which blatantly implies that if you can't play soft then you aren't as great of a musician. Which I think would be fine... if the reverse was represented to. But nobody ever tells James Taylor or Bright Eyes that they have to prove their skills by playing a metal show.
But that's not really my point. Maybe I think too much about this stuff, but I think metal's style is freaking genius, and in a lot of ways it's a hell of a lot more impressive than any other genre.
Firstly, there's the vocal dichotomy. No matter what non-fans think of death vocals, it's harder to sing like that than to sing in the normal pop-rock style. It must take vocal chords of pure steel to go out every night and sing like that. More importantly, no other genre has half the dichotomy of your average death metal band. There's probably not a single non-metla band that has ever gone that far of a range from the death growl scream to the angelic choir-esque singing, and that's a commonplace attribute of modern metal bands.
Secondly there is the PRECISION of metal. I adore the earthy swagger of rock, punk, and pop, but metal is completely beyond that. It's just tighter. The way that metal bands will do full stops at random moments in songs is fucking brilliant. It shows such control over the music that other bands can't reach. It's so powerful. Most music is based on maintaining a specific groove throughout, while metal has the balls and ability to start and stop and move. Metal also has so many more segments in the music. A David Bowie song will have on riff and chords for the chorus, whereas a metal song will have like 8 riffs and a few solos. It's a different mentallity.
Thirdly, of course, there is the technical ability issue. It's cool that people prefer Jimmy Page, Robert Johnson, and whoever, I love those guys too. But those guys would never be able to play the stuff that metal guitarists play. The music is so advanced. And that brings me to another aspect of metal that amazes me, it's constantly evolving. It keeps getting more advanced and more powerful, the metal bands from twenty years ago end up seeming archaic (but still great) compared to the new stuff that's going on. Lots of people think metal is a subgenre of rock... but I think those are people who don't understand metal and think Black Sabbath is the most advanced metal band.
It fits much better with the mindless hipster crowd.
