Why metal ?

[Bruticus]

What do you get out of metal music that you don't get out of any other genre ?

Is it a very general dimension to the sound, like the aggression about it and the fact it's the only style that uses sonic tools like distorted guitars and heavy drums and harsh vocals (metal and, punk or wtvr..) - or is it more on a technical level, the sort of musical texture and tightness of the riffs ?

Is it that metal depicts and taps directly into a sort of angst inside of you, or do you genuinely feel it's really just the music you're drawn into on a purely artistic level (regardless of your own "existential angst" let's say) ?
And also: why tomatoes ? Why ?

 

[PrincessHades]

I'd say its all of the above. I'm definately drawn to more aggressive music because as you said, it "taps into my angst", and to me that is a genuine reason to listen to any given genre.

I also appreciate it on a technical level. I admire the skills of certain musicians, and when I listen to certain songs, I feel amazed, like "holy shit, I cant believe someone can do that". I also like cool, catchy rhythms and melodies in the same way that most people do, and that goes for almost any kind of music.

 

[Omni]

It would vary depending on the band, since metal is so diverse. I did see Mortuary Drape live recently and they put on a great show that captured a lot of what I like about metal.

The instrumentalists were tight, but they weren't afraid to let loose. In particular, the bassist and the guitarist deliver standout performances and they had such a heavy sound. The drummer wasn't a slouch either. He pummeled his drum kit. As great as those guys were, Wildness Perversion was even better than them. Despite the fact that he's been performing for over three decades, his vocals were extremely powerful and filthy and he had a lot of energy. His weird stage presence made it seem like a pretty authentic occult ritual and he really put all of himself into the performance.

In spite of the large amount of preparation and care that the band took to portray themselves on stage, they were also very willing to interact with fans before, during and after the set. They were talking to any fans who approached them during the opening bands and I even got to sing into the microphone because I was near Wild during the show.

 

[Dak]

It moves me to do great things, with a subgenre for every occasion. Shit you would normally hear on the radio inspires one to be a boring normie or a degenerate.

 

[Onder]

Nazi chants calm down my troubled soul and I love the smell of tight riffage in the morning.

 

[Bruticus]

^ lol.
Alright good, always interesting to read people's honest opinions on such a fundamental topic. It sounds like a dumb obvious question, but it really isn't. Why metal, and not any other totally specific genre ?

If I think about it a bit, ONE of the main reasons I'd say: the excitement factor. I look around and my scope may be biased but I look into the jazz scene, it's not "excitement" so much it's more of an intellectual exercise and a soothing experience, I look at rock it's more about the attitude and image, I look at punk, similar...classical music (as great as it can be) is a cultured thing...

With metal, discovering a good album brings a sort of child like joy in me: just the album covers are epic as if to set the tone, there's this sort of maturity about the sound that other common styles around lack, like this is the "real shit", and there are all these goodie riffs to discover... it's like candy. I wouldn't pick up an alt rock or a reggae or a blues record and feel that excitement in me, and it's got nothing to do with liking those styles or not, they just don't "bring it" like metal will. Those could be catchy, they can be well written and enjoyable, but they won't bring the 'excitement' factor.
Metal is fluid (iron-ically..). Hilarious, I know.

 

[Onder]

^ lol.
Alright good, always interesting to read people's honest opinions on such a fundamental topic. It sounds like a dumb obvious question, but it really isn't. Why metal, and not any other totally specific genre ?

If I think about it a bit, ONE of the main reasons I'd say: the excitement factor. I look around and my scope may be biased but I look into the jazz scene, it's not "excitement" so much it's more of an intellectual exercise and a soothing experience, I look at rock it's more about the attitude and image, I look at punk, similar...classical music (as great as it can be) is a cultured thing...

With metal, discovering a good album brings a sort of child like joy in me: just the album covers are epic as if to set the tone, there's this sort of maturity about the sound that other common styles around lack, like this is the "real shit", and there are all these goodie riffs to discover... it's like candy. I wouldn't pick up an alt rock or a reggae or a blues record and feel that excitement in me, and it's got nothing to do with liking those styles or not, they just don't "bring it" like metal will. Those could be catchy, they can be well written and enjoyable, but they won't bring the 'excitement' factor.
Metal is fluid (iron-ically..). Hilarious, I know.

Well if we're answering the question "why not something else", then here's mine:

In hip-hop and rap, I occasionally listen to that just for the novelty. But it's so heavily based on lyrics which are unfortunately so annoying for me that I can't listen to that more. It's like a heavy dose of culture that is too distant for me. Money, thugs, bitchez, drugs, success in the industry, why should I fucking listen to some dude blabber about those things. Bitch I don't give a shit about your gold chain.

Pop, on the other hand, is like regurgitated music for people who don't care about music. I'm so allergic to the basic 4-chord progression which repeats endlessly in most "hit songs" of the last decade or two that I would have to kill myself if I was to listen to some of those repeatedly.

I listen to jazz sometimes, I like the 60's bebop and I like the classic standards being played by inventive dudes. I do however think that the improvisational part is overrated as it's basically a prison of rules.

Classical music is my favorite genre along with metal. It has always been the most inventive, forward-thinking genre of music and has the largest scope of possible sounds, techniques and performance options. Unfortunately contemporary classical is often ignored - this is a big issue in my country tbh. It's like Martinů was the last composer alive. /RANT

 

[The Butt]

Because satan.

 

[Bruticus]

Well if we're answering the question "why not something else", then here's mine:

In hip-hop and rap, I occasionally listen to that just for the novelty. But it's so heavily based on lyrics which are unfortunately so annoying for me that I can't listen to that more. It's like a heavy dose of culture that is too distant for me. Money, thugs, bitchez, drugs, success in the industry, why should I fucking listen to some dude blabber about those things. Bitch I don't give a shit about your gold chain.

Pop, on the other hand, is like regurgitated music for people who don't care about music. I'm so allergic to the basic 4-chord progression which repeats endlessly in most "hit songs" of the last decade or two that I would have to kill myself if I was to listen to some of those repeatedly.

I listen to jazz sometimes, I like the 60's bebop and I like the classic standards being played by inventive dudes. I do however think that the improvisational part is overrated as it's basically a prison of rules.

Classical music is my favorite genre along with metal. It has always been the most inventive, forward-thinking genre of music and has the largest scope of possible sounds, techniques and performance options. Unfortunately contemporary classical is often ignored - this is a big issue in my country tbh. It's like Martinů was the last composer alive. /RANT

/RANT REOPENED !1!!!!!!!1!!!/

You know it's interesting about classical music. I've gone from vast amounts of respect and attention to it, to not so much. You'd think the opposite way for a musician who grows and matures. I have an undying admiration for Bach's music for e.g., love Baroque lots of the time, but although I realize all of the 'greats' were impossibly ahead of their time, FOR THEIR TIME, for me there's a whole lot going on musically that is pretty flat, or even...annoying. Because despite the incredible knowledge of music on display, the end result, what I hear today in the 2000's, is redundant if I'm being honest, and classical is one of the genres that is most formulaic (with for e.g. the way a movement ends, the chord arrangements they use to end a section, that sort of thing).

I'm saying all this because good metal very often won't do that. The very principle in metal that it's a living, boundless free-style genre where the musician can break all norms, makes it that you know you should come across a bunch of radically different musical ideas on a given good album. You might even hear something that confounds you and you can't wrap your head around how the artists came up with it.

It's that "excitement factor" I brought up previously. There's so much tight yummy content on a good metal album because of how dynamic and resourceful the metal spectrum inherently is setup.

 

[Onder]

/RANT REOPENED !1!!!!!!!1!!!/

You know it's interesting about classical music. I've gone from vast amounts of respect and attention to it, to not so much. You'd think the opposite way for a musician who grows and matures. I have an undying admiration for Bach's music for e.g., love Baroque lots of the time, but although I realize all of the 'greats' were impossibly ahead of their time, FOR THEIR TIME, for me there's a whole lot going on musically that is pretty flat, or even...annoying. Because despite the incredible knowledge of music on display, the end result, what I hear today in the 2000's, is redundant if I'm being honest, and classical is one of the genres that is most formulaic (with for e.g. the way a movement ends, the chord arrangements they use to end a section, that sort of thing).

I believe you're talking about pre-1900 classical only.

I'm saying all this because good metal very often won't do that. The very principle in metal that it's a living, boundless free-style genre where the musician can break all norms, makes it that you know you should come across a bunch of radically different musical ideas on a given good album. You might even hear something that confounds you and you can't wrap your head around how the artists came up with it.

It's that "excitement factor" I brought up previously. There's so much tight yummy content on a good metal album because of how dynamic and resourceful the metal spectrum inherently is setup.

I wouldn't really say that metal is so boundless and free-style if I compare it to other genres. Not sure what you mean by that.

Tight yummy content is something from Pornhub?

 

[Bruticus]

Oh well that's an interesting topic Onder and fits the thread too.

So. You're saying metal is behind other genres in terms of being boundless and free-flowing. I'd say perhaps my bias for metal knowing it more than I do the other genres could hinder me a tad here but the bulk of my argument would be that if you went back and observed the explosive and highly dynamic development of metal, really during the 80's with heavy/tradition/thrash, looking at what a band like Morbid Angel managed to pull off in the early 90's, in the meantime doom, black or industrial pushing the envelope with tremendous pressure and momentum... I can't think of any other style that's got such a vibrant scene that's shown so much in such little time.

Pulling music by its limbs and pulling like maniacs arriving to the point of pure tech/brutal death metal;that's literally broken the mould of how all music had ever been written: no longer melodic scales, but chromatic based riffing with flat out atonal areas, no more chorus/verse etc... and major song structure changes, constant tempo and complex time signature fluctuation, not to mention the very notion of using a drum set like that or a vocalist as a rhythm instrument in the mix.
Metal bands have to be the ones that use vocals in the most varied way, the range is surely the greatest of any genre.

During that 80-90-2000's period of official patented metal establishing itself, the envelope's been pushed in all directions and the free-flowing aspiration has had an exponential growth in size and role in creating different genres.

 

[EternalMetal]

A couple of reasons I suppose. For one, the energy of the music draws me to it in ways that no other genre has ever quite done. The other reasons have to do with atmosphere and content. Other music genres like blues, hip-hop, punk, country, etc mostly deal with issues grounded in reality (street/country life, politics, the daily grind, etc), whereas metal typically deals with the fantastic. Ive always been a sci-fi and fantasy reader myself, and metal seems to cater favorably to that audience, as well as horror and ghost stories in which I like as well. Nothing quite transports you to these places like metal can do. The last reason, probably riffs.

Back before I discovered metal I was a kid listening to hard rock. I always thought that while I liked rock, I wished that they would pick up the pace and dig deeper into riffs and let loose on the drums more often. And then I heard Altars of Madness.

Otherwise, I can't really pinpoint why I seldom stray from metal. I just like it. I agree with what Onder says about classical as well, except metal is still my favorite.

 

[Krow]

Because satan.

 

[I-TEND-TO-DIE]

Because it's the general feeling of heavy music makes me feel better and I think Heavy Metal fits my mood and personality the most.
It's a genre which has very different styles and it's widespread over the world which makes it easy to communicate with others also the aggressive feeling is something that connects and in a positive way maybe sometimes destructive also but that's the way it is.

I have a deep relationship to this kind of music because I listen to it for such a long time and I spent my life's "highs and lows" with it listening to albums that still mean alot makes it also not easy for someone to understand the way I feel.
That's what I like so much it's the expression of feelings that no one other can feel or describe.
When I turned into Death metal from listening to Thrash I was diving into more darker caverns of my mind but I always felt a release when listening to albums like Altars of Madness or Screams of Anguish for instance.
On the other hand it's like mentioned above of course the technical skills and the riff patterns and odd structures that amazes me always again about this music.

 

[Bruticus]

A couple of reasons I suppose. For one, the energy of the music draws me to it in ways that no other genre has ever quite done. The other reasons have to do with atmosphere and content. Other music genres like blues, hip-hop, punk, country, etc mostly deal with issues grounded in reality (street/country life, politics, the daily grind, etc), whereas metal typically deals with the fantastic. Ive always been a sci-fi and fantasy reader myself, and metal seems to cater favorably to that audience, as well as horror and ghost stories in which I like as well. Nothing quite transports you to these places like metal can do. The last reason, probably riffs.

Back before I discovered metal I was a kid listening to hard rock. I always thought that while I liked rock, I wished that they would pick up the pace and dig deeper into riffs and let loose on the drums more often. And then I heard Altars of Madness.

Otherwise, I can't really pinpoint why I seldom stray from metal. I just like it. I agree with what Onder says about classical as well, except metal is still my favorite.

Yeah that's another one of the main points. The artistic direction and vision of metal. Most other styles of music only take you so far, lift you off the ground so to speak. Listening to pop, rock, jazz...whatever... is definitely a limited experience artistically, it's not like you're venturing far from reality. Metal as you suggest has this Lovecraftian quality to it, it's the weird fiction, the philosophical horror film, the dark visual art... of music. It comes with that power and that deeper vision, really explores the realms of fiction and stretches the imagination, where other styles barely graze that exploration and settle for just a bit of separation from reality.

 

[Bruticus]

Because it's the general feeling of heavy music makes me feel better and I think Heavy Metal fits my mood and personality the most.
It's a genre which has very different styles and it's widespread over the world which makes it easy to communicate with others also the aggressive feeling is something that connects and in a positive way maybe sometimes destructive also but that's the way it is.

I have a deep relationship to this kind of music because I listen to it for such a long time and I spent my life's "highs and lows" with it listening to albums that still mean alot makes it also not easy for someone to understand the way I feel.
That's what I like so much it's the expression of feelings that no one other can feel or describe.
When I turned into Death metal from listening to Thrash I was diving into more darker caverns of my mind but I always felt a release when listening to albums like Altars of Madness or Screams of Anguish for instance.
On the other hand it's like mentioned above of course the technical skills and the riff patterns and odd structures that amazes me always again about this music.

You seem quite seduced by the Floridian death metal sound, good on you

Yeah, metal is the weirdness inside the individual as you say, it's that special place, completely separate from the mainstream, a private space that feels like home...etc. It's a bit like the avatar of our "trueness" I suppose we can say. Our most intimate, most real, primal domain inside. It's completely uncompromising and pure. It doesn't play games or attempt to be pretty, which generally speaking is unlike 95% of, well, anything in life.

 

[The Ozzman]

Because it's harder than wood

 

[Cythraul]

Although there is a lot of metal music that I still love, I don't listen to a great deal of it anymore. I actively avoid most death metal and black metal these days. Part of it has to do with mellowing out with age and not wanting to listen to such abrasive music, and part of it is the fact that I find a lot of the anti-Christian lyrical content either deeply offensive or just stupid. These days I tend to go for traditional heavy metal, progressive metal, classic doom metal, and so-called atmospheric metal (e.g. The 3rd and the Mortal). I like the romanticist tendencies of this kind of music. I also like that a lot of these bands are, from limited means, attempting to create something grandiose and highly structured. You can find a similiar sort of thing in classical music too (which I like as well), but classical music lacks the specific sort of charm that comes from these guys of limited means and abilities striving for something larger than life. There's something about that combination in certain metal music that puts it in a very special category. I have a hard time articulating the specific reason this is so appealing to me; I'm not so good at talking about this kind of stuff. Anyway, it's why metal music that sounds extremely polished often doesn't stick with me for long. Also, who doesn't like awesome riffs?

 

[Master_Yoda77]

Why I like metal:

 

[The Ozzman]

I find a lot of the anti-Christian lyrical content either deeply offensive

Have you found Jesus?