Metal's Becoming a Cliche

[FrenchAK]

I dont see talent at all in this song

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Any guitarist can make riffs like that any guitarist can hold the sweetnotes and any band can make a bassist play like that, any person can scream and hold notes& any one can swear. How is that talent?

Cons about the song Nightmare: ( sorry if this sounds like a review )
Bassist is playing just to keep a beat, Witch in its self is not the worst thing ever.
Guitarists are really putting there soul in the song/solo ( if they are thats dissapointing )
The singer is probably the worst singer iv ever herd. Id rather listen to Eminem.
And the lyrics suck ***.

Pros: The guitars sweetnote is good?
At least they are not screaming all the time like Bring me the horizen and bands like that.


My question to you is, What the **** do you see in the band?

I've always said Avenged Sevenfold is as heavy as I like to go. Their work is still melodic and catchy, and still resembles what I call music. Your opinion is obviously different.

The way I read it, the OP was speaking of bands that play stuff like this. (It's a local band but that's all I can think of at the moment - go figure.)

Here's a story: at one of our gigs, we were playing 4th out of five bands, all the others were metal. By the time we got on stage, I felt queasy from the sustained screaming and pounding bass drum... It was *not* a good night.

A huge problem (for me) is that it's impossible for my band to get a gig without a few metal bands before or after us. It doesn't help that the guitarist (the band leader) books us for any gig he can get his hands on, regardless of the rest of the bands playing that night or the audience's preferences. Awkward situations ensue.

Anyway - metal dominates the scene now. I kind of thought it was just here, but I suppose I'm glad (and a bit depressed) to see it's also happening all over the country. I think of myself as a very open minded person, and I'm not one to say any type of music sucks. I like just about everything, but it's all subjective - and I know how it feels to be told the music I like sucks. Saying that makes no sense, but I *will* say that if there is one genre of music I could go without, it would be hardcore metal.

 

[kuuri]

They are musically talented sure. And yeah I knew it was mostly the vocals I really like that part ov the genera. Your an intelligent man you know that everyone is different if everyone liked the same music it be kinda boring wouldnt it? And I can deffinilty agree on that band who scream into the mic and what seem to be randomly hit notes are not into for the music aspect they are in it for the chick or sometimes dicks. I think me bring up this argument was almost pointless altough I look at music differently now

 

[pklima]

I don't understand your humor... it looks like sarcasm, but I honestly can't tell.

That's middle-aged metalhead humor, like "If you are a false do not entry". "No fun. No core. No mosh. No trends." was an early 90s Norwegian black metal slogan, I think it was on the back covers of some records Euronymous put out?

 

[Etchbass]

Well, you know, anybody can write riffs like that. And anyone can do a guttural growl. And any band can make a bassist play like that. But that sweetnote is really good....

I just can't stand their vocals, and everything else seems cluttered to me. Same with Suicide Silence. My point is, these aren't the people we're bashing. Whether you'd like to admit it or not, Avenged Sevenfold is a musically talented band.

Write a song on this caliber, for instance, and you will be a musically talented person. Especially if you do it consistently over the course of 15 years or so. Invalid Link Removed

they are talented. I'm talking about the talentless hacks that scream into mics past the point of clipping, where the bassists just hit 8th note root runs, and the guitars blast away on power chords, the drums double bass throughout the whole song and hit the china cymbal on every beat, the cookie cutter sound, the cookie cutter lyrics, the fake badassery they inevitably try to project.

If a band stays clear of these to make actual music (HINT: Most don't) they have my respect even if I don't like it.

Spot on! I agree 100% .....and if you're just starting up, maybe try not to write every song about your ex-girlfriend, that's also good advice.

 

[cnltb]

My girlfriend and I went to see a friend of ours in a show earlier today. He used to play bass for a very well known local alternative rock band, but they split up and the singer and one guitarist went one way, while everybody else got a new singer and become a progressive/death metal band.

We showed up at 7, and from 7 until 10:30, I could not have told you when the bands changed if I was outside. The whole night was double bass, walls of distortion, diminished scales, and god awful screaming. Typically I love metal -- depending on when you ask me, my favorite band is Tool, Opeth, Protest the Hero, Dream Theater, etc. I wore my Slipknot shirt to the concert. But the state of metal here is really sad and makes me think. I love those metal bands because they bring something musically that I love. Even at the heaviest, they have a sense of melody. The local bands all seem to imitate that, without actually knowing what they're doing. Most of the bands are just really low drop tuned power chords, and 80% of each song is one long breakdown. I've grown to dread breakdowns just because of their overuse lately.

I realized earlier today that whenever I do a show, I go out fully expecting to come across at least one terrible metal band. I'm surprised now when I look at a line up and it's not more than 50% hardcore bands. It just feels like almost everybody who plays an instrument anymore just decides to form a cookie cutter hardcore band. It's become a cliche. They're becoming the talentless wall of noise that people have been calling them for years, and taking over local music so much that I haven't been to once local show that hasn't been filled with them.

I'm new to the local music scene, and my band plays rock and metal, but I really need a break from all the hardcore stuff. Most local shows I go, I end up sitting outside half the night because I can't stand the bands inside. Guess I just needed to rant about that.

I don't think metal is becoming a cliche but has been one for the last 20 years or so.

 

[kuuri]

okk calm your boobies. A cliche is an artist work used to the point that it no longer speek its original value, meaning or effect. If metal is a cliche what was it's original meaning?? And yes I did indeed have too look up what the meaning ov cliche is D:

I just figured out what the meaning ov this thread is, im sorrty this is not my birghtest momment.

 

[Venom of God]

That's middle-aged metalhead humor, like "If you are a false do not entry".

That Brazilian, and at 23 the only type of metal I like

 

[Broomwinkle]

I don't think that's a fair claim. That whole band's talented. Johnny Christ is an under played bassist, so I can see from that angle, but everyone else has amazing musical talent. I absolutely hate, for instance, Cannibal Corpse, but I have to admit they're a talented group. That's something you can't take away from either. Plus, what does it matter if people want other metal like Avenged Sevenfold? Then they go out and find other similar stuff. Discovering good new music is never a bad thing.

Synester has no talent, on there first album Zacky had to teah hima ll the rhythms riff by riff because he couldn't get them. The rev does basic rock beats with double bass and doesn't do any interesting fills, M shadows is a decent singer nothing to complain about there and Zacky is a talented RHYTHM GUITARIST and nothing more. SO I would say there an un-talented band who make crap music imo, feel free to challenge just my opinion.

 

[jelwood]

I live in San Luis Obispo, CA. No one likes metal here and I mean no one. Classic rock goes a long way in these parts. I love it.

 

[ShredderMaximus]

I love Porcupine Tree. Somehow neglected to mention them. I even love straight up metal. Slipknot, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Avenged Sevenfold, Stonesour, Disturbed, all of that. Because they all know what they're doing and it's still music. And it's touching, angry, thoughtful, and everything in between. Not "chug-chug-chug 'I want to die' chug-chug-chug"

Slipknot: Great drummer, but too angry emo high school goth trying to look like their making a statement but really just in it for the image. Never saw the appeal in them, I actually had fun in high school.

Metallica, Maiden, Priest: You better like them, I've even showed my grandma some songs she liked.

A7X: Riding the train Metallica and Maiden built without adding anything really original, not the worst, but certainly not the best. I'd call it this generations entry level metal. At least they're trying to rip off good bands.

Stonesour: Chick metal(I'd call it hard rock, if that). "Ooooh, I'm so in love with you but blah blah blah" I can't stand it. Mass marketed bleh.

Disturbed: Nu metal. Liked them for about fifteen minutes when "The Sickness" first came out and got their first 2 albums, which I promptly traded both to my buddy for a studded armband when I found punk, which though I can't stand now, I still feel that I made out like a bandit in that trade.

I can understand if you can't get into Cannibal Corpse, though they're one of my favorites, they are extreme and an acquired taste. Lyrically though, I love it, but I grew up and still love horror movies, and I consider alot of the bands in the genre to almost like Horror music, lots of times delving into the psyche of a murderer which is even scarier when your left to fit your own image than being showed one on screen. Awesome. (btw, George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher is one of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet. Went to their show at Slims in San Francisco and met him when he was just out chilling in the audience watching the other bands just like a regular fan, and when I approached him he seemed genuinely appreciative of my compliments and actually stood there and talked to me for a bit. Great guy and great band, but to bad I didn't have a chance to meet Alex...)

But not all death metal is like that. Though thats where it started, it really transcended that quickly. For instance the band Death, where many consider the name of the genre to originate, originally started in those types of lyrics, but then went on to much more realistic views of what is really terrifying in the world, (I.E. us) and made some really emotional and personally thought provoking songs, as opposed to songs written about being an angry teenager or being sad over a break-up, which imo, you might as well be listening to country.

That is what I also apply to this new screamo/core kr@p. Its almost like all the emo/scene kids got tired of being called pansies, so they started ripping off bands like Cannibal Corpse and screaming like 9 year olds, but singing about the same things (being sad over a girl and desperately crying out for attention) and adding stupid little breakdowns every other verse so they could have a chance to show that they were still the same little pansies, but they were just pretending to be "teh hardcorz" now, but its so thinly veiled any real metalhead can still spot them from a mile away, and I can't wait till it fades out, I just hope their pollution in the genre isn't too long lasting.

Real metal lives on forever, poser metal dies quickly. In 10 years, we'll look back on now and only see the bands like Obscura, Wintersun, Gorod, and Necrophagist (among many others) while bring me the horizon and whatever other krappy metal posers fall into oblivion, ending their plague in metal and removing them from all of our local bars and clubs. Its a trend, trends die, but real metal has proven itself to be more than a trend, and will live on.

oh yeah, \m/

 

[bolophonic]

To be fair though, hardcore music really, really sucks.

I think you meant to say that you really really don't like hardcore music.

 

[Broomwinkle]

Metallica, Maiden, Priest: You better like them, I've even showed my grandma some songs she liked.

I agree with everything you said but Metallica???? They are a tend they were the original poser metal sell out band, they basically started the theme of selling records over staying true to your music. So no I do not like them, IMHO they are a bunch of sell outs, but as a thrash-nut I have to admit the firt 4 albums are amazing, but 5 bad against 4 good albums imo makes them a bad band, just my opinion :/

 

[Jim Nazium]

In my experience, this is the case for just about any local band or scene, not just metal. ...they mostly lack the musical inspiration to create something new and unique, so they fall into the same pedantic, recognizable patterns as the other bands in their genre. The "cliche," as you called it.

^ This.

Think about country music, for example. There is some country music that is actually really good. It's heartfelt, poignant, and beautiful in its simplicity. But most country music is just a formula: 3 chords + cowboy hat + whiny lyrics about trailer life. Zzzzz.

How about jazz? Look at me, I can play all the modes of the melodic minor scale, really fast, and I have an archtop guitar with flatwound strings.

Punk, reggae, dub, you name it, all styles have had brilliant original artists, and weak imitations thereof.

It's up to us as listeners to find the truly good stuff. And sometimes, if you're in the mood for metal, you jut go hear some metal, even if it isn't all that great. Kind of like watching your local AA baseball team: it ain't MLB, but at least it's baseball.

 

[ShredderMaximus]

I agree with everything you said but Metallica???? They are a tend they were the original poser metal sell out band, they basically started the theme of selling records over staying true to your music. So no I do not like them, IMHO they are a bunch of sell outs, but as a thrash-nut I have to admit the firt 4 albums are amazing, but 5 bad against 4 good albums imo makes them a bad band, just my opinion :/

Well for me, those first THREE (I don't consider it Metallica after Cliff died, and honestly have never listened to AJFA nearly as much as the earlier 3) were undeniable thrash masterpieces that I will always love as they were one of the biggest influences on showing me the light and pulling me out of punk. I'm not afraid to say I love Metallica, I'm just particular on what I consider to be Metallica.

 

[Broomwinkle]

Well for me, those first THREE (I don't consider it Metallica after Cliff died, and honestly have never listened to AJFA nearly as much as the earlier 3) were undeniable thrash masterpieces that I will always love as they were one of the biggest influences on showing me the light and pulling me out of punk. I'm not afraid to say I love Metallica, I'm just particular on what I consider to be Metallica.

Thats fair enough then I 100% agree with that and I don't really listen to Justice as much as the others because it sounds so empty with the basically un-audible bass :/

 

[pie_man_25]

I'm pretty much just getting into the music scene. But I've been to a couple of shows before, and I used to make fun of the terrible "hardcore" bands before, but compared to how they've been lately, I want the old ones back. And to make it worse, a ton of local bands just started disappearing. They've been breaking up, going on hiatus, cancelling gigs, etc. It's great for my band, who will play any gig with enough notice (and sell more than the main act ) but we're left with other bands who will also play any gig, and the talent is missing most of the time.

when you say "hardcore", do you mean bring me the horizon/abandon all ships hardcore? Or more like black flag/minor threat hardcore?

90% of ALL music sucks, regardless of genre.

Deal with it.

+1

when i decided to play metal, i was in highschool and i wanted to rebel from conformity and hive mentality...

nowadays, metal really is a CLICHE.

so... let me get this straight, in order to rebel from conformity, you decided to conform to the standards of a subculture that demands the utmost of conformity? How cliche is the act of seeking non-conformity through joining another social herd? I became a metalhead for the same reason, but I'm not going to fool myself into thinking I was really any different from all the kids I see listening to bring me the horizon, I don't think there was ever a point where any of this stuff WASN'T cliche.

 

[Venom of God]

Kill Em All is in my top three albums of all time, which are the only three albums I think are flawless off the top of my head (the other two being GnR - Appetite for Destruction and D666 - Unchain the Wolves).

 

[JDeewond]

****** music is just that, ****** music. I wouldn't call it metal, just a part of that nameless and colorless sludge oozing around a shitpile. You wanna brand music for the sake of categorizing it, go ahead, but these bands don't fall within that title.

There should be 2 main sections at any music store; Music - with a slew of subsections like Metal - and the rest, all wrapped like porn movies in a PG environment, black wrappers with titles.

I might sound like an old guy shouting "get off my lawn scumbags!" and that's because it's exactly what I'm going for, these bands that are trying to sound like metal are meaningless.

 

[s_mcsleazy]

all genres of music become a chiche and the genres become watered down over time. its just how it is.

punks have to be guys with big mohawks or else there not "real" punks
emos have to self hard or there not really "emo"
alternative rock bands all haveto ape muse or there not really "alternative rock"
rock bands all have to follow ac dc to the letter or there not "rock"
grunge bands all have to act exactly like nirvana or there not "grunge"
indie bands (atleast in the uk) have to have atleast one song about cloths or dancing

its just the way it is.

can we help it? nope.
to a modern genaration "metal" means avenged sevenfold and metallica where as the genaration befor it ment bands like korn and limp bizkit

when someone asks me about "metal" i just start talking about bands like om, sleep, black sabbath for which i get the reply "well there not metal like (insert screamo band here ______)

i honistly know how you feel mate. my fave genre (emo) went from bands like rites of spring, fugazi, cap'n jazz, at the drive in, braid and grey matter to a bunch of 13 year olds who got into mommys make up draw and started crying on stage about how there mom will only spend £12000 on a new car for them

is it fair? no
can we stop it? maybe
how do we stop it? who knows

 

[plankspanker13]

so... let me get this straight, in order to rebel from conformity, you decided to conform to the standards of a subculture that demands the utmost of conformity? How cliche is the act of seeking non-conformity through joining another social herd? I became a metalhead for the same reason, but I'm not going to fool myself into thinking I was really any different from all the kids I see listening to bring me the horizon, I don't think there was ever a point where any of this stuff WASN'T cliche.

So true! Metal has been a cliche ever since the NWOBHM served to revive it, in 1979. There are even metal songs from the period that seem to spell out the "rules," like "Denim and Leather," from Saxon.

Living in L.A. and playing the originals scene there in the 80's, I can tell you that it was all about how you looked first, then about how you sounded. Opinions were sharply divided about some well-known local names, particularly Motley Crue, and Poison ("dunno what yer gettin' 'til ya bend 'em over"). There were a lot of bands trying to get on the bandwagon, and for a while, every decent heavy band in L.A. was getting signed. There were also a decent few who never made it past the first album, and this was back when the bands to imitate were Priest, Maiden, Dokken, and the like (in other words, when the words, "melodic" and "metal" could still be used in the same sentence, with some credibility).

Fast forward an entire generation. The hotties that used to appear at L.A. metal shows in the 80's are the cougars of now (and the reason why Bon Jovi is still a viable act). Their kids grew up on the post-thrash stuff, and we now lament the impact that this has had.

I posit that rock has not truly had anything truly original and memorable for the past quarter-century, and it is getting worse. It's like the producer has become an unofficial extra member of a band. The sonic alchemy has to be just right, in order to have a band sound anywhere near intelligible, whereas, in the old days, music had more structure and melody to it, so that, if you had equipment/acoustics or environment issues in play at a gig, you could still make recognizable music that sounded OK.

What we need is nothing short of a new musical revolution. Jazz happened in the years following WWI, and kept going, losing primacy when rock & roll came along, in the late 50's (and was abetted by the rise of the baby-boomer generation). Rock has maintained primacy since then, but I could argue that it lost that primacy, sometime in the last decade, to hip hop and "digital pop," as purveyed by the [DEL]skanks,[/DEL] errr, Britneys and Gagas of the world, and those who aspire to be them. Blame American Idol.

It does not look like there is a new musical form waiting in the wings. As futurist, Alvin Toffler once wrote, our culture has indeed become a "surfeit of subcults," and music is no exception. I have a friend and neighbor young enough to be my son who likes to hang out, and sometimes is my de facto roadie, and he is more concerned with classifying a piece of music than with understanding it ("would you say this is metal or alternative?"). Don't even get me started on that one! "Alternative" is an over-used cliche, as is the word, "jam." Look at their original meanings, and how they are used now. "Alternative" is simply marketing-speak, as there is nothing to be an alternative to, and the "jams" that the hip hop kids like are the most structured assemblages of sound around (I hesitate to call them "compositions").

The OP is simply lamenting something that the true musical cogniscenti have known for some time. The "pop art" ethos of the Who has given way to "the pop machine" lamented by Pink Floyd. The majority of the consuming public is too ignorant to know the difference, but the majority of those who would be musicians are also part of the problem.


EDIT: So, I look at my calendar, and realize that I have a gig coming up at a biker bar on the 30th, with a band that wants to transition from 80's & 90's hard rock covers at biker bars to casinos. It'll be the heaviest set I'll have played in years, and I am so glad that I have my Squier Jaguar for it. It's stuff that I mostly do not play or listen to, but has a familiarity from days gone by. Guitard in this group will be the biggest challenge, as he is bringing up titles that he thinks would work in a casino, only to have me tell him, "less George Lynch, and more George Benson." Yep, you guessed it, guitard (and drummer, too) wear the long-haired "uniform." Singer knows what time it is, about the material, and has both a wonderfully supple voice, but also that "it" quality that the dynamic performers have, and drummer knows wisdom when he hears it; he'll play.