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Why is "Metal" constantly being bashed by "real" musicians?

#181
P-ODDZ, you might want to reconsider Slipknot. Iowa was the epitome of mediocrity, but after that they really started making music, IMO.

As I said, I understand what you mean about a lack of innovation and being fed up with generic cr@p. Loads of that going around. I still rediscover Iron Maiden on a regular basis and don't feel that the genre really "needs" anything new in order for me to enjoy the oldies, but yeah, as the amount of rubbish grows the scales tip towards an image of metal as overall poor quality. Sad that.

There are a few points always coming up that I am wondering about; why would someone claim that they dislike metal and the go on to praise the bands that define the genre. Sorry Powderfinger, but as I see it Sabbath, Maiden, Megadeth, Metallica, Slayer, Dio, Motörhead and so on are not classic rock. If anything they are classic metal. It seems to me that a great many people assume metal means death metal, or some more extreme and/or obscure genre. Metal is almost as broad as rock!

Another thing is the whole youth thing. I always preferred rock over metal and so i never really wore the uniform, but I have a great many friends in the metal society who still lose the suit and tie to whip out the black wardrobe whenever there is a concert nearby. There are youths too, sure, but as with anything else some youths look into it for a while and then let it go while others fall in love and stay true. The average age is probably around 20-30 with extremes at both ends of the spectrum (lots of parents bring their kids in those tiny Maiden shirts). Is this situation very different from what you see in America?
 
#182
powderfinger said:
PS- I dont "bash" metal. I think the bassists and drummers are incredibly talented. I dont care much for the "singing"...but I appreciate the musicianship itself. I dont "bash" metal.
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I ran an errand during lunch and, in the interest of fairness and being open-minded, made a point of turning on the local "metal" radio station and did some listening... I had a mild epiphany -- I pretty much like playing ANY kind of music - even music I don't care to listen to (disco leaps to mind), but a key difference with metal that rubs me the wrong way: Silly disco or funk or soul or even CW is, for the most part, pretty much positive, fun music. There's something very negative in how "metal" sounds - so pointlessly angry and vulgar... It brought to mind being in a bar earlier in the week before I went to the ballgame - - There was a music video playing... Metallica's treatment of the classic Irish pub tune "Whiskey Jar" - - Because it had been transformed from an acoustic pub tune to metal, the video HAD to feature hot women making out, pointless destruction and silly posturing - all things that had *nothing* to do with the source material... All these things once resonated with me - when I was very young - no mas. It all seems so... silly now.
 
#183
BigOldHarry said:
I ran an errand during lunch and, in the interest of fairness and being open-minded, made a point of turning on the local "metal" radio station and did some listening... I had a mild epiphany -- I pretty much like playing ANY kind of music - even music I don't care to listen to (disco leaps to mind), but a key difference with metal that rubs me the wrong way: Silly disco or funk or soul or even CW is, for the most part, pretty much positive, fun music. There's something very negative in how "metal" sounds - so pointlessly angry and vulgar... It brought to mind being in a bar earlier in the week before I went to the ballgame - - There was a music video playing... Metallica's treatment of the classic Irish pub tune "Whiskey Jar" - - Because it had been transformed from an acoustic pub tune to metal, the video HAD to feature hot women making out, pointless destruction and silly posturing - all things that had *nothing* to do with the source material... All these things once resonated with me - when I was very young - no mas. It all seems so... silly now.
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Harry, let's get real here for a second. I agree with the vast majority of your opinions of metal. But you're hardly fair or open-minded in your views of it.
 
#187
bolophonic said:
Any time I see someone bashing metal, I do two things: I check out their profile and 99% of the time I see that they have Victor Wooten or Jaco Pastorius as their influences. Then I turn off TalkBass and pick up my real bass and practice for a while.
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Jaco was better than you at metal. He would eat your pick, and subs, and his fingers would spit out metal riffs so potent, you'd be left sh***ing your pants.

If Jaco had played metal, he would have been called Metal Jesus.
 
#188
This thread got me thinking about pop music in general. Most pop music is bubblegum. Most guitar-oriented pop tunes follow basic songwriting formulas. But that's OK. We love pop music anyway. There's no problem understanding pop music, because there's nothing to understand. There's no reason to find the good among the bad, because you'll hear most pop tunes once and then forget about them.

At the same time, things like imagery, apparel, and marketing, are inseparable from pop music because pop music is part of a larger entertainment industry that covers all of those things. There's no reason to explain why you don't like a tune by Lady Gaga or Hanna Montana -- the songwriting, musicianship, and production on those songs are all absolutely top notch. Nothing is left to chance when one of those songs is recorded. Whether we love or hate those tunes depends wholly on the image of the genre that they represent.
 
#189
BigOldHarry said:
I ran an errand during lunch and, in the interest of fairness and being open-minded, made a point of turning on the local "metal" radio station and did some listening... I had a mild epiphany -- I pretty much like playing ANY kind of music - even music I don't care to listen to (disco leaps to mind), but a key difference with metal that rubs me the wrong way: Silly disco or funk or soul or even CW is, for the most part, pretty much positive, fun music. There's something very negative in how "metal" sounds - so pointlessly angry and vulgar... It brought to mind being in a bar earlier in the week before I went to the ballgame - - There was a music video playing... Metallica's treatment of the classic Irish pub tune "Whiskey Jar" - - Because it had been transformed from an acoustic pub tune to metal, the video HAD to feature hot women making out, pointless destruction and silly posturing - all things that had *nothing* to do with the source material... All these things once resonated with me - when I was very young - no mas. It all seems so... silly now.
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For someone who doesn't like metal music, you sure are spending alot of time in this thread. :rollno:

Maybe someone's just jealous they can't play metal? Haha :confused:
 
#190
EricssonB said:
And who on in their right mind puts Slayer before Marilyn Manson? Manson was awful.
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+100,000

HaMMerHeD said:
...and it sounds best when played at high volume.
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Not true. It sounds the same played at any volume, it justs happens to be louder or quieter. I prefer metal at a more moderate volume, where i can actually hear the nuances in the music, not when it hurts my ears.
 
#193
Faderoktopus said:
Aside from sounding a little like "my dead hero could beat your dead hero," this does invoke some rather interesting thoughts...:D
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It seems that things are much funnier to me than to others. That's ok though. I spend more time laughing than others, and I don't even need anyone else for it. I was going for the hero or Dad type lines there.

Oh yeah, well my dad lasso'd an alien ship pulled it down to the ground skinned an alien wore the skin, piloted the ship back up, and then landed on your dad.
 
#195
zachoff said:
Your first mistake... :smug:

As smug as this reply may be, there's not much good metal on the radio.
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In contrast, almost everything they play on the classical station is good. Almost everything on the "classic rock" station, is good, to the extent that it involves good songwriting, musicianship, and production. Likewise for the limited amount of jazz that gets airplay. And most jazz tunes are derived from music that was once bubblegum pop.

For contemporary bubblegum pop music, if it's not artistically brilliant, at least there's some clever hook, witty lyrics, or interesting production, that make a tune worth listening to once. Rarely twice.

Granted, all of the above is based solely on my own personal tastes. With pop music, having to wade through the bad in order to discover the good, pretty much kills it for me. Why not make it all good?

I think the problem for me is that you can't take the bubblegum out of pop music, and when you try to make it serious, artistic, or heavy, then it becomes either comical or pathetic. That's why I can't listen to religious pop music either. The image of the genre seems to imply that my reaction should be something other than ironic amusement, yet that's all that the music justifies.

This thread suffers from the "burden of proof" problem: Ask people why they don't like metal music, and when they answer, tell them that they either don't understand metal, or they haven't listened to the right kind of metal.
 
#196
fdeck said:
This thread suffers from the "burden of proof" problem: Ask people why they don't like metal music, and when they answer, tell them that they either don't understand metal, or they haven't listened to the right kind of metal.
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IMO, the radio is a diluted version of whatever genre of music they're pushing and is rarely representative of what's out there.
 
#198
cantwealljustgetalong.jpg


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#199
zachoff said:
IMO, the radio is a diluted version of whatever genre of music they're pushing and is rarely representative of what's out there.
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Actually, the classical and jazz broadcasts in my locale are pretty eclectic.

If the metal that gets played on the radio is all bad, why would they broadcast music that nobody likes? Somebody must be a fan of that music, and you should explain to them why you don't like it.
 

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