Metal Reviews

If rap is so easy to do. I encourage all of you to download Fruity Loops or Acid Music and create a rap song. Go ahead. Prove how simple rap is.

They daren't. Black metal's easier. Come on if you think yer 'ard enough!

And someone try out Dalek, Sage F and Rahzel, or at least acknowledge the point....

You are aware that the "black metal warriors" on this board aren't the ones propagating this anti-rap position? So please, leave bm out of it.

BTW, no offense to anyone in particular, but I hate this thread.

I understand that you don't really expect anyone to go and record a rap song, but I think that recording a rap song would be a LOT easier if you were an avid rap listener. Rap is simpler than other forms of music, but a rap song written by a metalhead would be bad just because we don't know how to make a good rap song...although probably not as bad as a metal song written by a rap listener.

If a metalhead cannot make a good rap song, then his opinion on the subject of how easy it is to do is basically worthless.

Your point is well-taken, but I think that anyone who listens to rap for a year or so and plays around with a beat maker a little bit could write a song on par with what is on the radio today. Not necessarily rap the song itself, or write a GOOD rap song, but I don't think there's any arguing that rap does not require as much musical talent as other genres of music.

Then again, I could be a totally ignorant metalhead

It wouldn't necessarily be simple for a metalhead to record a rap song, but it's easier for a person who is into rap to do that than it is for any untrained metalhead to pick up a guitar and write a good metal song. I've personally watched a person who can't tell a C from a B record a rap song and sell it. The only things that would make it hard for a metalhead to record a rap song are the lack of experience with the rhythms (unless into rap metal or some blusier stuff), not being familiar with the equipment, and not being famliar with how rap is generally mixed. Those things are easier to learn than an instrument. No, I don't mean writing simplistic 3-power-chord songs. I'm talking about more complex stuff. In order to compare appropriately, you have to compare the extremes. Rap never gets as complex as the most complicated metal, so it is simpler overall. Plus, again, if someone's coming from a point of no musical knowledge at all, it's easier to learn a computer program than it is to learn to play an instrument at a high level.

Have you seen what Kid Koala can do with a turntable!?

Also metal never gets as complicated as the most complicated of classical, so why bother even listening to that metal shit anyways?

That wasn't my point. I never said being less complex makes something worth listening to. I was just making a comparison.

No metal band is working with 100 instruments either except when they work with a full orchestra in a support role. Even then, I have to point out Yngwie's symphony + guitar, which is extremely complex, even moreso than many popular classical pieces.

And it's a different story when you add live DJs. Some of those guys can tear it up at what they do and work hard to do so, but I was talking about recording a studio rap, which doesn't necessarily utilize such DJs in a role where they are doing that all at once. I never said I couldn't admire some people in the rap community.

I also have to mention though that alot of that mixing is with music other people wrote. It's still alot different than applying oneself to writing original music. Now I ask, which is more impressive, being a technical wizard at a turntable or being able to write strong, original music? The way I see it, someone can apply himself to learning something technical, but there are alot of great technical musicians who can't write a decent song.

Heehee! Ok. But I have no microphone to record it.

Send me the dope beat, I'll record vocals.

quoting eyesore.

It really wouldn't be simple to record a rap song on par with what's on radio today, simply because they have BIG budgets and use equipment that we wouldn't be able to get close to. Even if we did get their hands on the gear it still wouldn't be that simple. I personally wouldn't know where to start.

I think you proved that White boys have no business making Rap music all on your own.

I may be a little late on this argument, and nothing against Eternal Idol, but this quote is a good example of what I wanted to make a point against.

Three Words: Gregorian (fucking) Chant. Completely Acapella music, no instruments, yet it is one of the cornerstones of music appreciation classes. It sounds beautiful, and I'm sure most of you would call it music in a second, while you blast rap for not having any "real instruments".

And anyone who claims to like extreme metal cannot bash rap. Look at Deicide, Cannibal Corpse, Slayer, Nile. Extreme metal has no vocal melody and relies completely on timing and stressing of growls, grunts, and screeches to get catchy vocal lines in your head. Like rap, only that is more like talking than yelling/screaming.

And yes, mainstream rap sucks. But looking at the radio/MTV, you could make the same argument for metal. If I'm a hip-hopper who doesn't really know much of anything about metal, and I turn on headbanger's ball, with the same mindset that some of you have, I'm gonna turn off the tv saying to myself "hmm, apparently every metal band must sound like these Atreyu faggots. I hate that genre." If I went in with that mindset, I would NEVER discover the Blind Guardian's, the Morbid Angel's, the Emperor's, the Immortal's, the Duskfall's. Not saying that I actually do go out and seek rap the same way I do metal, but I think it is safe to assume that that genre of music is just as layered and varied as ours.

Pffft! I've recorded some kick ass rap tunes.

Just listen to my Halloween superhero theme song ("The Redneck Ranger"). That shit is dope, or something.

Actually I said about 12 times that Old Rap artistls ike PE and RUN DMC did use real instruments. I just said being a fucking DJ doesn't make you a musician. The genre is nothing like it was 20 years ago, and it didn't change for the better. I have no use for the genre, I think it's music for people who only look at Music as "Entertainment" and play it at their lame parties while they have vapid conversations. And Extreme Metal Bands have some of the best drummers in the world, bro. Also growling properly without blowing out your vocal chords is a lot harder to do than talking fast over a Beat. I don't have to fucking like it, and people shouldn't start threads about it on a fucking Metal board anyways.

But I'm not surprised some sheltered suburban White Boy like Husker likes the shit, for people like him have no idea what life in the Ghetto is like. There's nothing cool about it. I do laugh at the thought of him and his brother bumpin on their way to their Young Republican meetings though.

People SHOULD NOT start a rap thread in a forum having to do with you know....thrash/death/black metal. They SHOULD not start a rap thread in a forum about heavy/prog/power metal. But General music discussion? What's wrong with that?

Lyrically mainstream rap is really fucking shallow, and has many similarities with hair metal in terms of themes. But death metal has some of the most hollow lyrics I have ever heard. Yes, some of the bands use gore as a metaphor for other things (Death), but other than that it's shit. No death metal musician has ever fucked a dead chick, slit someone's throat and then fucked the hole, killed someone, or risen from the dead. Yet lyrically that is what we are bombarded with. What began as a clever joke by Carcass, now has made the lyrics in death metal completely pointless and silly. As for the anti-religion lyrics, some of them can be good if you don't turn into a Glen Benton "fuck you god, you're so mean and you ruin everything, and im gonna be a badass motherfucker by disobeying you all the time" nonsense. Luckily the music and vocal delivery just catches me in a certain way that I just more or less forget about the lyrics.

Death metal drummers are in some fucking good physical condition. But they can get boring from time to time. Within the strict confines of what a death metal song sounds like, there is not much room for variety or creativity for a death metal drummer, outside of some really quick fills in between blastbeats. I have a lot of respect for them though, I don't think I could ever do what they do behind a kit, and if speed and intensity are what you measure a drummer's worth by, then yes they are some of the best. Every beat is stressed in death metal. It's like if EVERY! ONE! OF! MY! WORDS! HAS! AN! EXCLAMATION! POINT! AFTER! IT! AND! IS! CAPITALIZED!

There's nothing wrong with it at all. Anyone who's been here for as long as Eternal Idol and still thinks this is a strict metal site is fooling themselves.

Rap wasn't that much better 20 years ago. I don't know what you mean about Public Enemy using proper instruments. It's down to taste but it was still in it's infancy, and was more about rebellion. The way rap is now is a perfectly logical progression: it's gone from the underdogs fighting from beneath to the underdogs ruling the whole of music, and boasting about it. Rappers bragging about their cars and chains is simply them pissing on everything else from a great height. Can you blame them? Again, I am still only talking about the mainstream here.

Also, don't pretend growling is a skill. and don't show yourself up by thinking it's harder than rapping.