Mintrude wrote:
"perversions" of metal. Very Manowar. Can I get an Eric Adams-esque "HE-VY MET-AHHL!!!" please. On a more serious note, what do you mean by this?
Why is it you choose not to answer my question and instead ask me to answer yours?
I meant it as catch-all term for a lot of things and not all of them are necessarily bad (or always bad) depending on your point of view. For example, melodic death metal can be looked at as a perversion of death and heavy metal. Nu-metal and metalcore generally are looked at as a perversion as well (at least among metal listeners), and a more commonly held position at that.
But I was actually looking at a lot of things. For one, metal can be just as guilty as more popular genres are at recycling old material and putting different labels on it. For a genre (is it the genre or the fans or both though?) that seems to pride itself for having more integrity and substance than forms of mainstream music, there are admittedly many situations that suggest otherwise. Maybe the most glaring example of this is the thousands and thousands of "black metal" (Darkthrone, in particular) clones that exist - almost all of which are half-hearted and half-assed. Then again, maybe Darkthrone is too these days? Or maybe it's the endless stream of Dream Theater clones. Just how many bands did
Images and Words "inspire" anyway? And I'm not just talking about the ones you and I have heard either. ... Or let's take a look at the entire gothic/female-fronted metal scene, particularly of recent. Err, no, let's not.
But it even goes outside of being a direct connection to the music. What about the "fans" themselves? Fans, who, just like fans of mainstream music want something "new". The key difference is perhaps that many metal fans also want it to be (or seem to be) fresh and interesting. Metal listeners may remember the classics, but are we really satisfied with them? If we were, would we still hunt down every new release and talk about (and hope) metal existing 100 years from now? I would tend to say, "No," and it's (I think) in part due to there being deeper issues present than just music and tastes.
Or metal fans want to be the first to "discover" some relatively unknown band. No, there's nothing at all wrong with that, but it comes with the cost of enduring hundreds of mediocre acts, while watching as an ever-growing base of new, casual fans show up. Many of whom only show up as soon as "metal" has embraced and absorbed just enough mainstream elements and/or been recycled and "refined" to the point of losing most of what it had in the first place, or, simply because they want to be "different". But Metallica, Nightwish, CoF/Dimmu, In Flames... have they not all been exemplary of the former? (I'll come back to Metallica in a minute)
But then there's the labels and other entities too. How many people here have actually not voiced some kind of displeasure with Roadrunner Records at one point or another? What about Ozzfest and Headbanger's Ball? In the end, we may claw and yell, but we put up with these things because we perceive there to be some kind of light, however faint, at the end of a tunnel. Whether it's Nile getting more recognition, more exposure for metal in general, the thought that maybe more people around us will explore and embrace metal, that it strikes us as as a kind of validation (maybe even a subconscious or suppressed one), or that in some small way it signals to us that metal can and will endure at least a little while longer - even if it means taking the bad with the good.
My point is that perhaps we, in a discussion such as this, are conceding that we'll take the bad with the good. That the bad can be a necessary evil in metal too, and if so, so be it. Why is that? Why does it even matter if "metal" survives? Aren't artists and their integrity as artists more important? Won't some of them, should they continue to exist, make metal or metal-like music whether "metal" actually survives or not? I say most likely, but I can't see how diluting and perverting the metal scene (and the kind of support that comes with it) helps this at all. Instead, I think it (and its support) only compounds upon itself, particularly as the global multi-cultural "experiment" and the deconstruction of thought and individuality continues.
Lastly, and back to Metallica, think about the very notion of a band "as big as Metallica" and what Metallica has been for metal. No, it hasn't been all bad, but Metallica was always a compromising band who was never the best at anything other than selling records. A band who decided, metal wasn't good enough anymore resulting in radical departures of their own and an alienation of metal, but most especially thrash metal (or had they just run out of riffs to steal and decided to maintain the illusion of creativity through "exploring" other music instead?). What does it say that the biggest metal band ever, after forsaking metal, later decided they needed to return to metal and released
St. Anger? These are questions that, as the biggest metal band in the world, have neither gone unnoticed nor evaded constant scrutiny and criticism. How does that continue to resonate in the eyes of people and record execs around the world? ... And this all says
nothing about the impacts and fall of hair metal around the same time. No, I think that even as these things fade, the question of "necessary evils" remains, and I just don't think they're necessary at all.
PS -
Quote:
well, of you include the numetal and metalcroe scene, i think som of the bands will almost reach their success. Korn or System of a Down for instance. Metal is more or less overlooked by average people these days, which is quite sad.
Why is that sad? Would you prefer that people become less average or that metal become moreso?
*Edited for typos*
