Metal Reviews

In particular, I am not referring to the more extreme subgenres, but albums such as Master of Puppets, Number of the beast, British steel, Back in black, Holy Diver, and Balls to the wall- to the degree that they have been played and the classic songs worshipped, have they lost their meaning? With the constant mainstream appraisals and branding of the bands, have the albums become tools of popular culture and lost their meaning to metal somewhat? Obviously, this will depend more on the band/album, but compared to other 'classic' albums in either Metallica/Maiden/Priest discography should the consideration of 'classic' status be revisited entirely?

Nah.

But seriously, the songs mainstream latches on to aren't usually my favorites on those albums. However, even when my fave does merge with the mainstreams, the song is usually awesome enough to warrant the repeated listens, e.g., Master of Puppets. I don't care if douchebags like it. That song is awesome.

Yeah, I don't really think that's the case. Being popular doesn't make something lose its meaning when it comes to music, IMO.

The only time I can think of something similar is when a song or album that was written about something very serious becomes popular and then the artist ends up playing it live a billion times and it becomes kind of trivialized and loses its power of catharsis for the artist. Like Tears in Heaven, for example.

Shouldn't the criteria of a classic album be to have somewhat of a popular status in the metal world? If a metal album exceeds beyond the metal world into pop culture, it can properly introduce people to metal, which all of those albums did. As for growing stale by each listen, that's really irrelevant to an albums classic status.

Ok, but "Altars of Madness" and "In the Nightside Eclipse" are classics too, and have reached far less listeners than the albums Steve listed in his original post. What is the appropriate number of listeners threshhold for "classic" status? Are there two tiers of classics: mainstream or contained within the metal world?

Influence and innovation are also in the criteria for a classic album.

There are two kind of classic metal albums:

1 - Master of Puppets, Number of the Beast, British Steel, Holy Diver (etc) belong to the first category as classic metal albums that are also classic for a wider audience than metalheads.

2 - Albums that are classic within the metal scene only. There are obviously more albums in this category than the one above thus me not bothering listing any.

Of course, the first category fits in the second.

As for classic albums losing their value upon repeated listens, that's just Steve(LOVES MOONSPELL!)'s usual nonsense.

I'd say no.

These albums are still what metal is about. In my mind they're still a better representative for metal than extreme bands today.

Metallica, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden etc were more extreme in their day than what DM/BM bands are today. By the same token Obituary or Darkthrone were way more extreme in the context of the late 1980s/early 1990s than what Goreopsy or Decapitated are today.

Also metal always had a mainstream component - look at the success of Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin in 1970's or even Motorhead and Iron Maiden in the 1980s.

Decapitated are extreme?..

They're certainly not pop.

Meh, semantics.

Replace Decapitated with any other DM band - Dying Foetus, Skinless, Deeds of Flesh etc etc.

In the context of musical evolution, bands like Motorhead were more extreme in the late 1970's than any modern DM band is today.

Only according to your irrelevant opinion.

If you think that the stale world of 21st century Death Metal is some sort of leader in musical extremity then you're a bit behind the times.

That boat passed in 1988-95.

Yeah, once you've sat through a few Japanese experimental noise albums stuff like Decapitated is nothing. Not sure that Motorhead were the 70s equivalent, though I think I see Dead1's point.

Crazy noise goes way back in the 60s when a bunch of crazy black guys and a few whities decided to get rid of the embarassment melody was. Stockhausen, Xenakis, Boulez, Coltrane, Coleman (etc)'s works are more extreme and crazier than any metal band will ever be.

Exactly. Jazz is more extreme than metal in a lot of ways, past and present, too.

Jazz AND contemporary music. Hell, I'll throw electronic music in, there's some pretty sick things going on that way too.

EDIT:
Mind me asking what Mingus and Zorn you've been listening to, Zaddy?

When you look at it like that Metal's kinda pedestrian.

The Mingus was "Mingus Ah Uhm", the Zorn his last one and some Naked City. Trying to broaden Jazz listening, had some Rahsaan Roland Kirk on before.