Metal Reviews

Is it really a matter of taste? A question of diversity? A lazy mind and ear to analyze? The way one has grown listening to one kind of music? The different perceptions of reality that a particular person has towards that piece of music of what "good" music is and what is one would say "rubbish," is after all just a matter of opinion. But can I say that a person just has shitty and a distasteful ear for music (because the opposite might just say the same thing about a hypothetical me?) "It's not my cuppa tea" "To each their own" These sayings have been used ad infinitum to represent politeness in respecting the others' taste in music. Does music represent one's inner-self? Is creating an ideal music taste a healthy approach or is listening to Deathspell Omega and listening to 50cent just natural?

Well, this thread was so intriguing nobody responded to it. How, fascinating!

I don't know what the question is, bro. You need to chill on the weed when you post.

I haven't smoke weed in a very long time. It's been over three years. I was in a rushed state of mind when I wrote it, though.

The question is: can one say that one has shitty taste in music or is it really a matter of perspective, hence the comparison between Deathspell Omega and 50cent.

I have an extreme point of view on the matter, I think taste doesn't exist. I'm not saying I'm right, and I'm absolutely no expert, but to me it's all about chemistry, released and re-captured substances in your brain. Listening to some kinds of music will activate... god knows what in your brain and make you happy/sad/whatever. If not, it's because you're not physically able to (yet). The same goes with art in general, food, sexual orientation... anything. We're biological machines.

I know this may sound stupid, but this is how I see things.

Well, that is a very unemotional, dispassionate and cold way of seeing it. Hence being completely scientific. Although, being a legitimately valid point of view, I am quite the contrary as you might have figured out by now. I believe music can convey such hidden and esoteric feelings and thoughts which are beyond basic science and dry analysis. The art of hermeneutics, the science of interpretation in philosophy, is a way of perceiving things in many different manners. Sometimes objectively, and other times on reliance of total subjectivity. I believe in the infinite space of the mind and the extraordinary perception the mind possesses which is far beyond neurotransmitters to merely convey through the senses. Delivering feelings of the mystical, the unknown, the complex can be measured through layers and density in music. In works in the opposite direction as well, in purely simplicity yet natural of evolution through nature, ascending from simple to complex, hence the evolution of music from simple forms to complex (however, Hindu music has always had very complex scales). If one observes the giants in music like Wagner and Beethoven, they all had a very mystical view on music insofar as it brought the ever perplexing nature of reality intertwined with pure emotion and intensity into structure, depth, tonality, and texture.

Well, I sure can't wait to see what Adveser has to say about this.
All I can say is I definitely like your point of view better than mine...

Ok.

Yeah! It'll be interesting to read what Adveser has to say.

It would be just a long paragraph on different viewpoints mixed with how great he is

How you predict the future with so much uncertainty

Hey, guess what?
I listen to Deathspell Omega AND Bob Marley,
John Zorn AND Overkill,
Shostakovich AND The Beatles,
John Coltrane AND Bon Jovi,
(etc)
I don't know if I have good or bad taste and, honestly, I couldn't care less.
For me, diversity is key and the only thing that really matters is that I enjoy the music.
Sure, some people's taste make me wonder, why o god why... But I'd rather go spin something I love than trying to understand the passion, for example, of Noodles for guys in tight jeans doing nonsense music...
There's too little time for that.

!!!

I generally think that I listen to only awesome music and that people who don't like it are listening wrong, and that there's music that just really sucks and people who like it have bad taste and should feel bad. But if I'm interrogated or think about it (the latter happens pretty often :\), then it comes down to perspectives and something along the lines of what Bruce said.

I'm generally opposed to reductive accounts such as bruce's but at the end of the day he might be right. Last night I went from listening to Cattle Decap to Kanye to Meshuggah to Nicki Minaj to Storm Corrosion. I really listen to whatever incites a positive reaction in me and dare I say it is chemical. I don't think Kanye is transmitting esoteric feelings to my chakras.

Swung eighth notes touch me in hidden, deep, metaphysical ways.

At this point I have embraced Italian Power Metal not because it "better" to my ears but for far more metaphysical reasons.

*Every sort of music other than Rush has felt like it was incomplete or sorely lacking in at least one area. The music I had planned on writing before 2004 was so close to Olaf Thorsen's work that I actually am certain I experienced preconception of knowing where I was going. I had a very spiritual experience when I heard this stuff the first few times. Within short order I had sung some of this stuff absolutely perfectly, which, at the time, was an isolated incident and my roomates thought I was channeling Satan that evening to do it. They couldn't believe such a talentless and annoying singer could nail such difficult material tonally and musically. That night I experienced time as a singularity that I could transcend and I believe I was simply going from the future and singing to myself to tell myself that this was the path to follow. This feat has been accomplished on a couple of occassions when I am at my most desperate hour and in real pain because of how things don't seem to be falling in place. I have had songs play in my head that I am to believe are my idea even that I did not have the technical knowledge to write the song. I learned by desconstructing such music. Anyone that is familiar with the lyrics these bands write knows that they tread heavily in this area and I had never heard any of that portion of their material. The material more or less told me "you were right and you are not alone." Without making this any longer, I have completely changed my mindset (which was a very long process) based on taking just one small tiny seemingly insignificant leap of faith because that was asked by the author of said lyrics. The music was so specific to the very complex emotions we have no words to describe that it compelled me, begged me and insisted that this was happing for that specific reason.


*I highly suspect I was an Italian singer a few hundred years ago which is why I naturally sing a half octave above a Soprano. There is actually ONE recording of a Catastrati in existence and I felt a huge surge of powerful joyful sadness when I heard it. I felt like I knew his very soul hearing it. It was extremely emotional. I suspect a few other guys of being in the same boat because of their naturally thick voices being used to hit the highest fucking notes imaginable and generally using a much higher timbre than their "natural" register would require.

In a nutshell, no I don't judge music based on taste anymore. I judge it on how it affects my reality and when I am welcomed to a far larger existence than I thought possible where people have the same feelings as me to the point of infinity. This goes way beyond the superficial bullshit culture metal has established and it's belief that it is a brotherhood of sorts when it is far from anything connecting two people other than the fact they enjoy the same note progressions and tonal options. This is something else. This was far more powerful than anything anyone can imagine. It was like being introduced to god himself and being told that at one point your souls were one and will be one again (ooops, that's the subject of two whole albums)

See? Totally worth the wait

I liked the part where he thinks he's a good singer.

Well, we have Adveser, which is talking in irrelevance to what the original subject was about, Trapt that notes the obvious that popular music does not convey esoterical tonality and emotion, and Noodzi who is making fun of metaphysics altogether. It is disappointing because all these music lovers and not one of them believes and finds solace in something beyond themselves, something larger than life that can only be expressed through notes. Okay, well, I'm glad I now know some points of views of people on some fundamental issues such as this.