[Album] The Metal Thread! (The Zombie Edition)

Seconded, although it doesn't have to be Chains And Leather - Death Or Glory all the way.

Zorro

P.S.: To think that some people believe Accept are thrash metal... it boggles the mind

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by knkwzrd

I just uploaded the documentary The Decline Of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (...)

Most excellent upload, knkwzrd! Geez, it's been ages since I've watched this the last time. Those were the days...

Zorro

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by GoldfishX

But the first four are all amazing, though I get the feeling I'm one of the few people who'd put Turbo that high...

*inhalessharply* I get that feeling, too

Zorro

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Too bad that Hammerfall churns out one piece of junk after the other. I actually liked the first two albums, but since then, oh, boy...

Zorro

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I hated Tarja's opera singing with a passion, so no matter how good the melodies might have been (I really don't know, I can't take more than five consecutive seconds of Turunen terror), it wasn't for me. I listened into the teaser a couple of days ago and ordered the new album. If it's as good as I hope (should arrive tomorrow), it might be a good idea to get a live CD later on with the old songs and the new voice.

Zorro

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Morrigan

Nightwish has been shit for a long time, and this new singer is even worse than the nu-Tarja: soulless and devoid of personality of emotions. They might as well as picked the Evanescence chick.

Who is a hell of a singer.

Zorro

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Morrigan

You forgot "technically competent but flat, dull, emotionless and without any personality whatsoever" somewhere in that sentence.

I don't know much about her (and don't care enough) to comment on her personality. The rest is obviously a matter of opinion. Actually I don't even know how you'd define "flat, dull, emotionless" in regard to a singer who's technically competent Just say you hate her guts and be done with it *g*

Zorro

How ya doing, buddy?

Jesus, that's harsh *g* Whether you like her voice or not, whether you like her music or not, but you cannot possibly even remotely consider comparing her to the homo sapiens parodies that clog the charts.

Zorro

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Well, if Amy Lee's voice is standard, I sure wanna live in your world

Zorro

P.S.: The new Nightwish singer's voice is... hm... well, it works, but nothing special. She can sing, and she doesn't torture me with opera howling like her predecessor.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by knkwzrd

As far as I can tell, Nightwish=Lacuna Coil=Evanescence

Yup, just like Celtic Frost = Six Feet Under = Bolt Thrower. It's roughly the same genre, for christ's sake. Within it, Nightwish do the theatrical shtick, Evanescence are nu-metallic pop, and Lacuna Coil, well, if they got rid of this Andrea monkey who can neither sing nor shout if his life depended on it and looks like he's just escaped from an animal testing center, they could be much better. But all in all they're all shit because they're fronted by a female singer and they're popular, and whoever listens to their music of course doesn't do so because of the actual music, no, no

Don't get me wrong, Nightwish gives me the runs - although I have yet to check out the new album -, I can listen to Evanescence without throwing up - I think some of their songs are actually pretty good -, and I have some Lacuna Coil songs which I really like, although most of their stuff doesn't do much for me. Then there's the ladies: Tarja looks just plain ugly to me (her successor doesn't look much better), Amy Lee is rather plain, neither ugly nor pretty, and Cristina Scabbia looks pretty hot in make-up and pretty not without it. So I don't see the "ooohhh, boobies!" reaction they're supposed to trigger in sad metal fans.

"I don't like it" doesn't equal "bad". For instance, I can't stand listening to Black Metal for more than half a minute without feeling the urge to drive a screwdriver into my ears. So I know shit about BM, and just because I don't like it I'm in no position to say, "It's just excruciating noise, performed by grunting losers in ridiculous make-up."

Zorro

Most amazing jew boots

Originally Posted by knkwzrd

I don't think the music is awful, I think the music is positively mediocre at every level. The fact is, if these bands had male lead singers, or maybe even if they didn't shove their lead singer in a corset and white makeup at every single photoshoot, they wouldn't sell a single record.

That's not a fact, but to some extent I agree. But Tarja's opera dress was part of the concept, I don't have the slightest idea how Amy Lee's outfits look, and frankly, I may have seen Cristina Scabbia in a corset once. Mostly it's male boots, dark pants with or without snap hooks, and her favorite clothes for her upper body seem to be an untucked white shirt with a tie or this black and red rag. You say corset, the first band I have to think of is Within Temptation, not the bands above.

As for photo shoots - oh God, she dresses nicely, how could she? Seriously, it's to be expected. Why wouldn't she?

Then again, there are so many bands with male leads that should be forgotten - yet they're successful enough. So we don't know how successful anyone would be with a singer of the opposite gender. By the way, I consider Evanescence and Lacuna Coil to be above average from a musical standpoint, even though I don't love much of what they do. Looking at Amy Lee doesn't do anything for me, although Scabbia looks hot sometimes - as long as you can deliberately forget how she looks in private.

Originally Posted by DarkLink2135

There's nothing that stands out about it or makes me want to run out and tell other people about them. I listen to it, but that's about it.

I'd be much more inclined to agree here. I wouldn't use the term "mediocre" - because I don't listen to music I consider mediocre (according to my taste, that is) -, but yes, none of the above are so special that they make me want to spread the word.

Zorro

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by knkwzrd

The pop singer tag is thrown around because these bands have taken a genre that exists really solely to be confrontational and have kind of bastardized it into radio friendly jingles. It's pop music dressed up for halloween. If that's your thing, I'm fine with that. Just don't pretend it's something it isn't.

A genre that exists solely to be confrontational? You're kidding, right? By the definiton you just made up here nothing is Metal that isn't unsuccessful, underground, political or just confrontational for confrontation's sake, I take it?

Zorro who didn't know Motörhead was a pop band

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Well, but I still have no idea what Metal is supposed to be, according to you.

Zorro

I was speaking idiomatically.

So I bought the new Nightwish album. (Yes, I still buy my CDs. I'm hopelessly old-fashioned.) Now, this is a first - never thought I'd buy anything with the name Nightwish on it. Here's another first: It's fucking great. (Never thought I'd say that either.) The compositions are actually very intricate - it's pretty hard to write music for drums, two guitars, a bass guitar and an orchestra (including several choirs) and make sure one part doesn't drown out the other. The two parts flow together admirably into a whole, some melodies are catchy, some are complex growers, and all in all it's a pretty sophisticated album that should (partly) appeal to casual listeners, too. Kudos!

Zorro

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Morrigan

I don't hate her anymore than I hate any other generic pop singer. And it's pretty clear that by personality I was referring to the personality of her voice, not how she is as a person, but I can't tell if you were being facetious or just hopelessly dense.

Neither - I'm just not a native English speaker, honey.

Originally Posted by Morrigan

King Diamond sings in a shrill falsetto that would probably make any music teacher cringe, but he somehow has the balls and intensity than most technically proficient singers (say, just about any typical power metal singer) would never dream of having.

I'd say beauty lies in the ear of the listener.

Originally Posted by Morrigan

WTF? You don't know the meaning of the word, I take it. Motörhead is as confrontational as it gets. The band's raw, dirty rock 'n roll is the very essence of youthful (nevermind Lemmy's actual age) rebellion. And that's why they rock so much.

I agree. I just had the feeling knkwzrd was driving at something else. Of course, I may have been wrong. Still, there's actually very little confrontation in "mainstream Metal" these days. Yet I wouldn't regiment bands that are not, well, "confrontational" into another category. Metal started out as an idea and a way of life, but at the end of the day it's a musical style.

Originally Posted by Morrigan

...Why? Seriously. I don't understand why people think that popularity and radio airplay is something desirable. Especially when the bands in question are like DragonFarce, Trivium or Nightwish, rather than say, Candlemass or Gospel of the Horns or Sabaton...

Would it be okay for the ones you like to get airplay? Anyhow, take the worst Metal band you know - wouldn't it be nice to hear more of that and less of Britney, 50 Cent and all the other crap when you turn on the radio?

Zorro

FELIPE NO

The plastic pop and rap that's clogging my speakers knows it's crap? If only its target audience knew, too...

Zorro

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Morrigan

*Perhaps you are unaware that such epithets are condescending. If you were aware, well, fuck off.

I meant to be condescending. Just thought to myself, 'If you can be a bitch, I can be a prick'

Originally Posted by Morrigan

Oh sure. But it's undeniable that the singers for Hammerfall or Freedom Call have as much balls as my pet cat.

Judging from their voices and general appearance, I have to give you that one

Originally Posted by Morrigan

Oh, sure. I'd be a lot happy for them, certainly. However, I'd get a tad concerned that such commercial success would give them big heads and turn them shitty. Not because popularity is inherently bad (plenty of bands dealt with it just fine), but because the band-who-starts-to-suck-once-they-get-popular phenomenon is just way too commonplace in my experience for me to not be just a little wary.

Okay, this I understand. I was afraid it was about this self-important elitist shit many metalheads are into. If it's about commercial success that turns a band on its head - I hear you.

Originally Posted by Morrigan

I don't turn on the radio.

Neither do I, because of the crap you get bombarded with. If there was a decent supply of actual music, I'd love to tune in. This way I'd come to know bands whose albums I'd buy in a heartbeat - but in order to be able to do so, you have to know they exist, playing their asses off somewhere for a beer and some greasy fries while Metallica can afford to wipe their asses with 100 dollar bills.

Zorro

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I guess Niki meant to imply that if you illegally download one of their albums, Metallica will hunt you down, burn your house, rape your dog and kill your sister - or the other way around. They've been know to... wax melodramatic when it comes to piracy. Poor guys.

Zorro

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Morrigan

Yeah, that's the thing a lot of people seem to misunderstand about the so-called elitists: that they inherently hate what's popular. I have been around a lot of elitist douchebags that make even me seem like the most open-minded art fag ever, but other than a handful of kvlt kiddies I haven't really met anyone who hates bands just because they're popular, or who liked bands but started hating them only once they got popular. In truth, if it looks like it, it's probably because bands that start to suck at the same time as they gain popularity just happens so bloody often that it can scarcely be called a coincidence. Some would argue that they always sucked (and I might not entirely disagree, and would in fact agree 100% on some of those but they all have become worse and worse) but bands like In Flames, Nightwish, Children of Bodom, Opeth, Cradle of Filth, Blind Guardian, Iced Earth, Samael, and of course the ubiquitous Metallica, Megadeth, Sepultura or Slayer, are fine examples of this phenomenon. Of course, in some cases it might have nothing to do with popularity and just be a result of a lack of creativity (I strongly suspect this is the case with Blind Guardian and Iced Earth, though I have admittedly little evidence) that coincides with raising popularity... who knows.

I'm in no position to disagree since this is your personal experience. However, I know my share of narrow-minded metalheads who do exactly what you described. Of course they deny that it's just because of the sudden popularity of band X or the like, but I get the feeling it is. Maybe you're one of those, too, maybe I am one of those, too, who's to say?

What I'm saying is that I'd be inclined to agree with you on half of the bands you listed, and I'd disagree on the other half. The popularity argument is effective if it's a huge popularity - the kind that involves the cover of the Rolling Stone for years, stretch limos, regular features on prime-time TV and all that crap, stuff that does fuck up an ego. But Iced Earth and Blind Guardian, for example? The way I see it, that's Schaffer's and Kürsch's going it alone, respectively. Samael? Popular? In this case we define popularity differently. I'd agree in a heartbeat on Metallica, Megadeth or Sepultura, though.

Originally Posted by Sian

I might get shot down for suggesting this, but I know the J-Pop thread has a little introduction with a list of bands people might want to check out if they want to start looking into the music more. Anyone interested in making one for this one? I love metal, but I admit hands down to not knowing an awful lot about all the bands that are out there. Maybe pitching together we can make a nice dandy list and some descriptions for people to check out. Just a thought!

I don't know... The thing people who don't know anything about Metal just don't get is that it's hugely diversified. I doubt there's a single human being out there who will listen to every sub-genre Metal has to offer, and while I don't know anything about J-Pop, I know that we won't be able to agree even within a sub-genre on what to listen to. Heck, we won't even agree if a band is Metal or not. Your compilation will never work, I'm afraid.

Zorro

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Morrigan

Well, popularity is relative. 10 years ago, few people really knew who Blind Guardian and Iced Earth were, but now a lot of kiddies worship them. None of them have appeared on Rolling Stone or rode limos that I know of, but for a bunch of formerly underground metal bands who used to play in small clubs, they now sell out much larger venues (for example, in 1999 Iced Earth played in Montreal in a small bar in front of at best 500 people, but in 2002 they not only sold out a much larger concert hall, it was overbooked, at over 2000 people - a 400% increase in attendance in just 3 years).
While they are still light years from being Metallica or even Megadeth, it's still a significant increase in popularity for them.

Of course I'm not saying their popularity hasn't risen a bit. They are much more popular, but only in the sense that now they belong to the comparatively small group of bands who can actually make a living off their music. (Not that Schaffer needed it, for example. I hear his shop is doing really fine.) I wouldn't begrudge any band this kind of popularity (and this kind of money), because optimistic idiot that I am, I figure it allows them to concentrate on their music. Of course, once they're doing fine financially, the music of some of them starts to change. But I'm willing to file that under progression, moving on, making the music they always wanted to make anyway, a change of taste or whatever you wanna call it. But don't forget that others have a change of heart without an accompanying increase in sales figures.

Then there's no accounting for taste. I liked the old Iced Earth, don't get me wrong, but Gettysburg was fucking awesome. And while I see the discrepancy between the first BG speed metal outings and their modern albums, I can't complain. I don't like Hansi's voice, I really don't, but I have to acknowledge that it takes much more musical talent to write and pull off their modern stuff than the old stuff. So if they manage to rope in new groups of potential future metalheads, more power to them.

Originally Posted by Morrigan

To be frank I'm not sure about Samael's status.

Me neither, but I think they had their biggest high with Passage, popularity-wise. But I'll admit I've lost sight of them, so I could be wrong.

Originally Posted by Morrigan

Oomph (another German Rammstein clone)

I know, I'm a German myself. Oomph are a little too popular around here, if you ask me - but what can I say, anything's better than Tokio Hotel *g*

Zorro

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Star Man Aevum

Does anyone have any recommendations of metal songs that are in 3/4 time?

3/4? Hmmm... Moonspell's Awake comes to mind. (If I even remember correctly - was it in 3/4...?)

Zorro

I was speaking idiomatically.

I sure do. Just not to the kind of Metal that's discussed here. ^^

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by guyinrubbersuit

Well then, talk about the kind of metal you do like to listen to!

You kiddin'? The coyotes would rip me to pieces. *g*

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Goldfish from Hell

I just scored a bunch of classic metal on vinyl and Im enjoying the hell out of it. Got:

Savatage - Sirens
Death Angel - Frolic Through the Park
Helloween - Keeper 1 and 2
Sabbath - Heaven and Hell, Mob Rules
Maiden - Piece of Mind (sexy picture disc, with brains being served at dinner...I have Seventh Son, Somewhere in Time, Powerslave and their first album coming later on)
Anthrax - Among the Living

Vemp: I love Wolf. They are like new school classic metal. Favorite song: Steelwinged Savage Reaper.

Wow... that I can get on board with. And here I thought no one in this thread listens to, well, classic Heavy Metal.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Indeed, why wouldn't you? Then again, having followed this thread for a couple of years, I was beginning to think that anything that doesn't cause earbleeding isn't considered extreme enough to qualify as Metal around here. *g*

How ya doing, buddy?