Least Favorite Band and Genre

[sinkoman]

I LOVE jazz! It's so alive, and constantly changing.

Jazz is constantly flowing, nothing is just written on paper and then "played". The musicians are constantly interacting with each other, no two performances of the same song are ever the same.

http://www.myspace.com/newjassquartet

Ick at myspace, I know, but I like these guys

Isn't the whole point of jazz music that everyone plays on the "jazz scale" and can thus play whatever the **** they like in time with the drums and it'll sound good?

To my knowledge, that's the whole thing that jazz isn't. It's supposed to be "jamming", rather than playing anything set in stone.

 

[Shift]

Jazz is the music of pure talent.

 

[Markdude]

You guys are aware that a blastbeat in its simplest terms is just a sped-up basic rock beat, right...? And that there are many variations? And endless possibilities for innovation within a blast-centred song?

Fliko, your statement about jazz was so confused ("It's really boring and great!") that it's obviously pointless trying to appeal to your tastes. The idea of praising a genre for its importance despite the fact that you find it boring also runs against your anti-popularism points about MTV bands. Oh well!

@Markdude - you praise the intricacy you can hear in death metal but then slag it off for the fact that there are parts that you are failing to hear... That isn't a fault of the music, you just haven't invested the time to pick apart the different elements. Fair enough if you don't want to have to do that in order to enjoy music, but your not being able to decipher what's going on is not a criticism that matters to those who compose it, since they clearly can.

No, a blast beat is typically hitting the snare drum, kick drum, and hi-hat simultaneously usually in eighth notes or sixteenth notes at a fast tempo. It's musically unimaginative, and to me, just says "look how strong my limbs are for being able to do a blastbeat at this tempo!"

My comment about not being able to decipher the guitar was meant to be in jest, actually. It was a joke targeting the rather awful guitar tone usually associated with death metal. I think it's cool when different musical instruments interact with each other which I actually have heard in some death metal. However, most of the time the production or the composition itself is poorly written enough so that it's nothing more than a jumbled mess (and not purposely).

That brings me to addressing your next comment. I love music that is textured and developed enough to allow me to pick out different elements, but most of the death metal I've heard sounds bad because it is just poorly written, not because it is complex. As a music composer and analyzer myself, I think saying "not being able to decipher what's going on is the listener's fault because the composer obviously can" is just flat-out retarded. Music is an artform, and therefore a form of self-expression, but it is not the listener's fault for not enjoying music that is not composed well. An artist still has a vision with his work and he must use his skill to bring the listener/viewer to realize the vision. Part of that is structuring parts that fit together (or don't, if you're into dissonance). To say "it is the listener's fault for not hearing how I've structured my composition, because I obviously know it" is nothing more than an excuse for poor writing.

Now, not all death metal is guilty of said bad writing, but one cannot blame the listener for not enjoying a piece of music.

 

[sinkoman]

Hard to play != good music

 

[French Ninja]

Least favorite artist/group? Too hard to say. Pretty much all music my sister listens to constantly(excluding the occasional Muse track).

Genres I hate? That's easier:
-rap(Hip Hop, in particular early Hip Hop, is excluded from this)
-ska
-indy
-punk
-emo/screamo
-most modern trance

 

[Fliko]

Fliko, your statement about jazz was so confused ("It's really boring and great!") that it's obviously pointless trying to appeal to your tastes. The idea of praising a genre for its importance despite the fact that you find it boring also runs against your anti-popularism points about MTV bands. Oh well!

While looking at Jazz, I look at it from 2 angles.

Looking at it as a musician, its great, Jazz is AWESOME, and it definately encompasses an elite group of musicians.

Looking at it as a person who listens to music, its free flowing, but I find it rather uninteresting, and boring.

My anti-popularism points about MTV bands? I listen to some MTV bands, because a band is on MTV doesn't mean they suck, or are a sellout.

 

[Laivasse]

No, a blast beat is typically hitting the snare drum, kick drum, and hi-hat simultaneously usually in eighth notes or sixteenth notes at a fast tempo. It's musically unimaginative, and to me, just says "look how strong my limbs are for being able to do a blastbeat at this tempo!"

The first statement is ignorant. This describes only one variation of blastbeat. You profess yourself that you 'don't keep up with death metal', so why are you trying to comment with authority on something you haven't researched?

TYPICALLY a blastbeat is the kick and snare drum hit in alternation at a high tempo, leading on the kick, and with hi-hat or ride strokes coinciding with the kick but not necessarily confined to any sort of regular pattern. This is the type of blast that Napalm Death (a grindcore band) have been using for years, and which for related reasons is sometimes called a 'grind' blast (stupidly imo, since it appears throughout all metal).Rarely, you'll hear a snare-led version of this blast, but it's often performed slower so as to highlight the peculiarity and insistence of the beat.

The beat you describe is sometimes referred to as the Suffo-blast, since it was used commonly by a popular band called Suffocation. Again, the cymbals are often struck simultaneously with the kick and snare, but can be used in countless different ways to emphasise different aspects of the beat - see eg. Nile's 'Wind Of Horus' where a suffo-blast is used with cymbal catches (crash or splash, can't decipher). It's probably the least commonly used type of blastbeat, however, and if every blastbeat you hear sounds like this then you're not appreciating the drumming as well as you think.

Then there is what is sometimes called a 'bomb' blast, which is where the snare is hit on-beat in 16ths while the kick is flooded underneath it (ie. twice the number of strokes on kick as on the snare). This type of blasting opens the door to another kind of beat, which is either the same type of blast or a slight variation depending on your point of view - basically, little kickdrum flurries and gaps underneath the snare hits can be used to create other little subsidiary rhythms to the blast (again see Tony Laureano's drumming on other parts of 'Wind of Horus' (1:37) for great examples of this, as well as his drumming in Angelcorpse 'The Inexorable').

This is not just hypothetical technical guff either. While some drummers tend to favour one type of blast or another (for example James Read, drummer of my favourite band, never touches a bomb-blast), many skilled drummers will flick between the various types to add little colourations to the beat, eg. Inferno (drummer from Behemoth) switches between the three basic types I described constantly with surgical precision (good examples being 'Xul', 'Heru Ra Ha').

There are more things that can technically be called a blast. For example, Proscriptor from Absu does what I can only describe as a slow-paced, kick-led bomb blast towards the end of 'The Cognate House of Courtly Witches'. In fact he is incredibly innovative in general throughout the Tara album despite all his drumming being blast-centric (Absu are a black/thrash metal band technically, although they did start out as a death metal band). Very fast triplets of Snare/kick/kick or k/k/s can also function as a kind of blastbeat (the latter is uncommon, although again, Proscriptor has experimented with it a bit in Melechesh and Absu).

All of this doesn't take into account little flourishes with cymbal - eg. a drummer doing a midpaced blast beat with the snare and kick alternated in 8ths while doing clever things with a cymbal in 16ths; or James Read on a 'grind' blast played in triplets will often hit China/Ride/Ride in 16ths on the kick-hit - nor does it take into account fills, which are the real weapons in a metal drummer's arsenal, and can completely change the emphasis or feel of a blast. To understand what I mean, listen to how some death metal drummers will fill on every couple of bars compared to how some black metal drummers will happily plod away for minutes on a kick/snare/kick/snare blast without a fill in sight (side note: I appreciate both). 'Gravity' blasts are another, flashy technique of blasting which I haven't mentioned here - 32nd(?) notes via a one-handed roll on the snare over 32nd notes on the doublekick, and whatever cymbal pattern the drummer chooses; essentially it is a 'bomb' blast where the snare matches the kick, via a one-handed snare roll. John Longstreth uses it to good effect in Origin ('Informis Infinitas Inhumanitas' is the album to check).

The idea that blastbeats are unimaginative by definition is like saying 'rock and roll drumming is unimaginative (because it uses rock beats = slow tempo blast beats)', 'power cords are unimaginative', 'riffing on the pentatonic scale is unimaginative', 'single stroke rolls are unimaginative', '3/4 time is unimaginative' or 'orthodox drumstick grip is unimaginative'. What's unimaginative or not is what a musician does with them. Real drummers are not interested in proving their strength to you (except perhaps those who obsess over gravity-blasts), so if you continue to get the impression that that's what blastbeats are about, then you are either listening to shitty bands or you just aren't listening with the right mindset.

My comment about not being able to decipher the guitar was meant to be in jest, actually. It was a joke targeting the rather awful guitar tone usually associated with death metal. I think it's cool when different musical instruments interact with each other which I actually have heard in some death metal. However, most of the time the production or the composition itself is poorly written enough so that it's nothing more than a jumbled mess (and not purposely).

Inaccurate misguided over-generalisation. Production is rarely a problem in death metal, unless we're talking about unusual and obscure bands like Brodequin (and I doubt that these are the bands which you are referring to). Guitar tone varies hugely. Musicianship is on the whole of a very high standard, and no examples spring to my mind of any band which is hard to decipher because they are playing sloppily. There are a lot of death metal bands which I think are crappy, but mostly it is because of creative deficit and very rarely because of technical quality. If you were actually referring to bad song structure, then I have to say that I've never heard a song which was hard to decipher due to its structure. I don't even see how that makes a difference - bad structure makes a song boring or annoying, not difficult to hear.

I would suggest that if you're not enjoying the music because you find the guitars difficult to decipher, that it is a result of your lack of subjective appreciation for the PURPOSEFUL decision of a band to have low-tuned guitars because they feel it adds something to their atmosphere; a sense of power, of the monolithic, of the sinister, whatever... Otherwise I just don't understand what you were saying. You made a joke about not being able to hear the guitars because although you can hear them, you don't like the way that death metal is composed...? I just don't see how it follows.

That brings me to addressing your next comment. I love music that is textured and developed enough to allow me to pick out different elements, but most of the death metal I've heard sounds bad because it is just poorly written, not because it is complex. As a music composer and analyzer myself, I think saying "not being able to decipher what's going on is the listener's fault because the composer obviously can" is just flat-out retarded. Music is an artform, and therefore a form of self-expression, but it is not the listener's fault for not enjoying music that is not composed well. An artist still has a vision with his work and he must use his skill to bring the listener/viewer to realize the vision. Part of that is structuring parts that fit together (or don't, if you're into dissonance). To say "it is the listener's fault for not hearing how I've structured my composition, because I obviously know it" is nothing more than an excuse for poor writing.

Rubbish. For a start, you were initially saying (in the post I first responded to) that you simply can't hear what the guitars are playing (a statement you have subsequently disowned...?), not that it wasn't composed well. My response to THAT point is that it can be composed well yet produced/EQ'ed to someone else's tastes rather than your own, and it is not the band's problem if you don't like their choice of production. Fact is, some bands obviously think it can be a good idea to tune and EQ their guitars to the point where they sound very chaotic and single notes are sometimes difficult to pick out, because it can have payoffs in terms of feel. Your not wanting to make the effort to hear any further, layered examples of quality after having appreciated some of the more obvious examples (as it appeared) would just be laziness, so yes, I'll criticise you for it It simply IS the listener's fault for not being able to hear what's going on in a piece of music, if it is in any way audible. Who else's fault is it? It's not the listener's fault if they don't like it (as you seem to be saying I said), but if the elements of the composition are all there to be heard then it is absolutely the listener's fault for not hearing them. I feel rightfully embarrassed whenever I hear something I haven't noticed before on an album that I've owned for ages (and with good metal it happens often).

You generally seem to have been using 'writing' and 'production' as interchangeable terms so it's hard to follow what you were saying. Maybe I would sound less 'retarded' to you if I wasn't responding to very clumsy jests in the first place. Whatever...Please note, anyway, that none of this is a personal dig nor is it meant to be insulting. It's just that it ****ing INFURIATES me when people who know little about metal start talking about it with authority when they haven't really got a clear idea what they're even criticising. Especially so, when I never criticise other genres yet I could easily choose to rant about what pieces of SHIT I think a lot of them are.

If you read this much, then thanks for your attention. On the other hand, I also feel inclined to say that if perhaps people don't want to get such an impassioned response then they shouldn't come out with bs inaccuracies and try to pass off opinion as fact on areas they know little about in the first place. Flip a coin. Feel free to say subjective stuff like 'i r hate death meatl - wtf are all teh scraeming???!', however, that makes no difference to me.

 

[-Psy-]

Prog Metal is where the complexity is at.

 

[Pulse]

Tech metal gives you a much larger headache.

See Meshuggah

 

[Laivasse]

I'm not the biggest tech-death metal fan, but if you like it you should check out Theory In Practice and Pavor.

 

[Shift]

The first statement is ignorant. This describes only one variation of blastbeat. You profess yourself that you 'don't keep up with death metal', so why are you trying to comment with authority on something you haven't researched?

TYPICALLY a blastbeat is the kick and snare drum hit in alternation at a high tempo, leading on the kick, and with hi-hat or ride strokes coinciding with the kick but not necessarily confined to any sort of regular pattern. This is the type of blast that Napalm Death (a grindcore band) have been using for years, and which for related reasons is sometimes called a 'grind' blast (stupidly imo, since it appears throughout all metal).Rarely, you'll hear a snare-led version of this blast, but it's often performed slower so as to highlight the peculiarity and insistence of the beat.

The beat you describe is sometimes referred to as the Suffo-blast, since it was used commonly by a popular band called Suffocation. Again, the cymbals are often struck simultaneously with the kick and snare, but can be used in countless different ways to emphasise different aspects of the beat - see eg. Nile's 'Wind Of Horus' where a suffo-blast is used with cymbal catches (crash or splash, can't decipher). It's probably the least commonly used type of blastbeat, however, and if every blastbeat you hear sounds like this then you're not appreciating the drumming as well as you think.

Then there is what is sometimes called a 'bomb' blast, which is where the snare is hit on-beat in 16ths while the kick is flooded underneath it (ie. twice the number of strokes on kick as on the snare). This type of blasting opens the door to another kind of beat, which is either the same type of blast or a slight variation depending on your point of view - basically, little kickdrum flurries and gaps underneath the snare hits can be used to create other little subsidiary rhythms to the blast (again see Tony Laureano's drumming on other parts of 'Wind of Horus' (1:37) for great examples of this, as well as his drumming in Angelcorpse 'The Inexorable').

This is not just hypothetical technical guff either. While some drummers tend to favour one type of blast or another (for example James Read, drummer of my favourite band, never touches a bomb-blast), many skilled drummers will flick between the various types to add little colourations to the beat, eg. Inferno (drummer from Behemoth) switches between the three basic types I described constantly with surgical precision (good examples being 'Xul', 'Heru Ra Ha').

There are more things that can technically be called a blast. For example, Proscriptor from Absu does what I can only describe as a slow-paced, kick-led bomb blast towards the end of 'The Cognate House of Courtly Witches'. In fact he is incredibly innovative in general throughout the Tara album despite all his drumming being blast-centric (Absu are a black/thrash metal band technically, although they did start out as a death metal band). Very fast triplets of Snare/kick/kick or k/k/s can also function as a kind of blastbeat (the latter is uncommon, although again, Proscriptor has experimented with it a bit in Melechesh and Absu).

All of this doesn't take into account little flourishes with cymbal - eg. a drummer doing a midpaced blast beat with the snare and kick alternated in 8ths while doing clever things with a cymbal in 16ths; or James Read on a 'grind' blast played in triplets will often hit China/Ride/Ride in 16ths on the kick-hit - nor does it take into account fills, which are the real weapons in a metal drummer's arsenal, and can completely change the emphasis or feel of a blast. To understand what I mean, listen to how some death metal drummers will fill on every couple of bars compared to how some black metal drummers will happily plod away for minutes on a kick/snare/kick/snare blast without a fill in sight (side note: I appreciate both). 'Gravity' blasts are another, flashy technique of blasting which I haven't mentioned here - 32nd(?) notes via a one-handed roll on the snare over 32nd notes on the doublekick, and whatever cymbal pattern the drummer chooses; essentially it is a 'bomb' blast where the snare matches the kick, via a one-handed snare roll. John Longstreth uses it to good effect in Origin ('Informis Infinitas Inhumanitas' is the album to check).

The idea that blastbeats are unimaginative by definition is like saying 'rock and roll drumming is unimaginative (because it uses rock beats = slow tempo blast beats)', 'power cords are unimaginative', 'riffing on the pentatonic scale is unimaginative', 'single stroke rolls are unimaginative', '3/4 time is unimaginative' or 'orthodox drumstick grip is unimaginative'. What's unimaginative or not is what a musician does with them. Real drummers are not interested in proving their strength to you (except perhaps those who obsess over gravity-blasts), so if you continue to get the impression that that's what blastbeats are about, then you are either listening to shitty bands or you just aren't listening with the right mindset.

Inaccurate misguided over-generalisation. Production is rarely a problem in death metal, unless we're talking about unusual and obscure bands like Brodequin (and I doubt that these are the bands which you are referring to). Guitar tone varies hugely. Musicianship is on the whole of a very high standard, and no examples spring to my mind of any band which is hard to decipher because they are playing sloppily. There are a lot of death metal bands which I think are crappy, but mostly it is because of creative deficit and very rarely because of technical quality. If you were actually referring to bad song structure, then I have to say that I've never heard a song which was hard to decipher due to its structure. I don't even see how that makes a difference - bad structure makes a song boring or annoying, not difficult to hear.

I would suggest that if you're not enjoying the music because you find the guitars difficult to decipher, that it is a result of your lack of subjective appreciation for the PURPOSEFUL decision of a band to have low-tuned guitars because they feel it adds something to their atmosphere; a sense of power, of the monolithic, of the sinister, whatever... Otherwise I just don't understand what you were saying. You made a joke about not being able to hear the guitars because although you can hear them, you don't like the way that death metal is composed...? I just don't see how it follows.


Rubbish. For a start, you were initially saying (in the post I first responded to) that you simply can't hear what the guitars are playing (a statement you have subsequently disowned...?), not that it wasn't composed well. My response to THAT point is that it can be composed well yet produced/EQ'ed to someone else's tastes rather than your own, and it is not the band's problem if you don't like their choice of production. Fact is, some bands obviously think it can be a good idea to tune and EQ their guitars to the point where they sound very chaotic and single notes are sometimes difficult to pick out, because it can have payoffs in terms of feel. Your not wanting to make the effort to hear any further, layered examples of quality after having appreciated some of the more obvious examples (as it appeared) would just be laziness, so yes, I'll criticise you for it It simply IS the listener's fault for not being able to hear what's going on in a piece of music, if it is in any way audible. Who else's fault is it? It's not the listener's fault if they don't like it (as you seem to be saying I said), but if the elements of the composition are all there to be heard then it is absolutely the listener's fault for not hearing them. I feel rightfully embarrassed whenever I hear something I haven't noticed before on an album that I've owned for ages (and with good metal it happens often).

You generally seem to have been using 'writing' and 'production' as interchangeable terms so it's hard to follow what you were saying. Maybe I would sound less 'retarded' to you if I wasn't responding to very clumsy jests in the first place. Whatever...Please note, anyway, that none of this is a personal dig nor is it meant to be insulting. It's just that it ****ing INFURIATES me when people who know little about metal start talking about it with authority when they haven't really got a clear idea what they're even criticising. Especially so, when I never criticise other genres yet I could easily choose to rant about what pieces of SHIT I think a lot of them are.

If you read this much, then thanks for your attention. On the other hand, I also feel inclined to say that if perhaps people don't want to get such an impassioned response then they shouldn't come out with bs inaccuracies and try to pass off opinion as fact on areas they know little about in the first place. Flip a coin. Feel free to say subjective stuff like 'i r hate death meatl - wtf are all teh scraeming???!', however, that makes no difference to me.

D:

 

[Ryding]

Least Favorite Band:

Anything thats country


Least Favorite Genre:

Country

 

[Markdude]

The first statement is ignorant. This describes only one variation of blastbeat. You profess yourself that you 'don't keep up with death metal', so why are you trying to comment with authority on something you haven't researched?

TYPICALLY a blastbeat is the kick and snare drum hit in alternation at a high tempo, leading on the kick, and with hi-hat or ride strokes coinciding with the kick but not necessarily confined to any sort of regular pattern. This is the type of blast that Napalm Death (a grindcore band) have been using for years, and which for related reasons is sometimes called a 'grind' blast (stupidly imo, since it appears throughout all metal).Rarely, you'll hear a snare-led version of this blast, but it's often performed slower so as to highlight the peculiarity and insistence of the beat.

The beat you describe is sometimes referred to as the Suffo-blast, since it was used commonly by a popular band called Suffocation. Again, the cymbals are often struck simultaneously with the kick and snare, but can be used in countless different ways to emphasise different aspects of the beat - see eg. Nile's 'Wind Of Horus' where a suffo-blast is used with cymbal catches (crash or splash, can't decipher). It's probably the least commonly used type of blastbeat, however, and if every blastbeat you hear sounds like this then you're not appreciating the drumming as well as you think.

Then there is what is sometimes called a 'bomb' blast, which is where the snare is hit on-beat in 16ths while the kick is flooded underneath it (ie. twice the number of strokes on kick as on the snare). This type of blasting opens the door to another kind of beat, which is either the same type of blast or a slight variation depending on your point of view - basically, little kickdrum flurries and gaps underneath the snare hits can be used to create other little subsidiary rhythms to the blast (again see Tony Laureano's drumming on other parts of 'Wind of Horus' (1:37) for great examples of this, as well as his drumming in Angelcorpse 'The Inexorable').

This is not just hypothetical technical guff either. While some drummers tend to favour one type of blast or another (for example James Read, drummer of my favourite band, never touches a bomb-blast), many skilled drummers will flick between the various types to add little colourations to the beat, eg. Inferno (drummer from Behemoth) switches between the three basic types I described constantly with surgical precision (good examples being 'Xul', 'Heru Ra Ha').

There are more things that can technically be called a blast. For example, Proscriptor from Absu does what I can only describe as a slow-paced, kick-led bomb blast towards the end of 'The Cognate House of Courtly Witches'. In fact he is incredibly innovative in general throughout the Tara album despite all his drumming being blast-centric (Absu are a black/thrash metal band technically, although they did start out as a death metal band). Very fast triplets of Snare/kick/kick or k/k/s can also function as a kind of blastbeat (the latter is uncommon, although again, Proscriptor has experimented with it a bit in Melechesh and Absu).

All of this doesn't take into account little flourishes with cymbal - eg. a drummer doing a midpaced blast beat with the snare and kick alternated in 8ths while doing clever things with a cymbal in 16ths; or James Read on a 'grind' blast played in triplets will often hit China/Ride/Ride in 16ths on the kick-hit - nor does it take into account fills, which are the real weapons in a metal drummer's arsenal, and can completely change the emphasis or feel of a blast. To understand what I mean, listen to how some death metal drummers will fill on every couple of bars compared to how some black metal drummers will happily plod away for minutes on a kick/snare/kick/snare blast without a fill in sight (side note: I appreciate both). 'Gravity' blasts are another, flashy technique of blasting which I haven't mentioned here - 32nd(?) notes via a one-handed roll on the snare over 32nd notes on the doublekick, and whatever cymbal pattern the drummer chooses; essentially it is a 'bomb' blast where the snare matches the kick, via a one-handed snare roll. John Longstreth uses it to good effect in Origin ('Informis Infinitas Inhumanitas' is the album to check).

The idea that blastbeats are unimaginative by definition is like saying 'rock and roll drumming is unimaginative (because it uses rock beats = slow tempo blast beats)', 'power cords are unimaginative', 'riffing on the pentatonic scale is unimaginative', 'single stroke rolls are unimaginative', '3/4 time is unimaginative' or 'orthodox drumstick grip is unimaginative'. What's unimaginative or not is what a musician does with them. Real drummers are not interested in proving their strength to you (except perhaps those who obsess over gravity-blasts), so if you continue to get the impression that that's what blastbeats are about, then you are either listening to shitty bands or you just aren't listening with the right mindset.

Inaccurate misguided over-generalisation. Production is rarely a problem in death metal, unless we're talking about unusual and obscure bands like Brodequin (and I doubt that these are the bands which you are referring to). Guitar tone varies hugely. Musicianship is on the whole of a very high standard, and no examples spring to my mind of any band which is hard to decipher because they are playing sloppily. There are a lot of death metal bands which I think are crappy, but mostly it is because of creative deficit and very rarely because of technical quality. If you were actually referring to bad song structure, then I have to say that I've never heard a song which was hard to decipher due to its structure. I don't even see how that makes a difference - bad structure makes a song boring or annoying, not difficult to hear.

I would suggest that if you're not enjoying the music because you find the guitars difficult to decipher, that it is a result of your lack of subjective appreciation for the PURPOSEFUL decision of a band to have low-tuned guitars because they feel it adds something to their atmosphere; a sense of power, of the monolithic, of the sinister, whatever... Otherwise I just don't understand what you were saying. You made a joke about not being able to hear the guitars because although you can hear them, you don't like the way that death metal is composed...? I just don't see how it follows.


Rubbish. For a start, you were initially saying (in the post I first responded to) that you simply can't hear what the guitars are playing (a statement you have subsequently disowned...?), not that it wasn't composed well. My response to THAT point is that it can be composed well yet produced/EQ'ed to someone else's tastes rather than your own, and it is not the band's problem if you don't like their choice of production. Fact is, some bands obviously think it can be a good idea to tune and EQ their guitars to the point where they sound very chaotic and single notes are sometimes difficult to pick out, because it can have payoffs in terms of feel. Your not wanting to make the effort to hear any further, layered examples of quality after having appreciated some of the more obvious examples (as it appeared) would just be laziness, so yes, I'll criticise you for it It simply IS the listener's fault for not being able to hear what's going on in a piece of music, if it is in any way audible. Who else's fault is it? It's not the listener's fault if they don't like it (as you seem to be saying I said), but if the elements of the composition are all there to be heard then it is absolutely the listener's fault for not hearing them. I feel rightfully embarrassed whenever I hear something I haven't noticed before on an album that I've owned for ages (and with good metal it happens often).

You generally seem to have been using 'writing' and 'production' as interchangeable terms so it's hard to follow what you were saying. Maybe I would sound less 'retarded' to you if I wasn't responding to very clumsy jests in the first place. Whatever...Please note, anyway, that none of this is a personal dig nor is it meant to be insulting. It's just that it ****ing INFURIATES me when people who know little about metal start talking about it with authority when they haven't really got a clear idea what they're even criticising. Especially so, when I never criticise other genres yet I could easily choose to rant about what pieces of SHIT I think a lot of them are.

If you read this much, then thanks for your attention. On the other hand, I also feel inclined to say that if perhaps people don't want to get such an impassioned response then they shouldn't come out with bs inaccuracies and try to pass off opinion as fact on areas they know little about in the first place. Flip a coin. Feel free to say subjective stuff like 'i r hate death meatl - wtf are all teh scraeming???!', however, that makes no difference to me.

Wow, calm down, kid. Sorry that I don't like your favorite bands. You don't have to write a book about blastbeats. I think they're lame and unimaginative, as I do with a lot of your examples actually (songs with nothing but power chords, strictly pentatonic riffs, etc.). You think otherwise. Big deal.

I'm not sure how familiar you actually are with writing music. Bad writing can in fact make parts hard to hear or decipher, when different instruments clash with each other because their interplay is constructed poorly or when overly-complex parts do not flow together. In recording many bands myself, I've learned that a lot of getting a great sound is not with mixing and recording technique, it's simply in writing a song that all molds together. It doesn't matter if all the band members are masters of technicality and play all of their parts absolutely perfect, it's still going to sound like a mess if the parts don't flow together. So can I blame the producer for the quality sounding like ass? Sometimes. But most of the time I can blame the band for not writing a good song. I'd like to point out again that my point about the guitars was a joke and it's not as if I sit there saying "what is this strange wall of noise? Is that a guitar?" I was making fun of uber-downtuned, mids scooped, unclear guitar tone that is widely associated with death metal.

I don't think you follow what I'm saying about writer's fault/listener's fault. Have you ever written and performed a song? Serious question. You are basically insinuating that every song ever written is absolutely perfect and it's the listener's fault if they do not enjoy it. This example has nothing to do with death metal, but if an artist intends for a song to be a wide array of soundscapes with layers of texture, but due to his lack of writing skill it comes out as an overbloated, sonic mess, then it is not the listener's fault if he does not enjoy it. If the artist is satisfied with his work, then fine, but the listener is not at fault for not enjoying it. Music is not a sport where you should have to practice and work to enjoy it. You say that it is the listener's fault for not being able to decipher an instrument if it is in any way audible. So if I record a rhythm track and a solo that are both played in the same octave, on the same guitar and amp, and EQ them exactly the same way, it is the listener's fault for not being able to decipher every note from each other? I have not been exchanging the terms "writing" and "production", but they are closely related. A poorly-written song will never sound good recorded, even if it is played by masters of their instruments, recorded on top-notch gear, and mixed by a legend. The first step to a good recording is a good song.

The thing about a lot of the death metal I've heard is that every instrument will be playing some kind of overly complex piece simultaneously, and the result is just a big, unstructured mess. Then the listener gets blamed for not appreciating the complexity put into the song. It's not that I "don't want to hear" the layers of complexity, it's just that they don't sound good to begin with. I could not really care any less about how technical it is if it does not sound good. Complexity is not everything. An example of a way something can sound complex (and still good) but not be overly-complex is a polyrhythm. Most of the time, although the instruments are playing in different time signatures simultaneously (which gives the feeling of complexity), the actual pieces each one is playing is relatively simple, but since the feel of the music is so unfamiliar, it sounds complex. There is a fine line between overdoing it as far as technicality goes. I do enjoy picking apart and analyzing music that I already enjoy, but a good song does not need to be analyzed to be appreciated.

You said that "it is a result of your lack of subjective appreciation for the PURPOSEFUL decision of a band to have low-tuned guitars." Congratulations, you almost said something I agree with. It's not the fact that they're tuning low, it's the parts they choose to write when tuning that low. That is one of the things I don't like about some death metal, and of course I have a lack of appreciation for death-metal. That's why I'm posting in this thread. I never said death metal should be banished or that death metal fans are stupid. I just said that I do not enjoy listening to it. And for the record, downtuning can be very great when used effectively. I just don't like the way some death metal bands tune low and play complex, fast riffs. It sounds like a wall of uncoordinated flub.

And you mention it infuriates you to read things like this by people who are not familiar with the genre. Are you new to the internet? This stuff is always going to happen. Take a chill pill and let it slide. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know a ton about death metal and I know I'm generalizing, but I'm also willing to make a safe bet that from the amount of distaste I have for what I have heard, I don't think I'm missing out on any death metal that I would enjoy. And if you pride yourself so much on not criticizing other genres of music that you hate, then what could your incentive to open this thread possibly have been? Honestly, what did you expect to find in a thread titled "Least Favorite Band and Genre"? Criticism is not a bad thing. It is not an enemy.

To anyone that doesn't want to read all of this, here's the jist of it: I don't like death metal. He does. The End.

Why don't you just take a Lunesta and take a break for the internet for a while, eh? Because if my post infuriated you so much, then you're going to explode with anger when you read some of the other stuff on the big ol' web. :smoking:

 

[Laivasse]

Wow, calm down, kid. Sorry that I don't like your favorite bands.

Stopped reading. Sorry.

 

[Markdude]

Fine with me. I don't like death metal yet.

 

[destrukt]

Screamo/heavy metal - if you like this music I think you're a complete moron. Especially the hard core fans: you may think you're so rebellious, hardcore, evil, scary, different or whatever but the bottom line is you look amazingly stupid, everyone thinks little to nothing about you and well, you should go die. o_0

EOF

 

[sinkoman]

I hate speed metal.

Actually, now that I think of it, I hate most modern metal.

For me, the genre died in the 80s.

 

[-Psy-]

I like heavy-metal but...I hate the people who wear piercings and grow their hair and put on a deep growling voice. What's the point?

 

[Space Farm]

Who cares what the musicians look like? That's what pop artists are for. Besides, Heavy Metal doesn't contain "deep growling voices" anyway...Read Laivasse's wonderful post.

"It's just that it ****ing INFURIATES me when people who know little about metal start talking about it with authority when they haven't really got a clear idea what they're even criticising."

 

[Markdude]

"Heavy metal" is about as vague as "jazz".

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

I would also like to add country. No joke that every song is about "freedom", "our country", or "when I was a kid" or something along those lines. Not one song is distiguishable from the rest.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

I guess I don't really hate any genre, as soon as I start to feel that way I'll usually hear a band or song that stands out and changes my opinion. One genre that fails me is 'screamo' I guess I just don't understand it and can't fathom listening to it for pleasure.

I actually enjoy quite a few country / R&B and rap songs, a lot of people think it's narrowed to Toby Keith and 50-Cent, but talented artists do exist in these genres.

 

[Markdude]

I actually did read that post. Note that I'm not against anyone who doesn't like metal; I'm merely against what I see as flaws in logic and the opinions they poorly support.

There's a couple of problems with this:

• You insinuate that there are absolute "goods" and "bads" in music.
• You claim the listener's enjoyment of a given piece of music is the responsibility of the artist, not the listener.
• You imply that all music should be instantly appreciable.

Think about those for a second.

One, music is a cultural construction; to claim that a song is "good" or "bad" as a fact is simply impossible because "good" and "bad" in the case of music are completely subjective terms. Eastern music uses quarter-tones; would you say that every song from that part of the world is out of tune?

I am fully aware that music is entirely subjective (if it wasn't, neither one of us would be sitting here launching paragraph after paragraph at each other) and I come from a school of music that writes music for the average listener. This is a listener who is not going to give a song a second chance if it does not have appeal. Does this mean that I won't give a song a second chance? No, not at all, but I aim to compose music that does not sound stale or redundant, but does not need to be analyzed or have any kind of gimmick to be appreciated. Some may feel that writing for the average Joe Schmo listener is degrading a composer's skill and potential, but I think it takes a tremendous amount of talent to compose a piece that appeals to an average listener but also strays from a contemporary popular structure and formula, and that is the kind of music I strive to create.

I do not imply that music should be instantly appreciable (although as I mentioned above, it is quite an accomplishment to compose something that is). That's just my gripe. I've tried to appreciate what I've heard from death metal, but I just can't. It's not my thing. There's nothing wrong with the fact that I don't appreciate it, I know that there are many others who do and that is fine with me.

Two, since there is no absolute good and bad in the world of music, then it is absolutely impossible to hold the artist accountable for other peoples' enjoyment of his, hers or their creation. Furthermore, many forms of music are acquired tastes. I despise hip-hop, but, were I raised on it and exposed to it 24/7, perhaps I would learn of its nuances and gain a new appreciation for it. No music is an exception to this.

Now, this is where things have started to get complicated. In Laivasse's reply, he made a statement that sounded as if he was saying it is the listener's fault for not enjoying a piece of music. In my reply, I was speaking of music in general, not just death metal. Of course music is subjective and honestly neither the artist or the listener is at fault, but there is definitely a fine line between what the artist intends to portray in his work and what he actually does portray. My point is that if the artist does not portray what he is trying to, the listener cannot be blamed for not picking up on it.

To put that in a musical example, an artist may intend to create an orchestral array of textures and harmonies that gel and flow together, but if for lack of skill or another reason he produces a wall of noise instead, then we cannot fault the listener for not hearing his intended orchestral soundscape. Of course, once again, music is subjective, and it is certainly possible for the artist to intend something else than he produces, and for the listener to still enjoy it. But the fact is definitely present in all forms of art that the artist does not always create what he intends to. Sometimes it still work regardless, but sometimes it just comes out as nothing more than poor writing. Once again, before someone goes nuts over this, this entire anecdote has nothing to do with death metal. It is a hypothetical example.

Three, since appreciation for music is very much a learning process that includes not only the music itself, but the time period and societal and/or cultural background it was created in. Music, I'm sure we will all agree, has meaning given to it by the listener as part of its decoding process. In its most base sense, music is just arranged noise; it takes a listener to understand and appreciate it.

With my above points in consideration, your point starts to get a little bit shaky. I think I should mention, though, that you severely underestimate the musical talent and ability (not raw technicality, mind you) of the people who create it.

Oh, I do? Who are you to tell me that I do underestimate their levels of technicality? I am completely aware that many of the world's most talented musicians play death metal music, but that means nothing to me. I know that a majority of death metal musicians can play the hell out of their instrument, but I am not still a fan of their approaches to composition. A good song sells me, not the fact that the instrumentals are of a high level of musicianship. That is part of the reason I am also not very partial to virtuoso-centric music.

Of course not. As far as death metal goes, though, it's very important. However, you assume that all death metal strives to be as complex as possible. Clearly your experience with the genre is extremely limited.

Like I said, I'll be the first to admit that I have not listened to a large amount of death metal. I do not assume that all death metal strives to be complex, but that was part of my example of an aspect about much of it that I don't like. Did I ever say that was the only reason that I don't like death metal? No, and if I did, then I would shame myself for doing so because of the blatant ignorance. It was but one mere example of an aspect I do not care for.

No, you're right, music doesn't need to be analysed to be appreciated. However, analysis, as with any other media, can significantly increase one's appreciation of the work. That's why critics exist.

Agreed.

If you feel great about spouting off your un- and mis-informed opinions simply because it's the Internet, then that's good for you. However, I fear for a world where people do not strive to exhibit standards of etiquette, intelligence, and dignity for themselves and for others.

I really don't pick up on how you think my opinions are misinformed. I state that I do not like death metal and that one of the reasons is because some of the bands tend to focus on overcomplexity. I also give hypothetical examples of what I think constitutes the difference between good and bad songwriting (music is subjective, but that's not an excuse to be able to outlaw listeners from developing a perspective on songwriting that they find is effective). At no point did I declare all death metal is the same or that someone is incapable of composing music if they disagree with me.

My comment about the internet was in response to the observation that Laivasse apparently becomes angry pretty easily in response to opinions that he does not agree with. My point is that if he becomes this enraged over someone like me, then he's going to be unpleasantly surprised when he finds that the majority of the internet isn't anywhere near as thoughtful as we are, especially when it comes to music.

Now, what do you say we do the forum a favor and keep any more babbling about this out of the topic? The point of the topic has been made, I am not a fan of death metal and Laivasse apparently is, and it's obvious that we do not enjoy the same types of composition. There's not really any sense in polluting this thread with any more of this unneeded argument because it's not going to help anyone.

 

[W1LLDAB3AST]

I hate Punk, I listen to ALL things METAL The louder more insane the better, I want my ear drums to beg for mercy.

 

[sinkoman]

I hate Punk, I listen to ALL things METAL The louder more insane the better, I want my ear drums to beg for mercy.

GTFO

 

[soulslicer]

youre a hole..

 

[Pulse]

GTFO

lolwut

 

[venturon]

-I dislike most of the punk music that I have listened to. I also don't really like emo.

-I dislike most of the post rock I have heard (and that is an absolute shitload of post rock).

-I absolutely hate that gaudy sort of blues you hear from artists like Gary Moore and Eric Clapton. The twelve-bar blues is there alright, but the entire production feels so soulless. I swear, the day I saw Steve Vai solo to 'Red House' was the saddest day of my life.

-There is a lot of rap and hip-hop that I don't like, but there are usually some stand-out acts that I can enjoy. I feel that it's also appropriate to mention that I utterly despise modern RnB.

I'm going to be a little different and say that there is a lot to like about Country music as long as you avoid the tired rehashes that plague the genre. Some of the more traditional stuff is just fantastic, but there are a lot of modern takes on the genre. There are all sorts of weird fusions between metal or hard rock and country music, and a lot of the stuff is worth trying out. I'm just sorry I can't think of any artists off the top of my head (I am awful with names!).

Oh and where the hell did all the black rock vocalists go?

 

[soulslicer]

lol... give me the good ol..oasis style music, or keane/coldplay style music, or some good metal like disturbed ect.. or some mainstream like hoobastank ect. and im happy..

 

[Bad^Hat]

Mainstream is not a ****ing genre. Pop or pop/rock maybe, but even those are pretty loose. Infact, show me one music store where the pop/rock and alternative sections are actually different from one another and I'll show you a store that actually HAS a metal section (I saw one once!).

Wait... what was I talking about?

Oh yeah, rap. And it being shit and all.

And yeah, there may be some good stuff in there, but the 1 percent does not excuse the other 99.





Oh, and emo's not a genre either.

 

[MiccyNarc]

Screamo/heavy metal - if you like this music I think you're a complete moron. Especially the hard core fans: you may think you're so rebellious, hardcore, evil, scary, different or whatever but the bottom line is you look amazingly stupid, everyone thinks little to nothing about you and well, you should go die. o_0

EOF

If you actually mean this post then you're a ****ing idiot.

There are plenty of metal fans that don't feel the need to dress up in stupid costumes, in fact the majority of metal fans I know don't.

So just the fact that we like screaming guitars and screaming vocals means we're complete morons? Nice stereotype you've got going on there.

Well guess what, I listen to metal, and I don't think I'm rebellious, hardcore, evil, or whatever bullshit label you think I apply to myself. That's not me. I just like a style of music that you obviously don't enjoy. Does that make me stupid? Hell no. Does labeling a group of people based purely on their musical taste make you stupid? Hell yes.

 

[CptStern]

Oh and where the hell did all the black rock vocalists go?

agreed ..been listening to motown and 70's funk lately ..man they had some great vocalists with great melodies ..now it's either spoken word or excercises on how many notes you can hit in a song (re: diva bullshit like Mariah carey)

 

[Pulse]

If you actually mean this post then you're a ****ing idiot.

There are plenty of metal fans that don't feel the need to dress up in stupid costumes, in fact the majority of metal fans I know don't.

So just the fact that we like screaming guitars and screaming vocals means we're complete morons? Nice stereotype you've got going on there.

Well guess what, I listen to metal, and I don't think I'm rebellious, hardcore, evil, or whatever bullshit label you think I apply to myself. That's not me. I just like a style of music that you obviously don't enjoy. Does that make me stupid? Hell no. Does labeling a group of people based purely on their musical taste make you stupid? Hell yes.

QFT

 

[leib10]

I'm just really not a fan of screaming music. It really annoys me and strikes me as repetitive and when you listen to it on a CD, at times you can't tell the difference between songs.

 

[mastag]

agreed ..been listening to motown and 70's funk lately ..man they had some great vocalists with great melodies ..now it's either spoken word or excercises on how many notes you can hit in a song (re: diva bullshit like Mariah carey)

listen....it's the sound of me agreeing with stern.

 

[Pulse]

I'm just really not a fan of screaming music. It really annoys me and strikes me as repetitive and when you listen to it on a CD, at times you can't tell the difference between songs.

I think the same of rap.

Opinions are awesome aren't they?

 

[leib10]

So do I. Rap is by far the most recycled genre ever.

 

[Fliko]

So do I. Rap is by far the most recycled genre ever.

I always thought Rock was pretty recycled...

 

[Shift]

Ha!