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the beatles

37 (44.6%)

led zeppelin

12 (14.5%)

Rush

7 (8.4%)

tool

8 (9.6%)

pink floyd

19 (22.9%)

Total Members Voted: 56

[Joseph]

Also, Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco.

[dalconnsuch]

Also, Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco.

fall out boy is the single most technical and musical band ever, complex time signatures and the like!

[sean]

Please guys, if we're talking about technical complexity, Nickelback takes the cake.

I mean, I've tried playing their songs. Do you know how hard it is to make the same three power chords in not one, but two songs?

[Kai]

Nickelback is an exercise in minimalism.

[GenericName]

Guys, it's things such as Nickelback that discourage my guitar playing.

I mean, if I tried to play a Nickelback song my guitar would get so bored it would start to gently weep. And then it's a completely different song!

[imapiratearg]

Nickelback is an exercise in minimalism.

Nickleback is an exercise in everything that is glorious about music.  For real, dudes.

[Nodaisho]

Nickelback is what you get if you take AC/DC, get rid of the high-pitched singers, and remove everything that could conceivably be considered "fun" about it.

I am sorry, but they don't have a 50-year-old man jumping around in a schoolboy outfit, that instantly loses them quite a few points.

And thanks generic, now I am going to have to listen to that song, while being angry at myself for not knowing how to play it.

[GenericName]

Oh, I can't play it either. That makes it even more horrible.

[Nodaisho]

Curse you Clapton... Curse youuu!

[MadassAlex]

My thoughts on metal elitism:

I personally believe it's justifiable due to the huge amount of controversy, ignorance and close-mindedness surrounding metal since its creation and up until today. But mainly the 90s. I mean, come the fuck on:

- Grunge basically killed metal in the mainstream. Even though hair metal needed to be culled, it also meant that the thrash metal that was gaining popularity took a nosedive, too.

- Chuck Schuldiner gets a brain tumor. 

- Nu-metal. 'Nuff said.

- Church burnings

How do I explain this? Think of it this way:

Your favourite art form is butchered beyond recognition in the form of shitty glam metal. Both your favourite genre and its bastard child are then killed off by a grunge band trying to be pop, only to be resurrected even MORE mutilated with bands like Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park. To make matters worse, Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer sell out. To a metalhead at the time, those bands were supposed to be showing the mainstream how much metal kicked ass, but instead we got things like Load and Risk.
To make things worse, a certain small amount of metalheads in Norway were fucking around with churches, making the lot of us look bad and Chuck Schuldiner's death was basically confirmed. Any way you slice it, not a happy time for metal.
I believe it was chiefly this that bred the elitism and exclusivity in metal. If you didn't know your stuff or you weren't willing to learn, you were laughable but moreover you were something of an enemy because you're exactly the kind of person that contributed to the stuff in the first subparagraph of this motherfucker. It's not like metalheads in general had anything against casual listeners of metal, they just had something against casual listeners to claimed to be metalheads. And it's still that way.
For a good reason.
Because of Trivium and Arch Enemy and Slipknot and their fans, as those bands and their fans tend to miss the point entirely. Because if you're not death metal, black metal or germanic thrash then the brutality of your vocals doesn't matter, because down-tuning doesn't automatically make you heavy and because chugging isn't enough. If you want to be metal, then you have to write music that's heavy irrespective of those things, and if you can't then you've missed something along the way. Think about it. Deathklok is a motherfucking joke band and they're heavier than just about any reasonably popular metal band outside of metal circles.

I guess what I'm saying is that there is a shitton of poseur-metal and poseur-metalheads out there. And we see them and leave them be, but if they're going to spout nonsense then we're going to correct them. That's the fucking long and short of it, ladies and gentlemen; your average, learned-in-metal metalhead is a self-righteous asshole who has every right to be self-righteous because so many people spout stupid bullshit about metal.
Anyway, the tl;dr version is this:

Metalheads are elitist because there's a surprisingly high amount of people who claim to know about metal who actually don't but insist they do.

Au revoir, I'm off to wipe Synyster Gates off my hitlist.

[Jackie Blue]

But the exact same argument could be used to defend "indie elitism" or "rock elitism" or "rap elitism", since all genres have at some point been bastardised and all genres have people who talk as if they know about them when they don't.

I think metalheads are more blatant in their elitism because they don't get laid enough.

[MadassAlex]

Metal has very specific parameters, but it's also very broad.

Personally, I think "rock elitism" for example is right out as "rock" can mean so many things. "Rap elitism" and "indie elitism" are far more believable and the second one could even be considered common.

Oh, and there's the fact that metal has a reputation as idiotic and devolved. I mean, seriously, what the hell.

But I basically justified by saying that metal is so exclusive because its essence has been torn out about three different times in different ways in the mainstream.

That radio dude was still wrong though because Isis and Pelican are great.

[Spluff]

Why is Arch Enemy being lumped into the same category as Trivium and Slipknot? Arch Enemy are (were?) a perfectly good band.

[MadassAlex]

Because they seem to think that downtuning to C makes them automatically heavy, when it fact they're just recycling Megadeth riffs. And in this case the downtuning won't help because some riffs are just heavier higher up.
That said, I admit that the guitarists are incredibly technically skilled.

[Nodaisho]

I have read plenty of metalheads saying that metal is the genre closest to classical music, never seen a classical listener say that, but I don't read classical music forums all that much. "Have you heard the new Bach?" "No." "Why not?" "He is dead, dumbass."

[Beastmouth]

I have read plenty of metalheads saying that metal is the genre closest to classical music, never seen a classical listener say that, but I don't read classical music forums all that much. "Have you heard the new Bach?" "No." "Why not?" "He is dead, dumbass."

Because all performers make the same record of it. 

And metal isn't classical; it's baroque.  <__</

[Nodaisho]

Covers don't count as new. Remixes don't either.

Baroque... isn't that the really cheery stuff with violins? I don't listen to classical/romantic/baroque music, nothing against it though.

[Beastmouth]

Covers don't count as new. Remixes don't either.

Really, don't do this.  The aesthetic reasons people play centuries-old masterpieces are quite different than the reasons someone mashes up the Beatles with whomever.  Cover is such a poor fit it's like y're speaking another language.

Baroque... isn't that the really cheery stuff with violins? I don't listen to classical/romantic/baroque music, nothing against it though.

Baroque, from a Portuguese word meaning 'crappy little pearl', was a term applied after the fact to a lot of music from the 17th and early 18th centuries.  It's the equivalent, nearly, of Rococo in the visual arts:  Layers and layers of ornamentation resting upon a rather simple base motif. 

[Jackie Blue]

I would think that the closest thing to classical music would be Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Labradford's fourth and fifth albums.

[Beastmouth]

Classical describes a particular time period as well, tho, which GY!BE et al. really don't reach.  They follow Impressionism with a hearty dose of 20th cent. pop, I'd say.  That is, orchestral post-rock or whathaveyou relies not merely on long forms of music that would have been at home in the late 19th century, but they treat their instruments as fully modern actors, what with electricity and all.

[Nodaisho]

Calling it a cover was my attempt at explaining it in terms commonly used in modern music. And I would say that your example is more like a remix, or possibly a blasphemy.

[Beastmouth]

Which example is that?

The really nerdy metal often uses a Baroque approach; taking a blues, speeding it up, then adding every fancy flourish under the sun.

Your idea of the cover, though, doesn't quite portray the nature of a piece led by different conductors, or performed by drastically different chamber orchestras.  The idea of a remix is interesting, though, as technological as it is; most concert music today is performed on modern instruments, in modern temperaments, and sounds rather different than what the composer may have expected. 

[GenericName]

I think Nodalsho was referring to the Beatles/anyone mashup.
Which, indeed, would be blasphemy,

[Beastmouth]

I think Nodalsho was referring to the Beatles/anyone mashup.
Which, indeed, would be blasphemy,

Grey Album much?

Actually, what brought it to mind was searching for an image of this goofy Beastles record I put in the Most Ridic thread; apparently someone more recently than what I've got has used that name for a Beastie Boys/Beatles thing.  Also, we are discussing metal, so Beatallica I guess.

[Jackie Blue]

Grey Album needs to be in Mediafire thread.  I've run across so many people who haven't even heard it.

[Nodaisho]

All right... I will grant you that Beatallica isn't bad, but some of that is just through sheer audacity.

I can not bring myself to believe that the grey album would be anything but horrible.

[Johnny C]

So wrong!

[Beastmouth]

All right... I will grant you that Beatallica isn't bad, but some of that is just through sheer audacity.

I can not bring myself to believe that the grey album would be anything but horrible.

'Helter Skelter' with '99 Problems' is better than anything I've heard a DJ spin. 

[De_El]

Virtually any conceivable alteration to "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da" would be an improvement.

[Nodaisho]

Better than anything I have ever heard a DJ spin either, but that isn't difficult, seeing as I have never heard a DJ spin anything.

Hey, I like Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da. It isn't going to win any prizes for insightful storytelling or groundbreaking musicianship, but it is a fun song, and last time I checked, that is what music is about. Having fun, you remember that?

[Jackie Blue]

I can not bring myself to believe that the grey album would be anything but horrible.

You have no idea how absolutely wrong you are.  It is really, incredibly good.

[De_El]

It's annoying and I don't enjoy it? My opinion is different from yours? Let's all eat ice cream and exchange friendly notes?

[GenericName]

There are already 2 Beatles tribute albums in the last 5 pages of the Mediafire thread, I believe. But I still recommend uploading.

[Nodaisho]

It's annoying and I don't enjoy it? My opinion is different from yours? Let's all eat ice cream and exchange friendly notes?

Way ahead of you, already had some ice cream as I read your post.

[Edible]

All those bands you mentioned suck anyway. Good call, mr. Metal DJ!

Nice view from up there?

[Spluff]

Way ahead of you, already had some ice cream as I read your post.

What is this iced cream you speak of, and where can I obtain it?

[Nodaisho]

Either a store, or you can steal some from a little kid.

[MadassAlex]

I have read plenty of metalheads saying that metal is the genre closest to classical music, never seen a classical listener say that, but I don't read classical music forums all that much. "Have you heard the new Bach?" "No." "Why not?" "He is dead, dumbass."

Yes, if you're talking Yngwie, Rusty Cooley or the likes of their neoclassical ilk. But metal is closer, in general, to blues than classical.

[KharBevNor]

But the exact same argument could be used to defend "indie elitism" or "rock elitism" or "rap elitism", since all genres have at some point been bastardised and all genres have people who talk as if they know about them when they don't.

I think rap elitisms probably the closest to metal elitism.

Look, the issue here is not so much genre as culture. Metal is a subculture, far more so than indie. Metal isn't just the music I listen to. To a lesser or greater extent it informs how I dress, how I decorate my room, what I do on my nights out, where I go on holiday, my hobbies, my friends, even who I fuck. I'd even self-identify as a metalhead, though that doesn't completely sum up what I'm about by a long shot. I still feel more attached to metal than I do to my country, though. A lot of people feel the same. We, together, as a subculture, invest a lot of time and money in creating and enjoying metal, and the culture that surrounds it. It does not seem to me at all unreasonable that people who are deeply invested in this subculture should be allowed to define its discourse. If that seems unreasonable to you, then fuck you. I see the same crap going on in different ways amongst most of the subcultural communities I'm connected to or interested in. Subcultures were not created by people for the voyeuristic amusement of others, they were created so that these individuals could have fun in a defined environment. If you're not a metalhead, you don't get to decide what metal is. If you're not a goth, you can't delineate the boundaries of goth. If you're not a punk, then your opinions on what is and isn't punk are probably worthless, and so on.

[Jackie Blue]

But Khar, the music you make isn't metal at all.  I was always under the impression that you're basically a goff/rivethead (which is a good thing, not an insult).

[KharBevNor]

Who said that anyone has to identify solely with one culture? I'd call myself a metalhead: I dress like a metalhead, I have long hair, I buy metal albums, I go to metal shows and metal nights and metal festivals. I've also been a member of a couple of metal bands in the past. I also dress like a rivethead, and buy industrial albums, and go to industrial and goth nights, and make industrial music, and occasionally write for a post-industrial website and involve myself wiith industrial organisations and groups. I'm not sure I'd call myself a rivethead though, for a variety of reasons. I'm a fellow traveller with the goth subculture, but not really part of it: I would say I understand it and enjoy it, but I do not actively engage with it to any great extent. I realise the fact that I wouldn't call myself a goth probably strengthens the case for me actually being one but, whatever.

I mean, what would you say?
 

[Nodaisho]

I have read plenty of metalheads saying that metal is the genre closest to classical music, never seen a classical listener say that, but I don't read classical music forums all that much. "Have you heard the new Bach?" "No." "Why not?" "He is dead, dumbass."

Yes, if you're talking Yngwie, Rusty Cooley or the likes of their neoclassical ilk. But metal is closer, in general, to blues than classical.

I don't listen to neoclassical, at least not much. I am referring just to the... I have a poor music vocabulary, so I am likely to misuse words here, but the multi-part harmonies you see in metal, with the... Not sure how to describe it, when you get almost a wall of sound, so many different threads woven together.

And you misunderstood me, I was saying that of all of the modern genres of music, metal is the closest one to classical. I think by classical, though, people usually mean classical, baroque, romantic, and whatever other ones there might be.

[Jackie Blue]

I mean, what would you say?

Well, I'd say you don't look like I thought you did!

I suppose that is a "metal" look, though over here in the USA, almost nobody dresses like that anymore.  At least, I never see anyone dressed that way.

[MadassAlex]

I don't listen to neoclassical, at least not much. I am referring just to the... I have a poor music vocabulary, so I am likely to misuse words here, but the multi-part harmonies you see in metal, with the... Not sure how to describe it, when you get almost a wall of sound, so many different threads woven together.

And you misunderstood me, I was saying that of all of the modern genres of music, metal is the closest one to classical. I think by classical, though, people usually mean classical, baroque, romantic, and whatever other ones there might be.

The first thing, where you mention "harmonies", you're referring to the likes of Iron Maiden, Slayer, ect. where you can hear two distinct guitars playing the same thing (or close to) at different pitches to create the harmony? In that case, you'd be correct. Many classical composers liked to harmonise particular melodies to add interest.

Well "neoclassical" is a modern genre and it's pretty damn close to classical. Out of rock-influenced genres, yes, metal definately has the largest correlation with classical music, but one has to be careful not to overstate said influence. Where classical stuff is concerned, metal tends to add classical phrasing and theory to blues concepts.

[just-another-andy]

Rush!
If only for 2112 and The Spirit of Radio.

Because...  We are the priests! of the temples! of Syrinx!

[Nodaisho]

I don't listen to neoclassical, at least not much. I am referring just to the... I have a poor music vocabulary, so I am likely to misuse words here, but the multi-part harmonies you see in metal, with the... Not sure how to describe it, when you get almost a wall of sound, so many different threads woven together.

And you misunderstood me, I was saying that of all of the modern genres of music, metal is the closest one to classical. I think by classical, though, people usually mean classical, baroque, romantic, and whatever other ones there might be.

The first thing, where you mention "harmonies", you're referring to the likes of Iron Maiden, Slayer, ect. where you can hear two distinct guitars playing the same thing (or close to) at different pitches to create the harmony? In that case, you'd be correct. Many classical composers liked to harmonise particular melodies to add interest.

Well "neoclassical" is a modern genre and it's pretty damn close to classical. Out of rock-influenced genres, yes, metal definately has the largest correlation with classical music, but one has to be careful not to overstate said influence. Where classical stuff is concerned, metal tends to add classical phrasing and theory to blues concepts.

I was talking more about when you get multiple completely rhythmically different parts going on, so I guess that isn't a harmony, though now I am going to have to listen to A Matter of Life and Death again, I am wondering whether they actually use three different guitar parts, or just have two on rhythm.

[amok]

I love the slightly embarrassed/ashamed look on the relatively normal-looking guy at the front's face.

"You know what I hate? A guy with stupid spiky hair.


...



Oh god, there's one right behind me, isn't there."

[Nodaisho]

That kind of hair would have to be a pain to sit down with when you had a chair with a high back, you would have to be leaning forward.

[pinkpiche]

If you're not a punk, then your opinions on what is and isn't punk are probably worthless, and so on.

I understand what you are saying but I disagree with the notion that in order to be a real fan of music you should look like the archetypal sort of person that enjoys that music.

Well Khar only said "a punk" not "dressed like a punk". So there.

[a pack of wolves]

Also, in that picture Mackaye is wearing a totally stereotypical outfit for a hardcore fan who's over the age of 21.

However, I don't think he's right in saying that you really need to identify with a subculture to be able to informatively enter into its discourse. I don't know if I'm punk, hardcore or emo. I'd feel a bit odd about those last terms about myself. However, I've played in punk, emo and hardcore bands and I definitely think I know enough about those genres to contribute to their discourse and what constitutes their definition. Similarly, I know a load of people who would never call themselves metalheads but saying they shouldn't be allowed to contribute to that genre since they don't want to self-identify with it would be ridiculous, they enjoy and know a great deal about the music. Why isn't that enough?