Ya'know, I have a friend who often refers to himself as a "metal guy" who has "a great taste in music", and if he were to spawn a son, he would also have a great taste in music due to his father. Being a so-called "metal guy", I once went to his house to plug my iPod into his computer to add music to my digital library, thinking I would find some decent stuff (and I actually did) but I was disappointed to find mainly two things: metalcore and deathcore.
The picture above is of the band Deafheaven (whose album Sunbather I reviewed here) and they have recently been convicted of a major crime, a crime punishable by a lifetime of ridicule and being mocked relentlessly. What did they do wrong? What kind of heinous crime was committed on their part to justify punishing them with such a sentence?
Hating on what's popular is a staple among music fans and has been for time immemorial. Whether it be '30s swing fans hating the rise of be-bop or old-school metalheads ragging on modern metalcore, what is deemed popular at any given time is going to be polarizing and probably will be for as long as music continues to exist. And how can it not be? Anything that's subjective (like music) will produce lovers as well as haters because there is no one way to view the art, and that's just the way it is by default, so keep that in mind the next time you want to start a war with that one guy who doesn't love ICP as much as you do.
So, have any of you fine people ever heard of a British post-punk band called Savages? You haven't? Well, let me tell you all about 'em! They are a group of punky-looking girls who take great influence from early '80s post-punk and goth rock bands such as Joy Division, Bauhaus, U2, and vocally, Souxie and the Banshees. So, what do they sound like? Well...a mixture of all of those bands plus Souxie and the Banshees. Everything even down to the guitar and bass tones are copied
Commercial radio is pretty much irrelevant in the world today because of how readily new music can be found on that cool new place called the interweb (or is it the webbernet? I can't remember what it's called) and now people can easily bypass annoying songs they don't like by simply plugging in their iPods into their cars and and setting them to shuffle mode, and in the case of my iPod, that's over 6,000 songs resulting in the best radio station in the fucking world with no chance of hearing another Rise Against song - and no commercials! Besides the commercials, another common complaint about modern radio is a lack of sonic variety. On top-40 pop radio, this is unavoidable. I've been in the unfortunate position of being in a car with a mainstream friend with the radio set to the pop station and having to listen to the same songs being played every hour, and some twice in one hour. I'd rather have someone pour a bucket of bat guano all over me than go through that miserable experience again.
I haven't talked about jazz very much on this blog. Eexcept for this review of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew I haven't really felt like dedicating much time to writing about the genre, and that's honestly because there hasn't been much new happening in the genre, at least that I care about.
These days, I love hip-hop and metal in almost equal measure, but if you went back in time 3-5 years ago and told me that that will be the case in my near future, I'd tell you that you're fucking crazy and smack you across the face with my leather and stud encrusted arm.
For some reason, I FUCKING LOVE LISTS. Weather it's a list of greatest albums of all time from whatever genre in a magazine or a list of hottest whoever-the-fucks on VH1 or E!, I just can't help but watch or read the damn things, and why? Cause I want to see who's number one!
[Taking a break from music today, I'd like to discuss an unbelievably moving video clip I saw earlier today that I deem very important and believe should be talked about. It is called "To This Day" by Shane Koyczan.]
This masterpiece has to be the most moving and unapologetically evocative and provocative piece of video I have ever seen in my life. Remember Amanda Todd's pre-suciceide youtube clip from last year that caused a waves-worth of tears from everyone who was ensnared by its content? I didn't shed a tear watching that. In fact, I was more into the awesome song playing in the background than anything Todd was telling us about with her note cards, and let me assure you, I could relate to almost everything she went through before her death (I still don't know the title and the artist, by the way.) This, on the other hand, made me break down in tears like a kid who just lost his favorite blanket, or a man who just lost his pet cat that he's had for all his life to a terminal blood disease (that scenario was actually the last time I cried, almost three years ago.) The sheer level of quality inherent in Koyczan's writing in this video is masterful and makes everything I have written on this blog so far look like Rebecca Black's "Friday" in comparison to Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata". I'll be honest, It temporarily made me want to quit writing right after I saw it, and even after the tears eventually subsided enough for me to start thinking again, I was still apprehensive about writing a blog today. But, hey, there's always going to be someone better than you when it comes to anything you can do, like it or not. So, I persevere.
Pitch, time, meter, division and subdivision, intervals, scales, functions, logical relationships, rules, formulas, etc...All those words, believe it or not, describe the technical workings of something that most all of us love: MUSIC. And all these terms are just now being hoisted upon me in an attempt for me to understand the science behind how music really works in a basic music theory class I'm taking, and almost regretting.
So, Someone recommended that I review the new Lil Wayne track just for the hell of it. He said that it was almost guaranteed to be laughably bad and he wanted to see me rip it to shreds...okay, I'm lying. NO ONE coaxed me to do this, I decided to be a masochist and play through (or suffer through) this music video and give you my two cents. Music like this is also mildly interesting to me. It lets me know what mainstream people are listening to and illegally downloading to add to their iPods and smart phones and all that shit that isn't a legit stereo system made for listening to music. I also try to assess the appeal of ultra-popular music like this where millions of people are listening to it, and again, illegally downloading it at a rate so feverish that it's akin to a prairie dog stuffing gobs of nuts into its mouth trying to get fat for the winter. There are as many artists I don't like as there are Muslims who hate the Pope, but for most of them, I understand their appeal to their particular fanbase like Black Veil Brides, emo, and house music. But for Lil wayne, I have next to no fucking idea why he's the most popular rapper alive.
Since they broke through in 2009 with the infamous music video "Stick Stickly," Attack Attack! have been the purveyors of all that is face-palm worthy about modern music combining weak screamo with even weaker electronic dance beats to create something so unlistenable that you can't even call it the bastard offspring of screamo and techno, it's just more unholy than that. They are the auteurs of awful, the titans of terrible, and the pioneers of pain...inflicted upon your ears. And the thing is, they're easily one of the most influential bands to come out of the hardcore/metal genres in the last decade.
With the loads of Devin Townsend Project material over the last few years igniting the boners of metalheads the world over, I'm reminded of his previous band, Strapping Young Lad and how much people glorify them...and how much I dislike them. I just don't get it. Well, here's what I think.
Enjoying certain bands, especially while being a metalhead, can be a little sketchy when you aren't surrounded by very positive and open-minded people. For example, talking about how much you love Avenged Sevenfold to a neckbeard who owns two boxes of late '80s black metal and death metal demo tapes and thinks that Master of Puppets deserves a zero out of ten compared to Holy Terror's Terror and Submission could earn you a heavy wooden speaker to the head (because a "trve" hesher doesn't use no particle board lightweights.) Avenged Sevenfold, Poison, Disturbed, KoRn, and Ratt are all bands that may earn you a blunt, heavy projectile to your noggin and fit the "guilty pleasure" description in the metal world. They are bands that are considered by-and-large to "suck" and you simply aren't "trve" if you really enjoy their music. But honestly, are there really such things as "guilty pleasures" in music to begin with?
One band that most jaded metalheads get all pissy about these days has to be Black Veil Brides, a melodic metal band that lies in the same vein as the equally polarizing Avenged Sevenfold in terms of overall sound. While I find many of their songs to be really catchy, perhaps even good (minus some stuff I've heard off their over-bloated latest album), I have never considered myself to be a fan of the group (this has absolutely nothing to do with protecting my metal cred, honest Abe) but I understand their appeal to so many suburban teenagers who wear their t-shirts and go to their shows with scars painted on the sides of their mouths akin to the band's singer Andy Biersack. But honestly, the people I don't understand are the people who DON'T get their appeal.
Liek, omigod! #OFWGKTA is da shit thay have soo much $WAG seeriusley I want too looze my job becuz Odd Fuchur has a lot of $WAG maeks no sense but wuteva da Wu Tang Klan IS sumthing to fuck wit now holee shit fuck 2 doe boyz thay can suck sum pimpul coverd dicks like Tyler sed it will onlee give him mor $WAG
