Thoughts on humor in metal?

S.D. wrote:

To be as effortlessly witty as Bon Scott retires talent and intelligence. Pick just about any song.

Big Balls never fails to crack me up.

sheets wrote:

S.D. wrote:

To be as effortlessly witty as Bon Scott retires talent and intelligence. Pick just about any song.

Big Balls never fails to crack me up.

AC/DC isn't a metal band.

SpectreFate wrote:

sheets wrote:

S.D. wrote:

To be as effortlessly witty as Bon Scott retires talent and intelligence. Pick just about any song.

Big Balls never fails to crack me up.

AC/DC isn't a metal band.

Not going there.

I don't mind it if it's done right. I don't care much for the overly jokey bands, like Steel Panther. Beatallica is ok though.

Spazztic Blurr knew what they were doing.

If yer serious, ya lose!

Bands that write funny songs from time to time, no problems there. I love stuff like Anthrax' NFB and such.

Bands whose gimmick is that they are a joke metal band...that stuff is only interesting for one or two listens. I listened to Steel Panthere's first album for about a week straight. Then, what were solid songs musically, became kind of old, after the joke was no longer that funny.

And bands like Austrian Death Machine. The first time I heard Total Brutal, I thought it was pretty funny. The second time I heard it, it was less funny. And so on.

I feel thrash metal is a good avenue for writing some funny stuff. And a lot of thrash bands seem to save the goofy songs to thrown onto EPs, or maybe have as the final track on their album. Perfectly fine with that.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

I don't mind it if it's done right. I don't care much for the overly jokey bands, like Steel Panther. Beatallica is ok though.

Love me some Beatallica!!

As for Steel Panther, in the immortal words of Ralph Wiggum, they're "funny, but not ha-ha funny" after a couple of spins. They can play like muthafuggas, but the "shocking" lyrics lose their impact quickly.

Besides, the Mentors already used up every good porn/sex lyric twenty five years ago...

I agree with the majority here. It has to be done well or it either doesn't work or becomes "skip button" fodder pretty quickly. One of the first songs I thought of will probably spark the "metal/not metal" debate, but Alice Cooper has lots of songs with both subtle and outright humorous lyrics. Almost all of them work and I skip very few of them. One of my favorites is "The Song That Didn't Rhyme" off of "Eyes of Alice Cooper." A couple of lines made me laugh right out loud when I heard it the first time. A beautiful example of irony. This song about a horribly written song is actually brilliantly written sendup of the music industry a few years ago! My favorite verse comes at the end:

"A three minute waste of your time
No redeeming value of any kind
But thanks for the $12.99
On a song that didn`t rhyme."

Fat Freddy wrote:

SpectreFate wrote:

Metal is funny enough on its own.

The problem is most metal bands don't realize they're funny. It's totally unintentional.

Judas Priest is THE prime example

QuothTheRaven wrote:

I agree with the majority here. It has to be done well or it either doesn't work or becomes "skip button" fodder pretty quickly. One of the first songs I thought of will probably spark the "metal/not metal" debate, but Alice Cooper has lots of songs with both subtle and outright humorous lyrics. Almost all of them work and I skip very few of them. One of my favorites is "The Song That Didn't Rhyme" off of "Eyes of Alice Cooper." A couple of lines made me laugh right out loud when I heard it the first time. A beautiful example of irony. This song about a horribly written song is actually brilliantly written sendup of the music industry a few years ago! My favorite verse comes at the end:

"A three minute waste of your time
No redeeming value of any kind
But thanks for the $12.99
On a song that didn`t rhyme."

It's also a lovely tune. Like most, I prefere a few humorous songs here and there. Some of my favoite besides the one mentioned above:

Ugly Kid Joe-Everything About You, Neigbor, and Madman
Helloween-Dr. Stein and Rise & Fall
Alice Cooper-What Do You Want From Me?, The Saga Of Jesse Jane, and Cold Ethyl
Annihilator-Kraf Dinner
Galactic Cowboys-Evil Twin and Psychotic Companion

There are others but those are the ones I could think of.

I don't mind it but all jokes get old in the end and then people tire of the band. This happened to me with The Vandals and they were really clever with it.

EmoElmo wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

SpectreFate wrote:

Metal is funny enough on its own.

The problem is most metal bands don't realize they're funny. It's totally unintentional.

Judas Priest is THE prime example

Wrong...MANOWAR hands down.

S.D. wrote:

EmoElmo wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

SpectreFate wrote:

Metal is funny enough on its own.

The problem is most metal bands don't realize they're funny. It's totally unintentional.

Judas Priest is THE prime example

Wrong...MANOWAR hands down.

Some Kind of Monster is one of the best comedies I have seen!

Theocracy have some pretty good humorous tracks too like All i want for Christmas (is my old job back), Rudolph vs Frosty, and Skeletor Goes to Mars.

[quote="Hadley"]Whats your opinion on humor in metal (ie, joke songs, goofy imagery)? Do you like it or not?[/quote

HELL YEAH - if ya can't laugh at yourself, then something is lacking. Metal parodies are a hoot.

Heavy metal has everything - absolutly everything. It is the only music that can claim that. So, laughing at certain aspects of our beloved metal, why not?

Be secure in yourself and secure in your metal and life rules