Why we are so anal about our music

Like I said before, you guys seem to have good music discussions that are intelligent. So here is a theory of mine on why, why in heavy metal a poser is the absolute worst thing in the world. I admit, I still use that term in describing certain people. It makes me angry sometimes when a little punk kid, decked out in the latest "rock" fashion is talking like he's seen it all. I really do, I get angry.

Right now it is popular to be associated as a "rocker." Whether it is Rock Of Love, Guitar Hero, Daughtry on American Idol, or a number of things but face it, rock music and heavy metal is at an all time peak in popularity compared to the nineties. I couldn't find ONE BLind Guardian cd in Amnerica in 1996. My dad had to get them from out of country visits. Now I see their entire discography at an FYE in the friggin mall. So don't act like it is still underground.

Look at clothing. I remember I used to be derided for wearing metal shirts. "All those shirts are are dead people, skulls, and zombies." Now I see people wearing Affliction shirts and even other rip off brands that consist of guess what? Skulls and wings and dead smurf poo.

Why does all of this piss me off? It's because I've spent over half my life loving and defending this music. I remember when I was ecstatic to buy a new cd. I remember when I had one metal cd, my very first. Heck, I remember how it happened too, what store, with what friend. I remember when I never thought I would meet my heroes and not only have I met the majority, I've interviewed many. I never thought I would go out on tour but I did. Not as a musician but a journalist. You know, I really made this music part of my life. It means something to me. That's the reason why I get mad when I see a poser. That's why I don't listen to any one's opinion who has never searched out for that hard to find album by their favorite band and sat behind a screen and just click click clicked away the entire Iron Maiden discography. I dont think that everyone has to be the super nerd and know the entire lineup from the whole NWOBHM movement or something but I still think you can tell a real fan of metal as opposed to the poser.

I really pray that this doesnt sound elitist but I know it will to some. Thoughts? Does anyone else have similar views or am I kinda out here on a limb on an island of fanatacism? Just curious.

i'm not apart of any "scene". heavy metal is just a form of music i listen to. not much more to it than that for me. i don't get worked up over things like this.

Hmm. Maybe scene was a bad word. It should have read music instead. I should iterate that popularity or not isnt an issue. More or less that the genuine enthusiasm for the music is less and less it seems. I keep hearing responses of "I dunno, I just downloaded a song" or "I think _____ band sucks. I got like five cds off soul seek and they all blow." Did you really listen to all five? "Well, like the first ten seconds of each song. But it all sucks."

From my experience its the people who are the truly enthused metal fans who are the first to blow off bands as "sucking" before even listening to many of them. Unwarrented exclusion, improper labelling, and lack of chance giving is strongest within the metal community in my opinion.

Lets just face it, metalheads have egos....really big egos. I find myself in your shoes all the time when I just walk by a hottopic outlet in a mall and see the comercialism.

The reason why we are so elitist is because we hold dear our music, which is something to be proud of I think. I have called bands and people on this board posers many a time, but I have realilized that if oldschoolers and the new wave kids dont unite, metal will surely fall. Sure, metalcore and nu metal is really really gey, but is it really gey enough to lose metal as a whole over?

As for the mentality that metal is back in style....its not. In fact I dont think metal really ever or was in style.

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Why does all of this piss me off? It's because I've spent over half my life loving and defending this music. I remember when I was ecstatic to buy a new cd.

First off, half you life is about as long as I've been in my current and 6th job. Secondly, why are "defending" a form of music? Listen to whatever you want and enjoy; if no one else likes it, screw 'em! This whole "sticking up" for a genre or a band is ludicrous IMO. You like what you like; why do you care what anyone else thinks?

That's why I bring up the age thing; I think that has something to do with it. I'm more than twice your age and have long since stopped caring what is "cool" or "in" and long since stopped caring what anyone else thinks about the music I listen to.

Hmm.


I'm extremely anal about music; metal is the main course obviously, but ALL music. What I value is: artistic integrity. No matter what the style. Do I like country music for the most part? No. Will I respect an artist if they truly love a modern country style and want to write and make it their own, no matter how much or little $$$$ it makes, rather than becoming another songster for rich Nashville writers? Yes.

I do not like being decieved. I do not like being treated like a fool. If I see something like a female fronted band for example giving off all the 'signs' they or the record company knows are going to draw certain people, it is offensive to me. Put the girl in the front, blur the other band members. Have loopy lettering. Follow this and that formula. Thrash does it. Folk music does it. Indie rock does it. Every kind of music has bands that a. share certain interests, thus making them able to be classified, and b. bands that are totally plastic and try not-so-subliminally to be lumped in with the genuine, to steal some of their audience. I can usually tell the difference between something that is genuine, and something that is merely 'targeted' toward people for sales first and foremost. I will not support the latter. Society does this. For an example, the next time you go to a busy part of the city or the mall or anywhere containing a big selection of stores or advertising, try to pick out how much stuff geared towards an African American market is decked out in purple. They won't come out and say "this is for black people", so they drench their marketing in other little cues that are supposed to speak to the sheep among that particular race. If I were among them, I would be put off by being assumed to be such sheep, and the same goes with my music. Especially my music. I at least expect such things outside of art, but don't dilute my art to that extent. Indie rock bands all have to have eco friendly booklets, obtuse artwork, and lower case lettering on everything. It's a sign to the indie rock snob that says "Buy this! this is for you!". Who is geniune there and who isn't? It can be hard to tell sometimes. Heavy metal and the various subgenres of it, enjoy a flexibility and intelligence inherent in the common compositional grounds that few other genres are able to employ or bother to employ. Many fans know this and as such rely on their bands for something to believe in in a world of false art and lies and degraded integrity. The End.

By defending I meant when people would start trouble with you because they didn't like it. It's noise, it's music for retards, cut your hair and get a real job, etc. I shrug things off a bit more now I think than I used to but then again I haven't had many people say the same things now then they did when I was younger and in a small hick town.


And Orion kind of just hit the nail on the head with his post. Here's a question. Has anyone seen the "molding" process on a new signee?

Well for me I'm one of the elder statemen here and have always loved many forms of music. Metal is my first love and always will be. I could care less what people think in what I listen to. If it moves me I'll listen to it if not then I won't.

Over the years I have become mostly underground towards metal rarely will i listen to the rock radio format why because it all sounds the same to me. Listen to rock radio on the FM dial and tell me how bands are from over seas?
Hardly none from what I hear in my local area.
Most bands played on the station is mostly american in nature.

I true ly believe most fm radio DJ'S are clueless to Euro, Aussie, Japanese, South american hard rock/metal bands.
And what bands that get air play of fm rock radio are in the cotrolls of the big record companies anyway. Make them millions they love you, make them thousands they discard you. As far as posers go most follow trends that are popular on MTV or there local radio stations.

Most follow trends anyway. As far as finding Blind Guardian at FYE I think it depends on the area and what is generating sales. But in most record stores like Best Buy they do carry select metal titles but in know way whole discograpies. They cater to what is popular.

I'll listen to what moves me till I die and if it's metal so be it. I'm with Toho on this!

Wargod48

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I'll listen to what moves me till I die and if it's metal so be it. I'm with Toho on this!

Exactly!


You rock Wargod! Even if we disagree on bands half the time, we're each true to our opinions...

I think somehow everyone in this thread is discussing something different..

That's why I like Primus, popular yet not overly popular, can't be classified as just one genre, and aren't afraid to be silly or different. A lot of bands today just intentionally sound like everybody else, like Orion said, to steal the fans away. Seriously, in an interview or something, how many times have you heard a band say "we do it for the music" or "for the fans", and how often is that true? You hardly ever hear them say "for the money, b-atch!" Because they want you to believe that they're real. Every genre of music is going to have bands that rock, and every genre is going to have bands that suck, so I'm anal about my music because it's real. Is yours?

I like green chile.

Orion Crystal Ice wrote:

I think somehow everyone in this thread is discussing something different..

i was thinking the same thing. This thread has no flow.

I used to be like you describe, Daybreaker. Well, I never got into any fights, but I have been really ticked off seeing Iron Maiden and Motörhead shirys being sold at H&M. And don't get me started on the time the singer of Aqua (anyone remember them?) wore a vintage Maiden shirt on stage. Also to a degree I felt them same way when Nightwish became so huge. We loved the band from the first album, now suddenly the teenyboppers loved them too.

But I've realized in recent yeears that it is kinda stupid to be like this. What does it affect me what all these other people like or do? I enjoy my music my way, and for me.

Hmmm. I think maybe I was just too dunderheaded to fully explain. Again, whether metal is popular or not doesn't irk me. It is just that as a whole I feel that the authentic fan of metal is harder and harder to come by. That's what attracted me to these forums. You guys talk about buying cds, you have threads about music topics that I would sit around and blather on about for hours. There's been so many times where I would try and discuss metal with someone only to met with blank stares because they don't know what it's like to get that elusive cd, they don't know more than two cds of a band whose shirt they are wearing.

I'm not saying that you can't listen to anything other than metal either. I love melodic rock and that is "pussy rock." The point I'm trying to make is that metal or not if you like something then LIKE it. Don't do it because it is edgy, or trendy or whatever.

kmorg wrote:

to a degree I felt them same way when Nightwish became so huge. We loved the band from the first album, now suddenly the teenyboppers loved them too.

I found myself feeling the same way about Nightwish.

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But I've realized in recent yeears that it is kinda stupid to be like this. What does it affect me what all these other people like or do? I enjoy my music my way, and for me.

You hit the nail on the head Kmorg. Despite much of the hate directed at some of the bands I love, I still listen to them (actually I find the more people rag on them, the more I want to listen to them).

For me something like the Nightwish thing goes back to what I said about wanting the real thing, and also the fact that I'm an avid people watcher. If something occurs, I want to know WHY. In life, WHY is my prime interest and question along with HOW. When NW blew up bit by bit, my question was not answered with, 'because they play intricate, melodic, and creative art', but 'because they've downtuned, gotten rid of most of the riffs and solos, put Tarja out front even more than she was before, and ripped off a cover from an Evanescence EP'. The statistics show over and over that the American mainstream audience responds greatly to many of the ingredients that were introduced in gale force with the release of 'Once'. There is a reason you will never see Blind Guardian or Labyrinth or even Rhapsody - while they still play in the same style they have been - decorating thousands and thousands of peoples' walls in this country in the same way, plain and simple. So, I want a lot of bands to be more popular, but not at the cost of fitting into the crowd and doing what the public likes, especially as I find what the public likes generally tends to be pretty low quality, low attention span, emotionally narrow, melodically sparse, and so forth. There's always a gimmick in one way or another. DragonForce is an interesting example. Why do kids generally like them? 1. Because they are/were in the epic power metal tradition? No. 2. Because the qualities of said music are uplifting and can be artful and expressive in an extreme way? No. 3. Because they can 'shred'? Yes. That's all that is important. Shred came back in a way where we can like it again - the catch is that it's not taken seriously, it's seen as cheesy fun fluffy rock stuff, and that makes it OK. That is the OTHER kind of example you see when something catches on with the mainstream. The Nightwish thing is the first kind of example. This second kind is when something mostly stays the same, but is tweaked just enough to 'spread the disease', and ends up leaving the point of the music itself to be totally moot.

I see no reason why I shouldn't deny this sort of ignorance.

I hate the word "poser." To me, if you get worked up over so-called posers, you probably are one. Someone that is so concerned about what others are wearing or where they're shopping is essentially far too concerned with things that don't matter. And in my book, that is the definition of a poser.

But I'm not saying you are a poser, Daybreak. The music matters. If some little kid wants to listen to one song from Metallica that he heard on Guitar Hero, so be it. If he wants to shop at Hot Topic, so be it. I'm pretty sure that most of us would have loved a Hot Topic store, or something similar, when we were kids. I used to do mailordering from magazines like Metal Edge and Rip and Hit Parader. Is that really any different than what Hot Topic is doing?

Meh. Who cares! I can listen to Ani Difranco and Dark Tranquillity back to back, and I'll love it.

*comforts sobbing thread*

Orion Crystal Ice wrote:

...'because they've downtuned, gotten rid of most of the riffs and solos, put Tarja out front even more than she was before, and ripped off a cover from an Evanescence EP'.

Complete nonsense. First off, that image from the Evanescence cover has been used by many bands, from Lenny Kravitz to Odes of Ectasy. It's a famous, public domain image. This is nonsense. And if you really believe Tarja became more of the focus than she was before, you don't know the band well. I began listening to them in 1999, at the insistence of a CD shop owner in Korea.

Tarja was always the focal point.

I got into them in 2000 along with Sonata Arctica. My copy of Oceanborn is a gold Russian CD which includes 'Sleeping Sun' and it was the first one I bought. She was the focal point in some respects, and a portion of the fans certainly saw it that way as well, but the band at least used to have something to say musically so it wasn't completely revolving around the girl. Whether the cover image is public domain or not you can't really deny the hilarity of them using it. What I mentioned in terms of people gravitating to certain elements also does not include the cover to the album. I just threw that in because as I said, it's hilarious.

Overall, I do sort of think my opinions are going to start to be bulldozed on account of stigma, though, rather than what they really are..i.e. thread starter talks about 'posers'.. people are offended... I don't take either "side" but still criticize music to a degree.. I get lumped in, posts not read properly, and so on......

Orion Crystal Ice wrote:

I got into them in 2000 along with Sonata Arctica. My copy of Oceanborn is a gold Russian CD which includes 'Sleeping Sun' and it was the first one I bought. She was the focal point in some respects, and a portion of the fans certainly saw it that way as well, but the band at least used to have something to say musically so it wasn't completely revolving around the girl. Whether the cover image is public domain or not you can't really deny the hilarity of them using it. What I mentioned in terms of people gravitating to certain elements also does not include the cover to the album. I just threw that in because as I said, it's hilarious.

Overall, I do sort of think my opinions are going to start to be bulldozed on account of stigma, though, rather than what they really are..

How is that hilarious? That Evanescence demo was limited to 100 copies. Do you really think Nightwish copied it? Please tell me you don't, because if you do, it's retarded.

As for the music, that is simply your opinion. I find that the band has written some of their best stuff on the recent albums. I love them all, but from Wishmaster on, the band has been near perfect in my eyes. Angels Fall First and Oceanborn have more filler tracks than the subsequent albums combined.

It sounds to be me like the band's popularity has skewed your perspective of the band as a whole.

It seems more that because you feel there are better tracks now "in your eyes", that you can completely ignore anything I said - which has $$$$$$$$$$$ evidence to back it up..by the way - regarding some of the contributing factors to popularity. It's all in my post. You misreading or totally ignoring something I said doesn't suddenly make it not there or make you right about something I said or didn't say. I said there are typically two ways things that are traditionally underground in this music get noticed in a wide mainstream arena. Nightwish roughly fits the first way. How you could possibly tell me a lot of songs from the recent albums are not decidedly FAR more "American" in style than the ones from the debut up to 'Over the Hills' is baffling.

Also, you're - as I predicted, which is kind of funny - sort of ignoring the fact that it's a big study to me, trying to really look into things and find out things, and taking the popular angle of 'automated-response-to-assumed-elitist-person' which isn't appreciated.