Screamo loving coworker

I was working an incredibly rare (for me) shift of OT today and this other guy and I were chatting music/metal. He only listens to screamo or whatever you call Norma Jean, Atryeu, etc...

As we were trading back and forth with youtube clips of the bands we like it dawned on me why this genre is so much love/hate. Sounding a lot like something my Dad would say I finally said to the fella "Every single vocalist sounds exactly the same". And they do. Coming from the mouth of someone who's loved and defended hard music/metal for two decades now, that sounds funny, but I could not distinguish between any of the vocalists. They all sounded like the same lead singer.

For what it's worth there would be a song here and there that was decent and also....he hated everything I played....Death, Black, Powermetal, Thrash...."the vocals weren't good enough and they didn't have breakdowns".

Hooray for you young(er) guys on here who have a nice mix of tastes!

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Hooray for you young(er) guys on here who have a nice mix of tastes!

Agreed. Once the old guard moves on into retirement in metal, the genre is really going to look grim.

scottmitchell74 wrote:

\.he hated everything I played....Death, Black, Powermetal, Thrash....

what death & black did you play? i didn't think that you liked anything but power metal.

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? i didn't think that you liked anything but power metal.

You sadden me.

I don't have a vast amount of Death Metal but I enjoy old Morty, Paramaecium, Martyr's Shrine, Impending Doom, Demonic Resurrection, Arch Enemy, Living Sacrifice, old Amorphis (Tales...is a masterpiece). Some Black Metal or "Blackened" metal moves me as well. Inspell, Antestor, Holy Blood (whatever they are). I don't care much for the minimalist BM, but the more melodic and atmospheric kind I can enjoy. My collection has a strong minority of Thrash as well.

I even enjoy the occassional metalcore/screamo band.....Becoming The Archetype, Demon Hunter, As I Lay Dying.....but that's about it.


My collection is dominanted by various forms of Powermetal, probably 1/2 of it, but the other 1/2 is made up of a combo of Thrash, Death, Traditional or NWOBHM, Viking, Pagan, Folk, Melodic Metal and plain Hard Rock.

I hate to sound like old guy but alot of those vocalist in Screamo-metal or whatever, suck, the songs are sometimes ok, but the vocals suck. There are few bands I like in that genre like Lamb of God, Walls of Jerico, but I think you find in any genre whether it is classic metal, pop metal, thrash etc, that once something catches on a bunch 2nd rate bands water it down, it just seems to happen quicker now adays.

Manny! We're sounding like our dads/old people!

I think overexposure has something to do with it to. When we were growing up, we had to get our metal info wherever we could find it, but mainly from magazines that were a couple months behind of what was happening in the scene. Now, with the invention of the interwebs, bands are all over the place. You'd think that would create a scene with more originality, but unfortunately it has turned into a "monkey see, monkey do" kind of thing.

scottmitchell74 wrote:

Manny! We're sounding like our dads/old people!

I would like think we are more like the critics that sat on the balcony on the Muppet Show, " This is terrible" "BLah !!!"

I was a Cornerstone festival a couple years ago with Once Dead. Just about every stage had some metalcore band playing. As we walked through the park, it was unreal how much it sounded like the same band was playing on every stage. The vocals were indistinguishable one from the other. I honestly don't think it has anything to do with "age", especially since most of us on here have been listening to heavy music for years, or in some cases decades. There is only so much you can do with that style of screaming, thus is all sounds very similar.

No breakdowns? LOL! That made me laugh. It's sad that most modern heavy bands rely on downtuning and heavy distortion to sound heavy. Breakdowns are nothing more than chugging on the E string for a few moments. Most of these bands don't even know what a "riff" is. Listen to some of the heavy music of the 70's and notice that bands like Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, etc. could sound heavy as a loaded freight train coming at you at full speed. It wasn't the tuning that made them heavy but the riff and the bass/guitar combination.

Whenever a breakdown would come on and my friends would be like "thats sick" I used to say the same thing ULt. " What chugging on the open E which is dropped to C or B? " Granted some of those breakdowns are cool.

I agree though Scremo vocalists all sound very similar. One band i do like and i especially like the direction they're going is Atreyu. There latest cd which in a lot of diehard fans eyes is a sellout, is awesome and there is not one hint of scremo on there. They drooped all the screaming vocals for more melody.

The advantage of being older and growing up when we did is, that for whatever reason we didnot only listen to music that was aimed at our age group at the time ( Metallica, Motley Crue, etc) but we also traced our music back to its roots ( Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, etc) and like Spec stated no internet, so you had read about bands or word of mouth.

Now adays (here is where I sound like an old coot) most kids do not have an apprecation of roots or history of heavy metal, their influence begins and ends to whatever is hottest trend or sound.

It is not an age thing, alot of younger metal fans complain that alot of these bands sounding the same.

manny wrote:

The advantage of being older and growing up when we did is, that for whatever reason we didnot only listen to music that was aimed at our age group at the time ( Metallica, Motley Crue, etc) but we also traced our music back to its roots ( Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, etc) and like Spec stated no internet, so you had read about bands or word of mouth.

Now adays (here is where I sound like an old coot) most kids do not have an apprecation of roots or history of heavy metal, their influence begins and ends to whatever is hottest trend or sound.

It is not an age thing, alot of younger metal fans complain that alot of these bands sounding the same.

When i was a teenager and started getting into music grunge was the huge thing. Granted i like some of those bands still to this day. I just think the younger generation is really manipulated by bands sounding a lot a like. It seems nowadays one band gets somewhat popular, therefore 40 more bands that sound similar come along. This is especially true IMO in the Scremo/MetalCore scene.

When I first heard my uncle play Maiden and Priest i thought "Whoa what is this" it blew my mind how real it sounded. It sounded so fresh yet was so old. Thats what i really dig about those bands.

When it comes to metal in general, I think the younger people are trapped and really need help getting out of it. There are so many great metal bands and genres out there, I just don't think they look. What they do though, is get dragged into these bands that are popular in the mainstream metal world like say Slipknot, Korn, A7X, and they are brainwashed by other fans and the bands popularity, that these are the best bands in the world.

It's funny, when I read you guys' opinion of Screamo vocals, it sounds exactly like my opinion of death metal vocals. I'm not a screamo fan by any stretch but I'd take screamo over death or black metal any day.

scottmitchell74 wrote:

Hooray for you young(er) guys on here who have a nice mix of tastes!

I'm always puzzled by people who only listen to one specific genre, I always have different moods that require different genres of music. Also, I hate screamo.

ultmetal wrote:

Breakdowns are nothing more than chugging on the E string for a few moments. Most of these bands don't even know what a "riff" is. Listen to some of the heavy music of the 70's and notice that bands like Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, etc. could sound heavy as a loaded freight train coming at you at full speed. It wasn't the tuning that made them heavy but the riff and the bass/guitar combination.

yes! thank you! I have been arguing this with my friends for years now!

heavy does equal drop k tuning

heavy equals quality songwriting and riffs that make you want to bang your head

LOL @ screamo loving coworker...that's just funny right there!

FYI, BTA is progressive death metal period with SOME core influences.

AS long as these kids are listening to Metal and not Rap I could care less about what genre they are listening too. The one thing that has always bothered me about Metalheads is how they bag on bands like "Poison" for being posers. or Emo for sounding the same and etc. etc. IMO, we need to stick together and support every genre and not bring it down. thats just my 2 cents.

Poison does suck though

I like Poison!

POISON RULES....CAREFUL!!!

ultmetal wrote:

I was a Cornerstone festival a couple years ago with Once Dead. Just about every stage had some metalcore band playing. As we walked through the park, it was unreal how much it sounded like the same band was playing on every stage. The vocals were indistinguishable one from the other. I honestly don't think it has anything to do with "age", especially since most of us on here have been listening to heavy music for years, or in some cases decades. There is only so much you can do with that style of screaming, thus is all sounds very similar.

No breakdowns? LOL! That made me laugh. It's sad that most modern heavy bands rely on downtuning and heavy distortion to sound heavy. Breakdowns are nothing more than chugging on the E string for a few moments. Most of these bands don't even know what a "riff" is. Listen to some of the heavy music of the 70's and notice that bands like Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, etc. could sound heavy as a loaded freight train coming at you at full speed. It wasn't the tuning that made them heavy but the riff and the bass/guitar combination.

Black Sabbath downtuned [/devilsadvocate]

manny wrote:

The advantage of being older and growing up when we did is, that for whatever reason we didnot only listen to music that was aimed at our age group at the time ( Metallica, Motley Crue, etc) but we also traced our music back to its roots ( Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, etc) and like Spec stated no internet, so you had read about bands or word of mouth.

Now adays (here is where I sound like an old coot) most kids do not have an apprecation of roots or history of heavy metal, their influence begins and ends to whatever is hottest trend or sound.

It is not an age thing, alot of younger metal fans complain that alot of these bands sounding the same.

Theres several newer bands that I loved (but even there i'm a bit outdated, they're from the nu-metal era)

You gotta look at it this way, even in the 70s and 80s there were crap trend bands, and you don't hear about them anymore because they were a trend then. The bands that stood the test of time are around today for a reason.

Well metalcore is just wannabe tough guy music for sissies! Emo is people crying and moaning for other sissies!

So the bands you played this "guy", are they the same bands you listed of what you just stated that you liked? If so, I can see why he wouldn't like them (except Amorphis who rule).

black halo wrote:

AS long as these kids are listening to Metal and not Rap I could care less about what genre they are listening too. The one thing that has always bothered me about Metalheads is how they bag on bands like "Poison" for being posers. or Emo for sounding the same and etc. etc. IMO, we need to stick together and support every genre and not bring it down. thats just my 2 cents.

I couldn't agree more. I think what I despise far more than any genre, is the constant drivel of hatred on this genre or that genre or the purity of its metal barometer compared to the same old bands 20-30 years removed. You don't like something, fine. There's tons I don't like. But I don't get the I hate this or that. And I don't think Scott started the initial post in that attitude, BTW!

I happen to not like most classic rock and old metal as well as grunge. But that's just my taste. I'm not gonna start threads or posts saying how much I "hate" Black Sabbath, KISS, Led Zepplin or Judas Priest and then proceed to demean their musicianship and insult their commitment and creativity. It's just not my style is all.