Ranking metal

[Conservationist]

From my PM box:

You wrote:

"Try this:

Rank music from 1-10 based on what it does. Here my rank (10 = best):

1. Keeps rhythm.
2. Catchy
3. Brings out an emotion
4. Brings out two emotions at once
5. Conveys emotional change
6. Conveys emotional change of two emotions at a time
7. Conveys a specific experience (mimesis)
8. Conveys a specific learning experience
9. Conveys a generalized learning and maturation experience
10. Conveys infinite perfection of universe

Why do you want to listen to #3 over #10?"

Could you drop the names of some songs from each category?

1. Keeps rhythm.

Cypress Hill, "Insane in the Membrane"

2. Catchy

Rebeca Black, "Fridays"

3. Brings out an emotion

Nirvana, "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

4. Brings out two emotions at once

Tori Amos, "Cornflake Girl"

5. Conveys emotional change

REM, "What's the frequency, Kenneth?"

6. Conveys emotional change of two emotions at a time

The Doors, "Crystal Ship"

7. Conveys a specific experience (mimesis)

Filter, "Stuck in Here"

8. Conveys a specific learning experience

Sepultura, "Inner Self"

9. Conveys a generalized learning and maturation experience

Burzum, "Burzum"

10. Conveys infinite perfection of universe


Franz Schubert, The Unfinished Symphony

[Conservationist]

The point of this was to show how easy it is to make a pop hit, even one with "some emotion."

I don't like Tori Amos, for example; she's obvious and manipulative. But her songs manage two emotions at once and to the inexperienced listener, have a sense of gravitas or emotional importance.

Even some of the more advance tracks, like later Sepultura, manipulate...

Then there are the ones that just tell stories with high energy, like a Robert E. Howard or Edgar Rice Burroughs. That's early Sepultura, early Slayer, early Massacra, Bathory, Emperor, early Burzum (before he became propagandiste), most of 1990s death metal...

I think I'll take that over conscious manipulation of the listener.

The best metal is without consciousness of creator or listener. It's just a good story for a human being of a certain type, a spirit we might call virile and yet compassionately ethical in a consequentialist yet structuralist way.

And, of course: sodomy.