Metal Evolution's episode about Nu Metal

[Sammaellofi]

...for a few reasons:

-Calling Pan tera nu metal and not thrash and not accepting dumbass "groove-metal" genre
-Calling out Slayer for watering down their music to fit in with nu-metal
-Calling Roots a nu-metal album
-Making all those guys look like commercial pussies.

I'm just glad we're separating the shit from the good, despite the other flaws with the show.

http://www.vh1.com/video/misc/724539/metal-evolution-episode-8-nu-metal-sneak.jhtml#id=1677102

[iddqd]

It's interesting how nu-metal guys said that they didn't want to be so dark and serious like 'typical' metal, and wanted to have fun too. I think that this is the main separator between the good and the bad in music. Bad music is written specifically for an audience to party to, socialize, and not think. It's music to reinforce their own vapidity. Whereas really good music creates sonic spaces for the mind and senses to explore and become immersed within. Listening to really good Black Metal is like being transported into another world. Nu Metal celebrated surface qualities and was a dead end, which is analogous with ending a drunken party in the bathroom, refunding out the mouth the day's meals into the toilet.

[Sammaellofi]

After watching other episodes and seeing interviews with Slipknot and Marilyn Manson, I have notices that one thing that ties all nu metal bands together, along with Pan Tera and recent statements of Sepultura and Slayer (AND EVEN EMINIEM!) is that they all seem to look at the heavy music and dark lyrics as a way to get out aggression from their mundane lives.  They talk about how metal is a way to vent out anger from things like road rage and spousal disputes.

What a waste.  Why even bother to listen to that?  Is that not just the biggest excuse to make bad music that has swearing and violence for suburban kids to eat up.  They never say things like this until they are in trouble for it.  They don't even have the courage to admit that there is art to be found in talking about darker subjects that people don't want to discuss.  It's all this "Hey we are positive.  We get behind that mic and we vent our frustration.  This music is our vehicle for more posiitve lives where zit faced dweebs can yell in their bedroom and become successful bankers one day."

[iddqd]

Yeah. I guess I could have also said:

Bad Music: focus on the mundane, everyday pettiness

Good Music: transcends the individual, focus on the cosmic

[NHA]

After watching other episodes and seeing interviews with Slipknot and Marilyn Manson, I have notices that one thing that ties all nu metal bands together, along with Pan Tera and recent statements of Sepultura and Slayer (AND EVEN EMINIEM!) is that they all seem to look at the heavy music and dark lyrics as a way to get out aggression from their mundane lives.

Could be so parents don't freak out and keep giving their kids money to buy the stupid shit.

[wEEman33]

The episode on thrash was pretty good, if only to show that the genre mostly appeals to -- and is full of -- blockheads. Various people's answer to the question on why thrash is still popular:

"As long as there's generations coming up that are into rebellion, this genre will always have some validity to it." -- Death Angel

"Rebellion." -- Dave Mustaine

"It's outsider music to the max. Heavy metal solved a lot of my problems when I was a teenager when I couldn't express myself or was frustrated. I would go to my room, put on a metal album and feel instant relief." -- Kirk Hammett

"As long as young people are angry, confused and don't know who they are...then some of them are going to be attracted to music that makes you bang your head, and makes you feel that your anger's OK, and that you can deal with your anger while still expressing it at the same time." -- random metal author

Kerry King and Dave Lombardo are really the only dudes in that documentary who came off well.

[wEEman33]

Also, from the opening of the power metal one:

Q) How would you describe power metal...the sound of it?

A) Girlish. Lots of people who go to festivals have girlfriends and they need a band to show their girlfriend to.

A) Very easy melodies. Very happy melodies. Melodies that you can sing along to.

A) Playing dress up to loud obnoxious fun music.

A) It's like a big beer hall, soccer hall chant situation.

A) When people go out to a bar in Germany and have ten beers, the stuff they can sing must be very simple. As melodic as possible so everybody can join in.

A) It has to do with our history. People looking back on our traditions because they believe in them.

[analrapist]

Good Music: transcends the individual, focus on the cosmic

It's important for music to have a poetic topic.

Without that, it's just playing with "ideas" from music theory, or worse, not doing that.