Define "metal".

[Mangrove]

Well "soul" can have different connotations in this discussion.  There is "Soul" as a descriptor of certain forms of music.  But there is "soul" as in whether something has depth and isn't superficial.

2nded.

I think there's a number of ways in which the word 'soul' gets used. Obviously, it is the name for a particular genre of music 'soul'. However, as a musician I've noticed that there is usage of the word which brings up a stereotype regarding (so called) 'black' vs 'white' music.

The stereotype is essentially that 'black' popular music culture is cooler, hipper, looser and has more emotional heft (soul) than 'white' music which is restrained, uptight and less expressive (not soul). As such, there's plenty of Caucasian musicians who believe they play or aspire to sound what they think of as 'black'.

Check out the movie 'Crossroads' (with Ralph Macchio, not Britney). Young white kid at Julliard playing classical guitar but obsesses over country blues music in his spare time. He tracks down the legendary 'Willie Brown' and busts him out of a nursing home to go on a journey down south into the delta to learn the secrets of Robert Johnson and his 'lost song'. The whole movie is about Ralph Macchio struggling to gain musical & cultural acceptance from African Americans. "See? Look how cool I play...I'm just like you, please love and validate me!"

The movie has a supernatural twist. Willie Brown sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads in exchange for his 15 minutes of fame in the world of blues music. Ralphie steps up to the challenge to win back the contract by battling Steve Vai in a head-cutting guitar jam contest.

Ralph plays bluesy bottleneck slide riffs (played by Arlen Roth) while Steve Vai was basically being himself. Well, lo and behold Vai comes up with a lick so brain melting, Ralph's confidence is shaken - he might not win! ERHMAHGERD! And what does he do? Why, he puts down his glass guitar slide and hammers out a classical piece which had some Paganini runs in it. Vai in his role of 'Jack Butler' cannot copy the lick and thus Faustian pact annulled, Willie saved and devil unhappy but, a deal's a deal, right?

So for 99% of the movie, Ralph Macchio wants to be the ultimate blues man, until his ass gets in trouble when he meets the shred monster so he plays [ahem] so called 'difficult, proper music' and wins. [It's stupid...not as stupid as that movie 'Soul Man' about the kid who sports black face to get into college. Of course, none of the real African Americans notice..wtf...]

Contrary to the stereotype we have Wynton Marsalis who plays classical music. Jimi Hendrix idolized Bob Dylan, Charlie Parker wanted to hang with Stravinsky & Miles Davis did some of his best work with Gil Evans (who was white and Canadian). And then there's dear old Elvis who popularized 'Hound Dog', a cover of a song originally done by Big Mamma Thornton but was written by Lieber & Stoller who were Jewish. Jazz musicians love playing songs by Cole Porter who was white and gay and also works by Billy Strayhorn who was black and gay.

The reality shows a great deal of complexity and diversity. However, there's still an idea in pop culture which equates ethnicity to authenticity. It's a bullshit idea but it's there. It's why people are like "Wow...can you believe Eminem raps so well..and he's WHITE!???"  One of my (black) friends (lol, love a cliche) thinks the sun rises and sets on Coldplay. Some of his other (white) friends thinks that makes him less African-American.

Congratulations, you've noticed that fucked-up racial dynamics with deep historical roots exist.

Nigel, I'm confused.

Yes, some white people like myself do notice, contemplate & discuss these things. I'm nearly 39 years old, I've played music since I was 14 and started on the guitar because of Jimi Hendrix. Not only have I spent a great deal of time listening to and playing music, I've also spent time reading about the history, lives & cultures of the music & musicians that I like. Given my interests in jazz and its history, it means that I'm not completely ignorant about racism in music and popular culture. I'm not sure why that deserves a sarcastic response.

Is it preferable that myself, LMNO and others had no idea about these things? (Or worse still, bought into and perpetuated these same stereotypes?)




 

[iSPEAKonlyFORthe23]

I can't tell what it IS, anymore.  What is called metal now doesn't seem very metal.

Being from Norway, I'm somewhat of an expert on metal. And anything softer than norwegian death metal isn't metal at all.

Oh, and I'm a dj too, usually I play techno, but this one time I played rock at Turbonegro's 10 or 20th year anniversary.

Because all Norwegians have doctorates in metalogy. Yeah.

No.

No, but there are many who have doctorates in norwegian metal, far more than in any other branch of the rock tree, and there are thousands of foreign applicants each year to courses, both offline and on the interwebs, to old norse, so they can understand the lyrics. This is
I personally don't listen to the music, and even without my years of experience as a music producer, it is not to the deny that norwegian death metal is the epitome of what heavy metal ever aspired to be. But as all music genres, it hit the extreme point - the tipping point of you will - from where there really is no return. The hunger for shocking shows eventually made the scene fold in on itself. They had done pigs blood, sheeps cadavers and chicken sacrifice, and I mean.. in some of the underground shows.. I'm not saying they killed humans on stage, but I have seen a video where they sacrificed a monkey, so it would really just be the logical next step, and I don't think many would be okay with that.

And if you look at norwegian death metal as the high point of metal, you soon see the decline with the emergence of genres like Nu-Metal (keep rollin, rollin, rollin, rollin-yeah), and it was just over-commercialized music that happened to have power chord backing. and that is the nature of music. once metal had played all possible combinations of dissonant intervals, there was no choice to move away from what made metal metal, and start playing melodies that actually sounded pretty in the ears of your regular church-goer.

[iSPEAKonlyFORthe23]

He lives a ten  minute walk from me mum.  I was walking the family dog, who got loose and started wreaking havoc in Harket's yard. He stood on his porch laughing while I ran after that damn dog, and offered me coffee when I caught dog.

I like your version better.

I know where Morten Harket lives. I too walked my dog there, this summer, and I was with a friend and we we're just jabbering about, trying to find a nice secluded space with a view where we could light up. Anyways, my friend reached for a new straw to use as a whistle, as the first had disintegrated, and I just hear EWWWWWWWWW. Turns out the bottomside of the straw was absolutely covered in tiny green lice, and he had just squashed about 150 of them between his fingers  After a closer inspection of the straws, I made sure to stay on the middle of the 150 meter long path leading to the house as the all the straws were littered with lice, making it probably about a billion of them there, and those things freaking gross me out... 

[AFK]

Relevant


http://www.blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=183939
[/size]

Katon W. De Pena (pictured below) of long-running Long Beach, California-based metallers HIRAX is one of only a handful of black singers fronting metal and hard rock bands. Although there have been other African-Americans playing this genre of music — Jimi Hendrix, Phil Lynott (THIN LIZZY), Byron Davis (GOD FORBID) and Howard Jones(KILLSWITCH ENGAGE) spring to mind — they are not nearly as common as Latino metalheads are. Asked why he thinks that is, the 49-year-old De Pena tells Nicholas Pell of LA Weekly, "These are questions that need to be asked." He adds that although he's never felt excluded, he's felt "misunderstood by other black folks. You get looked at differently if you're black and into metal. I still get that today.


"There are tons of black kids who love metal, but they think that there won't be any other black kids there and they won't be accepted," he explains.


De Pena, who says that "in South America you notice a lot more black people" attending metal concerts, believes that "if black people went to shows, they'd be stoked. It's not like what people hear about on talk shows. People come from all religious backgrounds, skin tones and hair lengths. I was more accepted [when I first started going to metal shows] because we're all outcasts and misfits."

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Well "soul" can have different connotations in this discussion.  There is "Soul" as a descriptor of certain forms of music.  But there is "soul" as in whether something has depth and isn't superficial.

2nded.

I think there's a number of ways in which the word 'soul' gets used. Obviously, it is the name for a particular genre of music 'soul'. However, as a musician I've noticed that there is usage of the word which brings up a stereotype regarding (so called) 'black' vs 'white' music.

The stereotype is essentially that 'black' popular music culture is cooler, hipper, looser and has more emotional heft (soul) than 'white' music which is restrained, uptight and less expressive (not soul). As such, there's plenty of Caucasian musicians who believe they play or aspire to sound what they think of as 'black'.

Check out the movie 'Crossroads' (with Ralph Macchio, not Britney). Young white kid at Julliard playing classical guitar but obsesses over country blues music in his spare time. He tracks down the legendary 'Willie Brown' and busts him out of a nursing home to go on a journey down south into the delta to learn the secrets of Robert Johnson and his 'lost song'. The whole movie is about Ralph Macchio struggling to gain musical & cultural acceptance from African Americans. "See? Look how cool I play...I'm just like you, please love and validate me!"

The movie has a supernatural twist. Willie Brown sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads in exchange for his 15 minutes of fame in the world of blues music. Ralphie steps up to the challenge to win back the contract by battling Steve Vai in a head-cutting guitar jam contest.

Ralph plays bluesy bottleneck slide riffs (played by Arlen Roth) while Steve Vai was basically being himself. Well, lo and behold Vai comes up with a lick so brain melting, Ralph's confidence is shaken - he might not win! ERHMAHGERD! And what does he do? Why, he puts down his glass guitar slide and hammers out a classical piece which had some Paganini runs in it. Vai in his role of 'Jack Butler' cannot copy the lick and thus Faustian pact annulled, Willie saved and devil unhappy but, a deal's a deal, right?

So for 99% of the movie, Ralph Macchio wants to be the ultimate blues man, until his ass gets in trouble when he meets the shred monster so he plays [ahem] so called 'difficult, proper music' and wins. [It's stupid...not as stupid as that movie 'Soul Man' about the kid who sports black face to get into college. Of course, none of the real African Americans notice..wtf...]

Contrary to the stereotype we have Wynton Marsalis who plays classical music. Jimi Hendrix idolized Bob Dylan, Charlie Parker wanted to hang with Stravinsky & Miles Davis did some of his best work with Gil Evans (who was white and Canadian). And then there's dear old Elvis who popularized 'Hound Dog', a cover of a song originally done by Big Mamma Thornton but was written by Lieber & Stoller who were Jewish. Jazz musicians love playing songs by Cole Porter who was white and gay and also works by Billy Strayhorn who was black and gay.

The reality shows a great deal of complexity and diversity. However, there's still an idea in pop culture which equates ethnicity to authenticity. It's a bullshit idea but it's there. It's why people are like "Wow...can you believe Eminem raps so well..and he's WHITE!???"  One of my (black) friends (lol, love a cliche) thinks the sun rises and sets on Coldplay. Some of his other (white) friends thinks that makes him less African-American.

Congratulations, you've noticed that fucked-up racial dynamics with deep historical roots exist.

Nigel, I'm confused.

Yes, some white people like myself do notice, contemplate & discuss these things. I'm nearly 39 years old, I've played music since I was 14 and started on the guitar because of Jimi Hendrix. Not only have I spent a great deal of time listening to and playing music, I've also spent time reading about the history, lives & cultures of the music & musicians that I like. Given my interests in jazz and its history, it means that I'm not completely ignorant about racism in music and popular culture. I'm not sure why that deserves a sarcastic response.

Is it preferable that myself, LMNO and others had no idea about these things? (Or worse still, bought into and perpetuated these same stereotypes?)

No, there was just something about the way you phrased it that rubbed me the wrong way... I took it as "It's so unfair that white musicians don't get to have soul" without much deeper examination of the reasons behind the popular attitudes. I was mistaken and I'm over it now.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Just to put some perspective on the smallness of Norway; Prime Minister Stoltenberg's brother is my dentist.

[Faust]

I can't tell what it IS, anymore.  What is called metal now doesn't seem very metal.

Metal is the Anime of music.

[Cainad (dec.)]

I can't tell what it IS, anymore.  What is called metal now doesn't seem very metal.

Metal is the Anime of music.

Hugely popular with its (numerous) fans, ignored or even strongly disliked by people outside the fan base, runs the gamut from "taking itself way too goddamn seriously" to "unrelentingly silly and self-parodying," and fully steeped in Sturgeon's Law.

Yeah, I can see that.

[I_Kicked_Kennedy]

If it's been overlooked, here's the best definition I've heard, TGRR:

"Metal is meant to be loud and crazy rebellion, for no apparent reason."
-Lemmy

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

-It must be Rock
-It must not be "soft rock"
It must have at least one of the following qualities:
*Tuned really low/lots of bass
*Fast electric guitar
*Lyrics focus on drugs, sex, violence, suffering, death and/or the devil (or similar forces of powerful, usually supernatural evil such as Dracula or Yig)
*Gratuitous swearing and/or use of disturbing imagery
*Played or written by a band whose other songs are mostly metal

[Mangrove]

The classic proto-metal bands: Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath & Deep Purple while all known for 'heavy riffs' still had  other musical influences going on. All of them owe a huge debt to blues. Sabbath & Purple had a certain jazz sensibility in their drumming as did bands like Cream, The Doors and The Jimi Hendrix Experience. John Bonham in Zeppelin had a harder, heavier style but one that was in a funky, fatback vein. (No wonder then that the Beastie Boys lifted the drum intro from 'When The Levee Breaks'. It was a lot more funky than metal.)

Zeppelin had their folk and what people would now call 'world music' influences, while Purple delved into the European classical tradition, especially because of guitarist Richie Blackmore. I think the first really 'metal' music saw a narrowing of dynamic range, tighter time, less blues/swing/funk feeling (from Black American music) and instead amped up the operatic vocals as well as bringing a more European classical style virtuosity. (Go from Hendrix, to Blackmore to Yngwie Malmsteen.) 

For instance, Zeppelin liked their heavy guitar riffs. The opening figure to 'Whole Lotta Love' is an old blues lick recycled, in this case recycled from Willie Dixon but the same intervals with a slightly different rhythm is the bass lick to Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme'. Zeppelin would also bust out a mandolin and layer in acoustic guitars tuned in non-standard tunings. Now, imagine Iron Maiden, Judas Priest or Saxon doing the same thing. Tends not to happen.

Ian Gillan & Robert Plant helped set up the operatic vocal style for metal, Ozzy just didn't have the range. Rob Halford of Judas Priest had the high end of Plant, someone like Bruce Dickinson from Maiden had depth & power but without being shrill. Plant could certainly be bluesy, but you're not likely to find that in J.Priest. Let us not forget Ronnie Dio, a little guy with a huge voice (and oddly enough, disproportionately large hands) - very much in the metal camp.

Seems to me that once people hit upon the idea of 'heavy metal', the seemingly non-heavy elements were removed. Instead, bands looked to see how they could become 'heavier'. Some thought that being faster made it more heavy hence 'thrash', some thought that being slower & doomier than Black Sabbath was the way to go. For some, it wasn't just a matter of tempo, but of texture which gives you bands with 2 or more guitars. And when two guitars plus bass isn't enough, you go for de-tuning instruments for an even thicker sound.

The 'heaviness' of the metal can also be found in the lyrics and subject matter. Black Sabbath were the early champions of bleak subject matter until Ozzy got bumped for Dio whereby they shifted into the land of D&D, sword & sorcery fantasy songs. Early Sabbath's songs had more occult themes (cf: Black Sabbath, NIB etc) but were borne out of a fear of rather than glorification of dark, spooky stuff. Later acts decided that it would be 'heavier' to be in league with the devil (thematically speaking) than afraid of him/it which gives us all the so called 'Satanic' versions of metal. Of course, not all metal is centered on the macabre. The 'fantasy' element is still fairly common and some bands (Saxon) like being metal so much they write songs about how...uhh...metal they are (eg: Denim & Leather).

Then you get hair bands of the 80s, but that's a whole other thing.

Basically though - put on early records by the 3 proto-metal bands, then put on Judas Priest, Iron Maiden. Then move on to Metallica, Slayer etc. I think you'll hear things becoming 'more metal' as you go along.

[AFK]

Wow, you're our very own Ian Christie. 


Kudos for the Dio reference.  Until his death, I thought his place in the history of metal was often overlooked.(heh, I know). For sure he really brought the fantasy element to the fore-front which inspired many bands, particularily those in the Power Metal genre.  And of course he brought us the devil horns (which was actually an Italian gesture created by his Mom), but I think another key is he was one of those guys who lived and breathed and unapologetically waved the Metal flag.  He was an ambassador.  And of course, one hell of a voice.

[Mangrove]

Wow, you're our very own Ian Christie. 


Kudos for the Dio reference.  Until his death, I thought his place in the history of metal was often overlooked.(heh, I know). For sure he really brought the fantasy element to the fore-front which inspired many bands, particularily those in the Power Metal genre.  And of course he brought us the devil horns (which was actually an Italian gesture created by his Mom), but I think another key is he was one of those guys who lived and breathed and unapologetically waved the Metal flag.  He was an ambassador.  And of course, one hell of a voice.

Being unapologetic is, I think, a distinctly metal trait in itself. If you call Jimmy Page a 'godfather' of heavy metal he gets all twitchy and defensive. If you said the same to Dio or Rob Halford they would say "HELL YEAH!!" and be totally happy with that identification. Reveling in one's own 'metalness' is part of the experience.

Speaking of which, myself and Step Mang #3 went to see Testament, Heaven & Hell (Dio Sabbath) & Judas Priest. I was a Skolnik fan years ago so I thought it'd be cool to see & hear him but the sound was so godawfully bad, he could've been playing Bach runs on a banjo and it wouldn't have made a difference.

Dio & gang were fantastic and unsurprisingly, they got a much better deal at the sound desk. I don't know if many people knew Dio was sick at the time. If he was, you certainly couldn't tell because he belted his way through all the classic songs, bounded across the stage and waved his finger horns all over the shop. When I first started playing guitar, I was big into Tony Iommi, so it was cool to see one of my heroes.

Judas Priest were very entertaining. I was never into their music however, they were really good. Even though I wasn't a Priest fan, I could appreciate that they were a genre defining act and had a gazillion hours of road experience. Then came the point when Halford shows up on his Harley. It was both very metal and very gay at the same time. HELL BENT FOR LEATHER!  I came away with a new found respect for them.

I however was very un-metal. Step Mang #3 and I had nosebleed seats and we sat up there drinking coffee surrounded by metal fans....and their little kids. It was the first metal show I ever went to that was family friendly. The same could not be said for the 1992 Monsters of Rock Festival.

[AFK]

I think it is pretty funny how all of these macho metal guys ended up adopting the metal look, leather/spikes, from a gay man.  I think anorigin like that is definitely very metal.


I got to see Skolnik one year when he was part of Trans-Siberian Orchestra.  Got to meet him, Chris Caffrey, and Jeff Plate after the concert, very nice guys.  Skolnik and Caffrey were on fire that night. 

[Telarus]

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/12/christopher-lee-heavy-metal-christmas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gVzOve8T39w