Metal Genres

faceman

Do they really matter? Ive lost track of the different genres there are nowadays. Are genres the making of journalists and nerdy marketing moguls?

Discuss.

Karl Hungus

"Genres" have stopped being genres, and started being more of a guide to how a band sounds. It's like the difference between being Oldschool Death Metal, Melodic Death Metal and Progressive Death Metal, I don't exactly see that as being seperate genres, but more a discription.

People like having elaborate genre names to describe a band. There's no point in keeping track, because people just come up with them on the spot. It's nothing to do with journalism at all, or marketing.

Sizzler

faceman wrote:

Do they really matter? Ive lost track of the different genres there are nowadays. Are genres the making of journalists and nerdy marketing moguls?

Discuss.

More important things to be worrying about

-( i )- Wicker

I find the subgenres very useful for discovering new bands. They are needed anyways. For example, you cant really compare Power Metal and Death Metal by just saying theyre metal, they need to be identified as two very different styles of music.
That is just my opinion though...

BostonB

All the sub genres are a bit a of blur to me. I have no idea what most of them are, only I know I don't like most of them. What genre are the metallica, megadeth, panterra or Ozzy for example?

PlatonicDisease

BostonB wrote:

All the sub genres are a bit a of blur to me. I have no idea what most of them are, only I know I don't like most of them. What genre are the metallica, megadeth, panterra or Ozzy for example?

BostonB wrote:

All the sub genres are a bit a of blur to me. I have no idea what most of them are, only I know I don't like most of them. What genre are the metallica, megadeth, panterra or Ozzy for example?

I reckon most of us don't know (and don't care to find out) about ALL the 'sub-genres' in Rock-Metal, that are bandied about by countless fans, and the often pedantic, pompous music press & media. However, I gotta say that there are meaningful distinctions to be made between styles of metal music, mainly in how a particular band (and related bands) play and how they sound to a majority of listeners. Maybe it's not so much about a distinct 'genre' as it is about a very discernible sound and style of a metal band's music. So, for instance, in death metal, as pointless as it might appear to many fans, there are real differences in the overall sound and styles between 'progressive', 'brutal', 'technical', and a handful of other main categories. And it's a helpful guide to most fans in recognising what style they most prefer and certainly in the choices they make when buying actual records. In DM, I guess most fans know how the Swedish styles in DM sound plainly different to us all. It's needless to get into the obvious differences between actual 'genres' like thrash, death metal, black metal, grindcore, and so on.

BostonB, it's funny how you raised the question of what genre or style can be attributed to the four bands you named. Lemme have a go at it Metallica is thrash-turned-alt-rock/AOR, Megadeth is classic progressive thrash, Pantera, extreme, heavy groove-thrash, Ozzy (solo??) is glam-pop-rock-metal.

MagnumForce

I have no problem with most genre titles, they serve their purposes, they let you know what type of music it is, the only problem I have is with "Post-Hardcore", i mean come on, what the ****!? that doesnt describe anything at all, its just annoying! What does it mean? A type of music that came after "Hardcore"? that could be anything! ahhh just thinking about it annoys me! A bunch of pointless retards tryin to be cool be coming up with that shíte genre title.

Nightwish

Metal fans can be so picky about genre's. There's definately a sense of snobbery around what genre a band can be defined by. But for me I found that Sam Dunn (See the documentary Metal: A Headbangers Journey) created a pretty good guide of the evolution of certain genre's into new ones. See here for his metal evolution chart.

Rockee

Nightwish wrote:

Metal fans can be so picky about genre's. There's definately a sense of snobbery around what genre a band can be defined by.

I totally agree...the amount of times Ive heard someone say one band is post-hardcore and his friend say 'No, they're progressive punk' etc etc

mrmojo

I reckon theres that many people doing their own thing these days that creating genres for them all is ridiculous! Just call it all metal! Except for EMO, leave that on its own!

Nightwish

^^^ lol I totally agree!

maxitwist

-( i )- Wicker wrote:

you cant really compare Power Metal and Death Metal by just saying theyre metal, they need to be identified as two very different styles of music.
That is just my opinion though...

What the hell's power metal?

Karl Hungus wrote:

It's like the difference between being Oldschool Death Metal, Melodic Death Metal and Progressive Death Metal

they'res sub genres of sub-genres? e.g death metal - sub genre of metal, oldschool death metal - sub-genre of the sub genre metal?

Pugsley

maxitwist wrote:

What the hell's power metal?

DragonForce, Rhapsody, Hammer Fall. and so on. Very very very cheesey, some of its superb, but most of its awful imo, a very hit n miss genre. (personal favourites would be Sabaton, Terasbetoni's first album, and some Sonata Arctica is superb)

Karl Hungus

maxitwist wrote:

they'res sub genres of sub-genres? e.g death metal - sub genre of metal, oldschool death metal - sub-genre of the sub genre metal?

Ok, now what you've just done is quoted me, and chopped off some relevant parts in order to distort the meaning of what I've said. Although I do wonder what on earth you hoped to accomplish by misrepresenting what I've said.

Lets go back and see what was said in context, making note of what you had previously ommited:

Karl Hungus wrote:

It's like the difference between being Oldschool Death Metal, Melodic Death Metal and Progressive Death Metal, I don't exactly see that as being seperate genres, but more a discription.

maxitwist

Karl Hungus wrote:

Ok, now what you've just done is quoted me, and chopped off some relevant parts in order to distort the meaning of what I've said. Although I do wonder what on earth you hoped to accomplish by misrepresenting what I've said.

Lets go back and see what was said in context, making note of what you had previously ommited:

ya sorry dude no offence ment blah blah blah just asking a question.

justout of curiosity what genre are machine head?

PlatonicDisease

maxitwist wrote:

ya sorry dude no offence ment blah blah blah just asking a question.

justout of curiosity what genre are machine head?

I know how Machine Head was widely (and briefly) deemed as a good thrash metal band but I never really regarded their thrash credentials too kindly at all. Ok, maybe their debut album 'Burn My Eyes' was a decent enough effort, but somehow it sounded more generic heavy metal, than a premium thrash record to my ears. Slayer and Pantera allowing MH to appear alongside them on some of their tours gave the band more attention and credibility than I consider they actually deserved. Anyway, MH really sounds more 'nu-metal' to me than anything else.. Anyway, I give up on these genres name calling; MH has been called 'post-thrash', but then so has Pantera, and I think I know which band was the real deal with most metal fans everywhere.

maxitwist

I only heard 3 slayer songs, god hates us all, hell awaits and another one, but theyre defiently aint thrah metal, death metal i'd say, Im not sure what to deem as thrash metal, I figure very fast metal with generally alot of swearing, which I dont think pantera or mh are either although mh being closer. A couple of machine head songs would be thrash metal, e.g bulldozer (sounds better on the live album rather than the album version.

It wasn't me!

Slayer are not death metal, they are thrash, and that's a terrible definition of thrash.

maxitwist

would you not see thrash metal as angry?

It wasn't me!

To a certain, limited extent. But what makes you think Slayer are death metal?

Morf

It wasn't me! wrote:

To a certain, limited extent. But what makes you think Slayer are death metal?

A south park reference?

Korn is angry doesnt mean its thrash metal . . .

maxitwist

yes well swearing makes it sound angrier e.g slipknot - f*ck it all. Anyway the three songs of slayer I heard were death metal, could you recommend me one of their thrash metal songs?

edit changed the **** to f*ck

faceman

maxitwist wrote:

yes well swearing makes it sound angrier e.g slipknot - f*ck it all.

ah c'mon, swearing can make a song sound retarded if its just over indulgent

maxitwist

if its for no reason yes, but have u heard that slipknot song?

~Rebel~

Thats kind of irrelevant anyway. Swearing is definately not in the definition of thrash! Sure there will probably be some but its not like its a prerequisite to the genre. Mustane practically invented thrash (a very bold statement i know, but you get what i mean, one of the first), its not like megadeath have loads of random swearing thrown in there. I wouldnt really even consider skipknot to really be thrash myself anyway, suppose again its just a perspective thing.

Karl Hungus

maxitwist wrote:

yes well swearing makes it sound angrier e.g slipknot - f*ck it all.

Frankly, I find swearing just makes things sound childish, and the teen-angst machine that is Slipknot is a perfect case point for this.

It wasn't me!

The three songs you heard were not in fact death metal. For reference to their thrash metal heyday, let's just throw up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UjVRXs3qW0&mode=related&search= and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w21bZYh3mg&mode=related&search=

I think that should do for example.

Karl Hungus

To be entirely fair, Death Metal did evolve from Thrash Metal, and as such Slayer were certainly an influence on a lot of Death Metal bands, so I can understand some confusion arising for those unfamiliar with the genres. Slayer are definetly one of the more extreme Thrash bands.

For the sake of argument, I'll give some examples...

This is Thrash:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI8kCnqVkQ0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjRbqj4kqxU

This is Death:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XC41YRjlaXs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhNijzbQoic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp1TmPo35yM

Mystic Fibrosis

Nih..... Gojira to me sound too unabrasive to be death metal... I mean you can hear the Morbid Angel influence in tracks like The Heaviest Matter Of The Universe but death metal? I think it's a bit of a stretch.

Karl Hungus

Mystic Fibrosis wrote:

Nih..... Gojira to me sound too unabrasive to be death metal... I mean you can hear the Morbid Angel influence in tracks like The Heaviest Matter Of The Universe but death metal? I think it's a bit of a stretch.

How strange. What would you call them?

I find it odd you'd say they're too unabrasive though, I find them to be far more abrasive than Death for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woML9M5UBSc