metal music

[Crim]

To each his own, just cuz we are old, doesn't mean we will like the same music. What you posted isn't my cup of tea, but not bad. I disagree about 50's and 60's music sounding all alike. You had slow doo wop/ low rider type songs to fast paced dance tunes and the wailing guitar of Dick Dale. In my mind, that pretty diverse..no?

It really isn't that diverse compared to the selection the kids have today. Don't get me wrong I LOVE the music, actually my XM channels are set to ALT Nation, Liquid Metal, Bluegrass Junction, 50's (from the 50's I can move just one up to the 60's), PGA tour channel, and Elvis station

When I go to the 50's and 60's channels I expect a particular type of music, and I get it every time. Like you said, it's fun dance-able music, but diverse? I don't know. Maybe it's just because they play the hits, maybe I really have to to go back and find some hidden gems.

[Crim]

The music I put up may have been a little too cute, here's some bluesy rock. Pretty popular song now, The Heavy has a lot of other great stuff.

[jamo]

I hope eventually enough backlash against lame pop music erupts to reverse the musical momentum and what we are now experiencing is simply the bottom of a down cycle and things will soon get better.

I don't know. If you really can't find music in 2013, when statistically half of everyone's Facebook friends are trying to get people to view their Youtube videos and music on SoundCloud, part of me thinks you're just not looking hard enough.

[Wisguy]

If you ever get a chance to see Dick Dale live, jump at it. You'll seldom see a comparable guitarist or live act and never see a more dynamic septagenarian. He's also a nice, if strongly opinionated, guy. I've seen him three times and in between sets he signs autographs and chats with fans and if you ask him a question, he'll give you a real answer, not just a generic soundbite. He's a guy who genuinely loves playing music and genuinely enjoys interacting with his fans. The fact that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has not inducted Dick Dale means the entire institution is a farce. He single-handedly invented an entire genre of music (of rock music, too, not just something vaguely related to some form of popular music) and when rock was in its early days, he was paying The Beach Boys $25 a night to open for his shows. And, his work with Fender on their guitars and amps is certainly fairly comparable to HOF inductee Les Paul's work with Gibson. People complained for years about the HOF's failure to induct KISS, Rush (recently remedied), Moody Blues, etc... while inducting unknown ancient bluesman, early R&B;/Motown artists, and bands like The Faces (I don't know anyone who has ever heard any of their music), but the real travesty is the failure to induct Dick Dale. I suspect he must have pissed off some music industry executives pretty badly or maybe it's his life-long anti-drug stance that's rubbed some people wrong.

[Dave2512]

I don't know. If you really can't find music in 2013, when statistically half of everyone's Facebook friends are trying to get people to view their Youtube videos and music on SoundCloud, part of me thinks you're just not looking hard enough.

No doubt. I think people have forgotten what it was like to actually have to get in a car and rummage through piles of albums to find something new. I can remember buying albums just because they looked cool and being pleasantly surprised. Now you can create a Pandora station and get dozens of suggestions an hour without even trying. People that are stuck in the mainstream usually don't realize it's because they are lazy or aren't old enough to remember all the crap from years past and suffer from revisionist history. There is a lot of terrible music from every era. Though preference plays a part. If I never heard anything played on classic rock radio again I wouldn't miss it. Much of what people are still worshiping ran i's course and then some thanks to constant radio regurgitation.

Lol edit to laugh at myself for uphill in the snow "old guy" rant.

[Wisguy]

The site won't let me do a multi-quote today, but to address Jamo's comments above, I think you're making a few false assumptions. First, I have nothing to do with Facebook, Twitter, or the ilk. I don't feel any need to spend my time learning that someone just sneezed three times in past hour, his kid's got a weird rash on his ass, or that someone else is "Just Facebooking to see what everyone else is Facebooking about!" I keep in touch with my friends the old fashioned way, by phone, e-mail or meeting in person. Second, I think you overlooked the fact that I said that there are practically no modern bands anyone has ever heard of who are making quality rock music with an edge these days. I don't dispute that there are talented newer rock bands out there who have interesting songs featuring great guitarwork and other instrument playing (I'm sure they exist) but they simply aren't getting any sort of widespread recognition. I don't dispute that access to such music is easier now via internet than ever before. However, discovering such bands is not easier and requires more work. Twenty or thirty years ago, there were multiple radio stations in every market playing a variety of current rock music. Nowadays, other than little college stations (which sometimes play a lot of really weird crap), the only rock that exists on the radio is classic rock; my local alt-rock station has even basically become a second classic rock station, albeit with a bit of a more eccentric twist. No good rock music (not this sappy-crappy alt-folk stuff with peculiar vocals that seems to be popular now) gets any radio airplay or televison time. I try to catch a musical act on Letterman, Kimmel, Conan, Fallon, etc.. at least once a week or so and do pay some attention to the musical guests on SNL and they simply aren't playing interesting rock music. Last time I can remember watching any group that I thought worthwhile was a few years ago on Kimmel when he had the Foo Fighters and somewhat over-the-top German metal group Rammstein on within a few months of each other if memory serves. I'm not paying close attention to these shows every night, but the bands I see week after week are uniformly mediocre and uninteresting. Sure, there are musical websites where one can discuss and find out about bands via YouTube and band site links. And I suppose there are also some rock stations on Sirius/XM that I haven't bothered listening to yet because I'm usually listening to one of the comedy channels or the blues channel instead. But I can remember hearing dozens of new bands getting airplay and getting discovered that first week on the radio back in the 70's and 80's, groups like The Cars, Van Halen, Journey, etc... then they broke on MTV and they became household names nationally. I can even remember hearing Smells Like Teen Spirit (their only worthwhile song IMHO) on a college station months before the first week that Nirvana broke big nationally. That isn't happening with rock bands nowadays. There's no terrestrial radio rock stations other than classic rock stations, no music any more on MTV. And I'll give you Pandora, which I listen to a lot. The problem with Pandora is that one needs a starting point and picking a station to play music like an older group or song you like will tend to bring up almost exclusively music of the same era that you already know. If you don't have a modern rock band or song in mind to start with, it's not likely going to alert you to many more of the same. Pandora has helped me discover dozens of blues and surf bands I like, but not a single modern rock band, that I can recall off the top of my head, when I've created ZZ Top, Stones, etc... stations or stations for one of favorite songs of those bands. My problem is that there's a finite amount of time in a given day and paying proper attention to my family, my work, my house, etc... leaves me with less free time to discover new music than I had even 10 years ago. Several years ago I came up with an idea (I'm sure I'm not the first to think of it) of doing a musical competition reality show that isn't focused on a single individual's solo singing, but on rock bands. Call it Rock Gods, have the bands in the initial rounds play covers, in middle rounds have them all play at least one instrumental piece and an out-of-their-specific-genre cover, and in later rounds, once we become a bit more familiar with the better bands and their styles, have them play at least one original song. Have judges like Billy Gibbons, Slash, Tommy Lee, Sammy Hagar, Carlos Santana, Billy Corgan, Jack White, etc... people who have made it big in rock and who have big personalities - hell, maybe even drag Ted Nugent away from his killin' and politics and get him on the show. Have a significant portion of the competition be based on talent playing instruments, not vocals. So if a band's drummer plays as sloppily as Dave Grohl did back in his Nirvana days, they get the axe and conversely, a really talented drummer like Green Day's Tre Cool or a great bass player - today's Geddy Lee, could have a performance that saves a band. This show would not be popular with the 6 to 46 female crowd that makes up the bulk of the American Idol, et al. audience, but would bring in hundreds of thousands, probably millions of male viewers and they could probably attract some female viewers by having something cheesy like a calendar photo shoot on one episode. I bet such a show would be commercially successful and could resurrect rock music, much in the same fashion that The Ultimate Fighter was greatly responsible for the huge upsurge in popularity of MMA.

[Crim]

Second, I think you overlooked the fact that I said that there are practically no modern bands anyone has ever heard of who are making quality rock music with an edge these days. I don't dispute that there are talented newer rock bands out there who have interesting songs featuring great guitarwork and other instrument playing (I'm sure they exist) but they simply aren't getting any sort of widespread recognition.

Oh I get it, you're saying the general population has horrible music taste...

...agreed.

Nonetheless, there is TONS of amazing music out there right now that I don't need the general population to like.

[Wisguy]

Don't be too hasty to thumb your nose at commercial success and widespread popularity. The Mermen, a psychodelic-surf threesome, are one of my favorite bands, I'm on their e-mail list and I get all sorts of notices of their upcoming concerts. Unfortunately, those concerts seem to be within no greater than maybe a 50 mile radius of San Francisco. I've kept a lookout, but I don't think they've toured anywhere nationally or at least out to the Midwest within the past decade. So unless I want to go 1500 miles west, I likely won't ever get to see one of their concerts. One of my other favorite bands of all time was Marques Bovre and the Evil Twins, a fantastic local roots rock band who had a modest college radio hit "I Like Gyrls (Who Like Gyrls)" about 20 years ago, a funny song about a guy who always falls in love with lesbians. I saw them probably 25 times over the years, but a combination of health/family issues and questionable financial viability kept them from touring which relegated them to guys with day jobs who play in-state bars on weekends. After a dozen or so years, their guitarist saw the writing on the wall and moved to the East Coast giving up music except for a couple trips back to the Badger State for reunion concerts and instead of devoting himself to where his talents lay, as a really outstanding musician, he became a full-time nurse. MBET continued on for a few more years with a new guitarist but they were never the same. Marques himself faired less well and with numerous health issues and no health insurance, his body deteriorated and he died early this year from brain cancer. I have no idea if the outcome would have been much different if the band had been financially successful enough to have been able to afford health insurance, but that's a possiblilty. At his very last concert, a benefit concert attended by many local bands, by their original guitarist who flew back from the east coast and by Jim Schwall of the Siegel-Schwall Band with whom Marques worked on a side project for a few years, Marques was very weak but I think he was fully appreciative of a sell-out crowd who turned out to show their support. So there are two examples, and there certainly are thousands more, of how limited commercial success restricts access to quality music. If a band doesn't have adequate promotion to attract a large enough fan base, they may stay a local or regional band and never tour or the band members may simply give up and move on to something that seems better able to provide for a decent livelihood. Commercial success isn't always a bad thing.

[newtogolf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jamo

I don't know. If you really can't find music in 2013, when statistically half of everyone's Facebook friends are trying to get people to view their Youtube videos and music on SoundCloud, part of me thinks you're just not looking hard enough.

Several years ago I came up with an idea (I'm sure I'm not the first to think of it) of doing a musical competition reality show that isn't focused on a single individual's solo singing, but on rock bands. Call it Rock Gods, have the bands in the initial rounds play covers, in middle rounds have them all play at least one instrumental piece and an out-of-their-specific-genre cover, and in later rounds, once we become a bit more familiar with the better bands and their styles, have them play at least one original song. Have judges like Billy Gibbons, Slash, Tommy Lee, Sammy Hagar, Carlos Santana, Billy Corgan, Jack White, etc... people who have made it big in rock and who have big personalities - hell, maybe even drag Ted Nugent away from his killin' and politics and get him on the show. Have a significant portion of the competition be based on talent playing instruments, not vocals. So if a band's drummer plays as sloppily as Dave Grohl did back in his Nirvana days, they get the axe and conversely, a really talented drummer like Green Day's Tre Cool or a great bass player - today's Geddy Lee, could have a performance that saves a band. This show would not be popular with the 6 to 46 female crowd that makes up the bulk of the American Idol, et al. audience, but would bring in hundreds of thousands, probably millions of male viewers and they could probably attract some female viewers by having something cheesy like a calendar photo shoot on one episode. I bet such a show would be commercially successful and could resurrect rock music, much in the same fashion that The Ultimate Fighter was greatly responsible for the huge upsurge in popularity of MMA.

MTV stole your idea and did their own rock band competition in 2004, it was called Battle for Ozzfest.  It featured some great bands;

• A Dozen Furies
• Cynder ^[3] (now known as Curse Your Name )
• Manntis ^[4]
• Final Drive
• Beyond All Reason
• Guilt by Association
• Sicks Deep
• Trauma Concept

NBC had a show Rock Star - was hosted by Brooke Burke and Dave Navarro

If you like Geddy Lee type vocals listen to Coheed and Cambia.

[Hammer 4]

I've seen Dick Dale, The Chantys, The Ventures, and 99% of the Surf bands back in the 60's in their hay day. I even saw Jimi Hendrix when he came to L.A. played with Charlie Mussle White and a few others I can't recall. Anyhow, I'll stick with what I like, but I'm always looking for new stuff too.

[Russtopher]

Oh I get it, you're saying the general population has horrible music taste...

...agreed.

Nonetheless, there is TONS of amazing music out there right now that I don't need the general population to like.

Agreed as well.

There's a case to be made that the major label album format is dead, thanks to iTunes and mp3s. Recent sales numbers from some big 'mainstream' stars are way down. Labels are scared for their lives right now, and have been for years. Those labels have been churning out garbage that appeals to the widest range of bland music fans in order to make money. The good bands themselves are now realizing that they no longer need labels - just distributors for physical packaging, and tour booking agents since that's where the money's usually made.

I think it's great seeing bands like Five Iron Frenzy, Saves the Day, Protest the Hero, and others eschewing labels and funding albums by doing Kickstarter and pre-sale campaigns. It's happening more and more nowadays - a great new band doesn't need to hear a label say "oh if you did X Y and Z and sounded like THIS flavor of the month, you'd sell". They just sign up for a Tunecore account, set up a Bandcamp page, and make some fantastic music.

As far as the Internet... there is SO MUCH GOOD MUSIC out there. Like others have mentioned, go to Soundcloud, Noise Trade, Bandcamp, etc and search based on genre, style, bands that "sound like", and you'll find some great music. And a bunch of it will be dirt cheap if not outright free, as bands will release digital albums at no cost in order to get fans to buy merch or see them on tour.

And since we're talking about metal, here's some free albums you can download and enjoy. And if you don't, hey the price is right :-)

http://cloudkickermusic.com/

http://vanisher.bandcamp.com/album/unbound

http://www.keithmerrow.com/downloads

http://thedeepestblues.bandcamp.com/ (one of my favorite free releases last year)

http://brettdetar.com/ (country, not metal, but still great)

[inthehole]

What I find strange with regard to metal today is that no one is even trying to make anything that is commercially viable.     There are no super bands anymore.

Bands like Nickelback are about as heavy as you're gonna hear on mainstream radio, and are filling stadiums and laughing their way to the bank.    Metalica, VanHalen, and all the 80's hair bands knew the boundaries & made heavy music that could be played on the radio (and made a metric $hit ton of money because of it).      Modern "brootal" metal is too harsh and underground to ever be commercially viable, and thats where they made the fundamental mistake ... unless they're happy keeping to their steadfast principles of not being a corporate sell-out & being life long starving musicians.

BTW, the new Black Sabbath album "13" is awesome.    All these young whipper snappers need to take note.  Geriatric metal FTW !!   Enjoy ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqvThopYOLY

[newtogolf]

What I find strange with regard to metal today is that no one is even trying to make anything that is commercially viable.

Bands like Nickelback are about as heavy as you're gonna hear on mainstream radio, and are filling stadiums and laughing their way to the bank.    Metalica, VanHalen, and all the 80's hair bands knew the boundaries & made heavy music that could be played on the radio (and made a metric $hit ton of money because of it).      Modern "brootal" metal is too harsh and underground to ever be commercially viable, and thats where they made the fundamental mistake ... unless they're happy keeping to their steadfast principles of not being a corporate sell-out & being life long starving musicians.

I think it's about alienating their core audience which is typically very devoted to the bands.  In the 80's and 90's we had bands like Helloween, Accept, Sepultura, Testament, Death, S.O.D, and Savatage to name a few that never went mainstream and stuck with their core audience.  Hair bands were able to get away with it in the 80's & 90's because music videos were still big and there's something to be said for a bunch of guys playing their music while hot girls dance around and grind on cars in sexy dresses.

When Van Halen, Metallica and others went more mainstream their core fans were upset but it was before the days of social media so widespread smear campaigns weren't the concern they are today.  Today when a band sells out, their Facebook, Twitter and any other social media page are hijacked by these angry fans and causes a bigger backlash for the band to deal with.  In an instant bands can go from "in" to "out" so the price can be heavy if their mainstream plan doesn't work.

[Crim]

What I find strange with regard to metal today is that no one is even trying to make anything that is commercially viable.     There are no super bands anymore.

Bands like Nickelback are about as heavy as you're gonna hear on mainstream radio, and are filling stadiums and laughing their way to the bank.    Metalica, VanHalen, and all the 80's hair bands knew the boundaries & made heavy music that could be played on the radio (and made a metric $hit ton of money because of it).      Modern "brootal" metal is too harsh and underground to ever be commercially viable, and thats where they made the fundamental mistake ... unless they're happy keeping to their steadfast principles of not being a corporate sell-out & being life long starving musicians.

BTW, the new Black Sabbath album "13" is awesome.    All these young whipper snappers need to take note.  Geriatric metal FTW !!   Enjoy ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqvThopYOLY

Mainstream radio is shit though. Times are changing people, get XM radio and get introduced to thousands of new amazing bands. If your band is on XM you are now commercially viable IMO. The Amon Amarth video that I posted earlier? Yeah, that youtube vid has 20 million views. Sure it doesn't have 300 million views like a Justin Bieber video, but that Swedish band has enough commercial success that they tour the States once a year, and they are on XM. Good enough for me. And LOL at "brootal" bands like Amon or Cradle being starving musicians. If you are good, you will make lots of money.

I still don't understand how Nickelback is filling stadiums....oh yeah I do....because the general population is retarded.

[inthehole]

I still don't understand how Nickelback is filling stadiums....oh yeah I do....because the general population is retarded.

Whats retarded is 20M views of that Amon youtube video with the cookie monster vocals - tried, but couldn't get 30 seconds into it.    I go on alot of guitar forums/discussion boards, and it amazes me the consistent hate for Nickelback - I don't dislike them as they have a propensity for writing catchy guitar centered songs about girls of ahem ... lesser moral quality.    Seems like a win win combination reminiscent of the theme of the 80's decade in metal.      I guess if young dudes are listening to Amon, obviously Nickelback would seem watered down & no where near metal enough ....

[Crim]

Whats retarded is 20M views of that Amon youtube video with the cookie monster vocals - tried, but couldn't get 30 seconds into it.    I go on alot of guitar forums/discussion boards, and it amazes me the consistent hate for Nickelback - I don't dislike them as they have a propensity for writing catchy guitar centered songs about girls of ahem ... lesser moral quality.    Seems like a win win combination reminiscent of the theme of the 80's decade in metal.      I guess if young dudes are listening to Amon, obviously Nickelback would seem watered down & no where near metal enough ....

Nickelback is the most mediocre and generic rock band ever and to compare them to anything even close to metal is a travesty.

You could compare Slipknot with Amon and I'd understand, Slipknot is more popular heavy metal. Amon is more of a niche, a successful niche. I very much enjoy growly vocals but it's not for everyone.

But Nickelback you'd have to compare with...christ...I don't know...Buckcherry?

[inthehole]

But Nickelback you'd have to compare with...christ...I don't know...Buckcherry?

comon bro - those are the only two hard rock bands I've heard in the post grunge era of the last 20 years or so on the radio that I kind of like.     I'd love to hear why all the hate.    Too radio friendly, too 80's-ish, too commercially successful while other "better" hardcore metal bands are struggling, or maybe they just suck and don't deserve their success, too many chicks like them - so it can't be metal, the totally overdone sex, drugs & rock and roll theme ever present in all of their songs, etc.     This kind of loathing of practically the only remaining hard rock (ok, non-metal) bands we even have a chance of hearing on the radio really preplexes me - I'd love to get to the bottom of this.     Or does it simply come down to a preference - you don't dig it and prefer "real" metal.

[Crim]

comon bro - those are the only two hard rock bands I've heard in the post grunge era of the last 20 years or so on the radio that I kind of like.     I'd love to hear why all the hate.    Too radio friendly, too 80's-ish, too commercially successful while other "better" hardcore metal bands are struggling, or maybe they just suck and don't deserve their success, too many chicks like them - so it can't be metal, the ever present sexual content in all of their songs, etc.     This kind of loathing of practically the only remaining hard rock (ok, non-metal) bands we even have a chance of hearing on the radio really preplexes me - I'd love to get to the bottom of this.     Or does it simply come down to a preference - you don't dig it and prefer "real" metal.

It's impossible to explain to a Nickelback fan how bad they are. No matter how hard I'd try you would never understand (I will try to explain at the bottom). It's just the same as you trying to convince me how bad Amon is...there's no way you could.

As far as Buckcherry goes, I enjoy a few Buckcherry songs haha, I wasn't making fun of them, I was just stating that's who you'd have to compare Nickelback too. You were talking about Nickelback being watered down and "nowhere near metal enough." Well that's because they are nowhere near metal in any way, shape, or form.

If this makes any sense to you, I'd say Nickelback is the Justin Bieber of hard rock. Shitty ass pop rock...and Chad Kroger's voice....ish. Then it's the songs they write, "Something in your mouth." Are you kidding me? I will sum up all the Nickelback hate for you right here and now. People hate Nickelback because they are basically a boy band pretending to be a rock band.