Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Kagus]

My main problem with all these "**** metal" bands (instead of trying to figure out all the terminology, I'll just say 'what Torak listens to') is how they sing the lyrics. 

Not the lyrics themselves (even though those can be a bit annoying/silly/boring/DHS), but the yelling-growling way they're spouted out.  That mock-rage powered singing is at best laughable, at worst aggravating.  You need a powerful voice to work with music like that, not an angry one.  The words just get garbled and steamrolled by the guitar (which is also often played in an "angry" fashion), if there even are words.  I just can't take these people seriously.

Bon Scott had a powerful voice.  Ronnie James Dio has a powerful voice.  Ozzy Osbourne...  Well, Ozzy had a voice that he backed up with electronics.  Not much to say there. 

[Fishersalwaysdie]

You get used to it, I think the point is to look up the lyrics somewhere.



P.S. AC/DC are not metal, common mistake for people who don't listen to it. It's just the hardest rock out there.

[Kagus]

Perhaps I should add that my guitar tutor played Beatles music in college, which was all the rage back then.  He probably has a different view on music than most of the moderners.

[Cthulhu]

The metal bands I listen to aren't that hard to understand, and if you look them up, you can hear the words very clearly afterward.

I hate ACDC.  My brother's a Guitar Zero, and listens to all of that garbage.  I don't think he even has a taste in music, he just listens to whatever is on that stupid game.  My sister listens to what my mom listens to, and my dad hates everything.  He listens to music, but he just switches through radio channels talking about how bad everything is.

[Kagus]

You also happen to think that the jazzy section of "Tank" is wonderful.  I am of the opinion that it is not music so much as it is a busload of notes that blew a flat and started crashing down the side of a cliff.

And this is why music is on the "banned" list in the discussion thread.

[Cthulhu]

Well, I like disordered, chaotic music.

[Tahin]

I actually don't see this as a very controversial subject. If you think this is a difficult discussion, go look on ANY other forum. Anywhere. This is the mellowest forum I have ever seen.

[Kagus]

Right.  It's the mellowest board, and yet we can still manage to get worked up about music preferences.  Seems pretty potent to me.

[Melloth]

When I say doom metal is like poo crawling up a hill, I'm joking, I obviously haven't heard much of it to know, and I'm cool with anyone who does listen and appreciate it.
I love Tank! and Rush (from cowboy bebop) but dont even want strap you on a chair and force you to listen to it untill you die.. er.. like it. It's not even the issue here!
Anyone saying he/she prefers some other band or other genre, probally doesn't mean it any worse than a suggestion to listen to it once a while too.

Noone is fighting eachother in music taste right now, right? We're all trying to figure out what fits where. Nevermind not all artists might be pleased to be stuffed in a box, but though luck on them. Let's continue to figure out what fits where

But I don't mind you being all 'meh' either. It's cool.

Anyways! My suggestion is to start with the roots of the genre's you want to know about. Open a book or wikipedia, and start listening, and notice how the music has evolved. Again, this could very well be a crap suggestion.
But alot of bands are suggested right now. It's a great opportunity!

[Aqizzar]

As a guy who grew up listening to his wanna-be rockstar dad, it behooves me to throw in my two cents here and flame things up a bit.

Here's a list of bands/groups/artists-
Fleetwood Mac, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Lynard Skynard, Prince, The Doors, Jethro Tull, Queen, The Steve Miller Band, The Dire Straits, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Clash, Billy Idol, George Thorogood, Electric Light Orchestra, Jefferson Airplane, Deep Purple, Blue Oyster Cult, The Creedence Clearwater Revival, Aerosmith, Sammy Hagar, ZZ Top, Rush, Led Zeppelin, Journey, The Hollies, Grand Funk Railroad, The Who, Eddie Winter, Red Rider, The Eagles, Bon Jovi, and The Allman Brothers.

What do all these all have in common?  Exactly two things.  One, they are all part of the unwieldly massive genre of music known collectively as "Rock".

And two, because they're all more than twenty five years old and never sat around dicing up which part of spectrum they fell into, they're all thrown together into one big lump called "Classic Rock".

Now I love me some metal, as my Gigantour and Ozzfest shirts can attest.  But while Metal is most certainly Rock, Rock is by no means Metal.  You're arguing over which three identical groups of thrashing guitarists and screaming grumbly Norwegians are Black or Viking, and ignoring forty years worth of fantastic, wildly varied culture.  I know this is to be expected with internet folks who play a game as mental as Dwarf Fortress, but come on guys, broaden your horizons.

And to hear such a venerable and storied field of endeavour as Punk described as "Pretty much every band a teenage girl likes that includes a guitar falls under this."...  I hope you meet Sid Vicious some day so he can show you why they call him that.  Then Mike Ness, Dex Holland, Jello Biafra, and Gregory Graffin Ph.D can take turns working over what's left of you.  Philistine.

Just foolin' around there.  Obviously, your exposure to Punk is limited to wuss bands like Greenday.  But seriously man...

[Fishersalwaysdie]

I thought Sid Vicious is dead 

[Torak]

If Sid Vicious is a good Punk Rocker, then that entire genre needs to get wiped off the record and started over.

[Cthulhu]

I don't even know who that is.

[Kagus]

[Aqizzar]

Yeah yeah, Sid Vicious died a long time ago.  It was kind of part of a implied jesting threat because I really like punk rock.  By extension, nope, I don't like the Sex Pistols either, because I prefer more complicated melodies in my music.  But he was worth mentioning, because the Sex Pistols were, if not the originators, then certainly the best early example of the "Three Cords and the Truth" style of punk that splits the genre to this day, heavily influncing Motörhead, which in turn gave rise to the whole 'speed metal' side of the spectrum.

Since Kagus is the only one who can google, and I feel like talking, I'll break down the others.

Mike Ness is southern; since apparently anybody with a hint of twang is automatically in Buck Owens territory, I won't bother slicing up a distinction with country.  Suffice to say that he's hard rock with a punk style and a midwest accent.  If "Through These Eyes" was good enough for Yatzhee Croshaw, then it's good enough for you.

Dexter Holland is the frontman for The Offspring, and does the sort of music that most readily comes to mind with the word Punk; whiney suburbanites thrashing on cheap guitars.  They're sort of a modern yardstick from which other Punk genres orient - they're certainly not the best, just the most stylistically centrist.  And if you have to have lyrics about war and violence to considering worth listening to, "Hammerhead" should do nicely.

Jello Biafra was a key personality in the Dead Kennedys, who I threw in to show Punk is definately not 'pretentious chick music', except fakers like Greenday as I ranted.  And because "Holiday in Cambodia" is a fun song.

Doctor Gregory Graffin is the founder and lead singer of Bad Religion, a band which I can laboriously argue is to Punk as Iron Maiden is to Metal.  Both aren't mainstream enough to really be famous, but too mainstream for genre elitists to take seriously.  Both rejected thrash sound and fake rage for complicated riffs, technical proficiency, and genuine entusiasm.  Both also have been rocking hardcore longer than most of their fans realize.  Good examples are "New Dark Ages" and "Let Them Eat War".


Now to give some real answers to the original question.

Alterative (Rock or Punk) is a code word for 'can be listened to by women who think they're hip'.  If it was on VH1 in the 90's, it's Alternative.  Which is a bit unfortunate, because they're not necessarily bad songs or crap bands, just misleading and demo-targeted.  Again, Greenday is good example of the punk side, Nickelback and Collective Soul for rock.

To go along with my big rant, the category Southern Rock should be added to the list, to include many of the bands I mentioned.  It doesn't hold much influence today outside of pop-country (thanks statute of limitations), but for historical completeness can't be ignored.

There's not really such a genre as Classic Rock, because no band that's in it was "Classic" when they were new - no one sets out to be on the oldies station.  Casting a wide net, a hallmark would be a more accoustic sound, but The Eagles, who are most certainly Classic Rock, were made famous as one of the first bands to rely on electronic distortion.

And easy listening might include people like Frankie Valley and Glenn Campbell, but it hasn't existed in so long even I don't really know.  Basically it's what your grandparents listened to, and what even your parents think is square.

Holy crap that was long.  Yeah, music is definately a bad topic for discourse.