Rye wrote:
So what? Good shit is still good shit, even if it borrows from other bands. A band doesn't have to be obscure enough not to have common themes with other bands to be good!
Obscurity does not equal originality, though many ahead-of-their-time bands are being neglected by their contemporaries.
And metal is built upon innovation, among other things.
Where would NWOBHM have been if Judas Priest had not created a new style and set an example for others?
Where would Black Metal have been if bands such as Mercyful Fate and Venom hadn't introduced anti-Christian ideology to metal?
Where would Thrash Metal have been if bands such as Overkill and Metallica hadn't decided to play music more vicious than anything that had been made before?
And where would the genre be at all if Black Sabbath hadn't broken with the trends which prevailed in the sixties?
If the genre is not to stagnate, we need more innovation, not more bands who go where others have gone before.
Uh-huh. You've just found a recent hobby with nihilism is all. IMO, metal's more about entertainment and the spirit of rebellion and aggression than "deep meaningful philosophy." We have books for reading, songs for singing, listening and dancing to.
Go ahead and kill the messenger, then. Fact is that beneath the facade of mere aggression and rebellion, there is more than that. Metal is not just about teenaged angst, it is about rebellion against monotheistic religion and the philosophies currently in charge (ever wonder why Black Metal bands usually have anti-Christian lyrics and why Death Metal bands usually have lyrics which deny the sanctity of human life?) - and building a new order based upon the rule of the strong. (ever wonder why Manowar sing about mighty warriors?)
Metal must be appreciated as more than entertainment, since almost all artists in the genre put ideology behind their music - and in these ideologies, as though they vary, there are several common denominators:
1. Dissatisfaction with monotheistic religion.
2. Disregard for the codes of morality which currently define our culture.
3. A desire to crush all the value systems which dominate our society and replace them with something else - the proposed utopia varies, but usually it has next-to-nothing in common with the Western society of the 21th century which we currently live in.
And guess what? All of these elements are found in Nihilism! Many bands even cite Nihilist philosophy as a lyrical and musical inspiration.
So, it's not the music and it's effectiveness as music which matters, but the pretension behind it.
Strawman. What matters it not the pretense, but instead the way that the music stimulates the intended atmosphere and emotions, and how succesfully it expresses the worldview and the visions of the artist.
This is not pretense - pretense is to make music that PRETENDS to do this but doesn't.
That's because you're obsessing over stuff that doesn't actually matter in comparison to the music, fitting the exact definition of pretentious because you think it deserves some sort of merit over and above music without your artificial grading scale.
Ideology and worldview does matter in comparison to the music, as all music expresses the worldview and philosophy of its artist, intentional or not. What matters more, however, is whether the true motivation is a desire to express what the artist has to say, not a desire to appeal to the taste of others.
Oh please.
They SOUND GOOD. What else matters for a fucking BAND?!
Read above. True art is mere than just entertainment.
Well, i can't say i've been interested enough in the whole scene to chart who's been "selling out" or who's merely been popular. I suspect cradle are the latter, and obscure black metal fanboys have been labelling anything popular a sell out.
Strawman. CoF aren't considered sellouts because they're popular, it is because they are apparently more interested in making money than expressing their ideology and their worldview subtly through music. I don't know that much about CoF to be honest, but from what I know they're all flash and no bang - their music may "sound good", but there is little behind it except for appeal to gothling teenagers.
If music's quality is based upon whether it sounds good to the naked ear, I suppose that most insipid pop music is better than Holst or Stravinsky because it is easier to appreciate.
A band isn't automatically a sellout if it has mass appeal, they're sellouts if they sacrifice creative vision in favour of money and their fanbase.
And that's exactly what CoF have done AFAIK. As mentioned before I'm not that familiar with them, but from what I know they seem to create music to entertain others (the "goth" subculture and the hordes of trendies which cling onto it), not to express their ideology and philosophy in audio form.
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I understand the reaction. I had a similar one.