Interesting article about rock vs metal

[Walk]

The Great Rock 'n Roll Swindle

When one is young, there is a need to find a common index of things to discuss with one's friends. In times when words were less inexpensive, these included the myths and stories of culture, but now, it is basically limited to products. Whether media products, or tangible products like game systems, these are what one has in industrial society to talk about, besides the "news" which is, as most kids will readily note, vastly recombinant and usually a lot of paranoid hype about nothing.

Rock music was created as a product. Essentially, they first hyped the blues, portraying it as the wisdom of an alien and suppressed culture, as if the alien and suppressed culture of Indo-Europeans before Christianity wasn't real enough for them; however, cultures that emphasize healthy values don't sell as many products, so that - fortunately - was not what was marketed.

We're told about the blues form now and given the idea that a group of impoverished musicians got together and created it to sing of their sorrows at the mean hands of their oppressors, but really, the blues form is a distillation of European popular music by those who, without the benefit of music theory, needed a quick way to emulate it. Thus a simplification to the point of barebones, and development from there.

If you know your way around a pentatonic scale, you know how convenient the notes of the blues scale are, and how convenient the blues chord progressions are: basically, you can't screw it up. It doesn't require genius or years of training to produce. Although what you can do with it is highly limited, and its distillation of the vivid notes of the scale creates a constant intensity which is contrary to most artistic needs, it's easy to make and understand, thus accessible to everyone. Change the appearance of the artists, or add some trivial finishing touches, and you have something "new." It's the perfect product.

From there, it was easy to re-introduce elements of other popular music, add a seemingly white face, and voila! A new version of the same product, with the same advantages. It doesn't take much brains to borrow some licks, a good beat, a bassline, and hype your own particular neurosis into a hit. The Beatles got to pretend they were prophets for having discovered musicality in rock, but really, they were more reactionary than revolutionary: they were introducing more complex elements into a culture designed to be simplistic for the purpose of having its essence escape no one in a crowd of intelligence ranging from borderline retarded to high normal.

Tap your foot, to the beat; catch the hook, sing along. It's something "new" and you should be discussing it, and buying it, because your friends are. Because young people are introduced to this culture first, it forms the basis of what they know as "music" and thus what they expect for the rest of their lives. And to compete socially, they begin buying lots of expensive CDs and assorted paraphrenalia, and may even get some instruments to slog along with their own band. It's the perfect product.

Notwithstanding that most of rock 'n roll is bland, and if you listen to it for more than five times in a row, you will become very bored, it dominates the airwaves, and has even assimilated divergent genres like techno and hip-hop (that which has no character of its own can assimilate anything). Its simple instrumentation allows for very basic production, which makes it loud and easily heard while one is pumping gas, smoking crack, buying products, or having a thrilling orgasm in an AIDS-infested bathhouse. In fact, it is best if one is either wasted or doing something simple and repetitive, as it's perfect for a reduced concentration.

Even the best of your kids, no matter how smart they are, are going to want to have friends. If their friends talk about TV, video games, and music, and very little else, these kids are going to go looking for the best in rock. Of course, since the whole thing is a giant ripoff, they will end up thrashing around until they find something that is less offensive, and settling for that. It's an early lesson in passivity: don't aim for the best, but find something that sucks less. This will provide good training for their future numb, neo-mindless bureaucratic jobs!

I was fond of some metal music because it broke the rock formula. Where rock uses a fixed structure, defined succinctly as "an intro, a verse, a chorus, second verse, a second chorus, a breakdown section, back into a double length chorus and outro" by one experienced source 1, metal uses a narrative structure: songs develop, like classical songs, according to a central melody or "shape" of a dominant riff. Much as Mozart buried a very simple melody in very complex symphonies, metal bands shape their songs around an idea, and use a circuitous series of introductions, breakdowns, bridges and riff motif rotations to convey it.

This took a long time to develop, and was really not even extant as a concept until the late 1980s, exemplified best perhaps by Metallica's tribute to classical music, "Orion," or Bathory's classically-inspired "Blood, Fire, Death." These were, like the Beatles, a reactionary impulse against the dumbing-down that is the basis of rock music. I had high hopes for this genre, but alas, the social impetus that gets people into rock music also tears down anything that the crowd as a whole cannot appreciate.

Crowds detest those who stand out. The crowd mentality is paradox: one must be an individual doing what everyone else is doing, of their own "free will," of course. This way the individual gets the best of both worlds. They can worship their own ego, and also, socialize in a way that guarantees they won't offend anyone, thus eventually will get whatever they want, whether it be sex, drugs or simply, friends. Because these individuals have no other way to succeed, and because they depend on the crowd, they enforce it on others. Rock music is a product of the crowd.

When metal finally succumbed to the fetal impulse toward lowest common denominator at the turn of the millennia, it was an appropriate self-sacrifice, worthy of Jesus on the Cross. All of that labor to bring rock music to some degree of braininess, first by prog-rockers inspired by the Beatles, and then by generations of metal bands, was eventually dragged down by the nature of rock music - it is a product, and a product needs the crowd to buy it. This is why rock produces bitter old men, since 99.99% of those who get involved with it experience no real success, and the remainder are neurotic lapdogs kept by the industry and discarded when their usefulness is over (enjoy your suicide, Mr. Cobain - you're right: you failed).

Conservatives, or those who wish to uphold (post-Christian) "traditional" values, have a singleminded approach toward rock music. They will loudly proclaim that it's crap, and then ignore whatever their kids bring home because, after all, the kids are stimulated by the music's ability to provoke that reaction in brain-dead parental units. "Son, I'm reading the stock pages - turn that crap off and go to your room." That further heightens the marketability of rock. Liberals, of course, listen to jazz and world music and contort themselves pretending they can tell the difference between artists, tracks and genres.

My approach to rock music is to recognize the wisdom of this piece from the same source cited above:

There are twelve different Major keys and twelve different Minor keys. In each key there is a scale of eight notes, the eighth note being the same as the first but an octave above. A chord is where two or more notes are played together. There are three basic Major chords and three basic Minor chords in each key. You do not need to know the above but if you do want to, that's it.1

Our schools, public and private alike, have been dumbing themselves down for years to provide more inclusivity. First it was for the less-rigorous cultures of Southern and Eastern Europe, infused with the failed remnants of the once-great Greco-Roman empire, and then it was for new groups of people from other cultures which didn't have a classical music tradition like that of Europe. This isn't to slam those groups; they can do what they want. However, it's time to bring back classical music education for the simple purpose of debunking rock.

When one is familiar with how easy it is to pick out a basic riff and harmonize it, then make a pop song, the mysticism of rock - the longstanding tradition of "authenticity" through alienation extending from the blues through punk - is vanquished, because the music is seen as un-fascinating since, well, it's actually quite bland. You have a basic chord progression, and you use notes in that chord to determine what keys you can switch to, if you do at all; guitar solos are a matter of staying within some degree of modal coherence to the progression underlying them, or using the pentatonic so everything "sounds good." It's not rocket science.

That's the approach I'd take. Our kids deserve better music, but in order to tell the difference, their first experience with music has to involve knowledge, not the crowd-pleasing ignorance that makes rock a perfect product. Stamp your foot and scream that all rock is crap, and well, they'll run to MTV and go buy the latest rock or rock-hybrid at $16/CD. Show them something better, regardless of form - it's even possible to simply make brainier rock music, as Yes and Bathory and King Crimson did - and they'll slowly continue the reactionary process of converting rock from moron fodder into something listenable. That alone is victory over the crowd.

November 30, 2004  ANUS.com

I agree with this.

[Mattman]

I think one of the things that this guy misses is that not everybody wants to listen to music for an intellectually stimulating experience.  Yes, if you're really into music theory and all that, genres like classical, progressive rock and metal supply you with interesting song structures.  But sometimes you don't want to have to think to enjoy music, you just want to be able to have a good time.  You can say that rock music isn't "brainy" if you want, but that's why people enjoy it, because it's fun.  Nobody ever listened to AC/DC to be intellectually enlightened.

[Walk]

But as Prozak said earlier, you get bored of it after about 5x in a row.  For me, now, rock music is what I listen to 5% of the time. When I'm writing an essay or drawing, I need my metal or classical to help me think (no jazz; jazz is silly). The other 5% of the time, I'm getting laid. 

But the whole "groupthink" of rock has gotten awful. I can't walk outside my dorm room without hearing yet another boring Simple Plan or Incubus song. It isn't unique anymore. It's the groupthink that kills good music. The vast majority of GnR fans gave up and moved on to rap-rock or whatever is popular now. The rest of us hang out here and whine about music no longer being good, instead of actively making new music or working on a time machine; take your pick.

This article makes me wonder about metal's fate. It's pretty much been established that rock music is a fad and classical will endure as long as Western civilization does. What happens to metal?  So far, things look bad. It's too complex for mass popularity, but it's not sophisticated enough to receive the respect classical does. It should be more widely discussed and appreciated.

Here is my solution: Chris, unlock the metal thread! 

[Chris Misfit]

I'll open it if you want, it's just too vague having a Metal thread, with fuck all discussion.

[Walk]

Would a metal/rap/punk/pop/classic forum setup be any better? Having one forum for all music is cool for exposing people to all types of music, but a few specific threads could be informative for people who are interested in a specific type of music. Best of both worlds!

[Metallifuck]

I'll open it if you want, it's just too vague having a Metal thread, with fuck all discussion.

Well done.

[Mattman]

Incubus and Simple Plan might not be my favourite bands, but it's not because the songs are simplistic, I think it's more just because the quality of the songs is far weaker than your classic bands.  But the formula for all remains the same.  As I said, rock artists ranging from AC/DC to Bruce Springsteen to later Metallica all utilize the verse/chorus/verse structure.  But I don't think that's a problem, as long as you've got a good song.  Maybe today it's just a little TOO blatant, formulaic and corporate.

Groupthink does have a large influence on rock music, but so does any other musical genre, including metal.  After all, a lot of people like metal just because all their friends like it and they want to fit in, even if this desire is purely subconscious.  This kind of thing affects all musical genres, and it's so subtle that you don't really know whether to draw the line.  You could tell someone that they're only listening to a particular piece of music because its popular, but if they earnestly say "I like this kind of music", what are you supposed to say to them?  "No, you actually don't"?

As for jazz...if part of your reason for liking classical and metal is because you want interesting and inventive song structures and melodic developments, I'm surprised that you don't like jazz more.  It's often cited as the thinking person's genre, since it's based highly on improvisation and you never know where it's going to go musically.  Besides, a lot of people would say metal is silly - singers with vocals in the extreme high or low end, loudly roaring guitars, overdramatic soloing, etc.  It's all about personal taste.

[DEAD HORSE]

FIrst of all , i couldnt stand reading this article , i mean , sounds stupid , just because that guy doesnt like rock or blues he talks shit about it. It might be simple in some cases, but you cant  talk shit about the blues,if it werent for the blues rock n roll wouldnt be here, nor metal. 

I love Heavy metal music, I love it complexity, BUT it seems to me that this guy havent heard Pink Floyd, how can he suggest an intellectual song if he listens to metal.. i mean , whats so intellectual about metal music anyway? if we all know metal scene comes from rock n roll music.  If metal were brilliant enough, metal bands would never have covered  any classic rock song...and if you want names i'll give names...

Judas Priest - Johnny B. Goode (from Chuck berry)
Iron Maiden - Comunication Breakdown (From Led Zeppelin)
Yngwie Malsteen - Dream On (Aerosmith)
Slayer - IM a Gada Da Vida (fromIron Butterfly)
Pantera - Cold Gin (From Kiss)
Blind GUardian - Barbara Ann ( The Beach Boys)
Van Halen - Pretty Woman ( Roy Orbison)
Accept - Live Wire (ac/dc)
Metallica - Turn The Page ) from Bob Segger)
Ozzy OSbourne - Purple Haze ( from Jimi Hendrix)
Dream Theater - In the flesh (from Pink FloyD)


So rock is boring, uh ? 

[Walk]

Jazz is a little too unpredictable for my tastes.  I don't mind jazz influences in other music, though.

Well, he does complement classic rock like King Crimson and Yes. I'm certain he also enjoys his Floyd, too. The point is, rock music, and really all music, eventually gets stale because of trend followers. We haven't had a great new rock band in years, certainly not as great as GnR or Zep. It's the corporations, I tell you. 

[Mr. Dick Purple]

Well I agree on the article about one thing, people want to have friends and ir order to have friends you've got to like the same things, thats why being antisocial is better than wanting to have friends, anyway the world is going straightly to hell, people dont want to think but act impulsively, is the same thing in music, people think that if you sell young "cool" guys you could make a trend, and then we have a cool trend to follow, so now we've got the "uncool" and we have to make music for the "uncool" followers, and now we accaparate the 2 trends and voil? we have marketing, the people that think and want to listened to music can distinguish what's good for themselves, and that's in my opinion, are only few. 

[Metallifuck]

how can he suggest an intellectual song if he listens to metal..

[qoute]

What do you mean? You can't judge 'Metal' as one type of music, it has several main catergorys (you probably know anyway but...): heavy metal, thrash metal, power metal, death metal, industrial metal etc.

Death metal is clearly the most intellectual 

[Skeletor]

^You suck at teh internet   ...Anyway, I guess you've never heard of a band called Opeth.

[Walk]

Death metal is interesting. It's either intellectual (Death, Atheist, Kataklysm, The Chasm) or br00tal (Devourment, Cannibal Corpse). Very little in between. I prefer intellectual death metal most of the time.

But that's ok. There's always thrash, power, and other good stuff for people turned off by the vocals. As for the most intellectual form of metal, I'll say black metal. 99% of black metal is crap, though. The top 1% is the good stuff.

[Skeletor]

As for the most intellectual form of metal, I'll say black metal. 99% of black metal is crap, though. The top 1% is the good stuff.

Have you heard 'Aspera Hiems Symfonia' by Arcturus, by the way?

[Walk]

Get on soulseek and I can get it from you.  My name is SCALD.

[Oddy]

walk how could you agree with that article when your on a guns n roses board

that guy basically slagged off all blues based rock guitarists.

look at slash. all he uses is pentatonics, rarely goes outside those boxes apart from the occasional harmonic minor run or something (like SCOM). i guess slashes style of guitar is "easy to make and understand then."

you can look at metal guitarists the same way. just learn all of he modes modes, learn the harmonic minor scales play those and you'll do fine. also learn super fast chromatic patterns aswell. metal is just as easy to pull off.

the blues is easy to pull off argument he uses is irrational.

some people don't like metal because it honestly sounds like crap to them. i just saw a band on tv yeah the screaming didn't bother me, nor the non-stop double kick drums, but the riffs sounded so random. Playing random notes in 9/8 time it sounded like the guitar player was trying to hit the wrong notes, just to be like "yeah that was so experimental" well im sorry but it sounded like absolute shit. no melody there was just shit. sometimes random stuff sounds good because it gives a sense of chaos, this utterly failed IMO and its this pseudo experimental crap that puts people off metal. while the fans will just tell nay-sayers that they can't see the "beauty" in the music. A lot of the time that beauty is just musical gibberish that followers think they understand.

How the hell did we go from metal bands such as iron maiden and black sabbath to what i saw on tv? i used to think of metal as the classical you know, like the high form of music since it was so influenced by classical music. now it has branched off to shit with people trying to "break the formula" and be "experimental" but they all fail because they stray too far away from classical music metals fuckin mother and faja. thats right faaaaa jaaaaaa.

so rock is a lower form of music eh? go into the "songs you recommend thread" then look at my post its like second last where i recommend a song by umphrey's mcgee. thats some very very musical rock.

im sorry but that guy seems like a wanker, wow criticizing the mainstream for being to "generic" and "structured" well fuck me its the mainstream what do you expect. mainstream doesnt want the random "experimental" bullshit til they can play something that sounds good.

i made no sense, but that article is a poo poo head.

[Skeletor]

Get on soulseek and I can get it from you.? My name is SCALD.

Sorry, I only use DC++, but I definitely recommend you get your hands on it - assuming you appreciate the finest black metal has to offer

[Skeletor]

some people don't like metal because it honestly sounds like crap to them. i just saw a band on tv...

No offense but if you get your metal from TV, you're pretty much out of it.

[Oddy]

it was from a program called rage on abc in australia.

they play anyones videos, and i mean anyones.

seriosuly one time they had a video on that was shot with a crappy home video camera with a guy dressed in a monk costume and the other guys wearing knight costumes like it was shot in their basement with curtains draped in the background. the guy was playing a lute which strangley sounded like a heavily distorted electric guitar.

this isn't mtv or vh1. this program plays all sorts of shit that would never see the light of day anywhere else. bands send in their videos and sometimes they play them no matter how bad.

this program plays anything no matter how stupid. occasionally theres some gems. i saw too good bands, one called firewind nad the other was um........something rites. hell i cant remember. absolute cheese metal but it was fuckin brilliant. the videos were so cheap too.

i was just using the one example. just cuz its on tv doesnt make it bad. but this one yep......it was awful.

[Oddy]

i can feel a wrath coming from you metal heads, oh i love it.

shit its 5:30 am............im going to bed oh fuck theres light.

i'll come back when i wake up from my haze to think what haaaaaaaaaaave i dooooooooooooooooooooone *cue violins*