# Is Progressive Metal the new Cock Rock?



## amonb (Feb 15, 2017)

I was watching Youtube last night, and in particular Anthony Fantano's recent take on Lil Yachty, and it made me think about the last time _I _heard a "revolution" in music I listened to, and it made me think of Smells Like Teen Spirit. It is widely perceived to be Nirvana that spelled the end of "cock rock", primarily the idea that a bunch of scruffy kids with cheap (oh god I wish this was still true) Fenders and a rip off of "More Than A Feeling" could make people think "Wow, I don't need to know five hundred scales, wear spandex and my mum's wig to get signed, or even just be appreciated".

This brings me to the current state of progressive metal. While nowhere near as popular as cock rock was back in the 80s, I can see some murky parallels... the advanced technique, the reliance on very similar (and expensive) gear, a very vocal "scene" with a million rules... I'm sure there's more.

This is not a hate post. One of my favourite albums of all time is Tesseract's Altered State, and I'll lap up anything Devin puts out (Ocean Machine sits even higher than Altered State in my rankings). Just trying to provoke some thought and listen to some opinions, as it has been a while since I have chatted in any meaningful way on here.


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## Lasik124 (Feb 15, 2017)

...Yes


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## oc616 (Feb 15, 2017)

Funny story, one of the kids in the school where I work has started his "Stylistic Development" essay based on this topic. Whilst he's doing comparisons of BMTH or Asking Alexandria to Sex Pistols or The Clash (shudders), he's drawing parallels between Rush era prog to today's bands, being the "musicians music" more than music you could dance to.

Speaking personally, I've gone back to listening more to my nostalgic roots like Deftones, Korn, Slipknot and Fear Factory. I've gotten over the technical razzle-dazzle of AAL, Chon, The Faceless et al. Something just feels very sterile and clinical about it now, even though that's something that SHOULD appeal to me (hey, I mentioned FF didn't I?)

As far as new(ish) bands go that I think fly in the face of this somewhat within the "modern, slightly progressive, metalcore" world, anything Josh Travis touches has a raw and violent edge to it. I just finished up a cover of Emmure's "Torch" (shameless plug), and whilst doing it I realised something. I've never liked the band before, and the metal-swag image is so cringe inducing, but there was more appeal and evocative...power?...in playing those chugs than any Born of Osiris track I've covered for example. The subtleties in where the palm is placed for different dynamics to get the chugs to stand out in particular parts was thrilling to figure out, instead of the chore of trying to get the 6th note in 2 seconds worth of lead to fit. This is all anecdotal I know, but I do believe something will soon come along that drags us back to something more natural and raw sounding. Production, loudness and £6000 rigs can only go on so long. 

Oooh! Frontierer is also a good example of this, possibly a candidate if they manage to keep up their momentum from Orange Mathematics.


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## amonb (Feb 15, 2017)

oc616 said:


> Production, loudness and £6000 rigs can only go on so long.



I actually mentioned the Loudness War in my original post but deleted it... I figured I was being controversial enough 

Simple music IS satisfying, and it may not be simple when you break down the intricacies of it, such as your Emmure example. 

I for one can't wait to hear what the next trendcrusher (see what I did there) sounds like...



Lasik124 said:


> ...Yes


 /thread


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## oc616 (Feb 15, 2017)

I remember an interview with Shawn when he played backing guitar for Korn. He said anyone can play the songs note for note, but their charm was in the WAY they played the track. "I'm reading the tabs and those guys are saying I'm too clean, it doesn't sound like Korn."


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## CaptainD00M (Feb 15, 2017)

oc616 said:


> "I'm reading the tabs and those guys are saying I'm too clean, it doesn't sound like Korn."



Its kind of related - but I saw an interview with Rob Zombie and he mentioned on the recent album he had to keep telling John 5 to play is _less_ clean.

I went off technical music quite a few years back and went back to my love of Doom and worshiping riffs - the Doom scene has become pretty dam huge nowadays with the inter webs and connecting people, and I've been wondering if this is a reaction to what you guys are talking about. Similar to how punk was in part a reaction to the excess of 70's prog. I'm just throwing ideas around I'm not sure I'm convinced of my theory.

I went and saw High on Fire on their last tour with Meshuggah, in Amsterdam. Matt Pike commented that it was an odd choice of bands for a tour, but thanked Meshuggah for inviting them. I had to agree as it may as well have been two separate shows. After HoF finished I think about 65% of the HoF guys left or went off to a coffee shop, then all the Mesh fans turned up and the place was packed out it took me five minuets to get to the door that was 30m away. 

I mean Mesh have always been popular but seeing them in 2008 v now there were definitely MORE people coming to the show. So in that sense it seems reminiscent of what OP's talking about with 80's cock rock.


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## JustMac (Feb 15, 2017)

There's all these subsets of "prog metal" today though. You have this Plini, Sithu Aye, Polyphia, Intervals, Helix Nebula, CHON-type instrumental stuff that to me just all sounds the same, and then you have Meshuggah, SikTh, Protest the Hero etc., which is just good music that has little regard for what's trendy. I'm not really into the first bracket at all, because it's all very homogeneous -- pleasant, but I can't listen to a whole album of diatonic fretboard wanking (honestly, people who call CHON "jazz" are insane). 

I realise the first set is all instrumental, but I wouldn't put AAL in there, for example.


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## Demiurge (Feb 15, 2017)

I think that it's a different set of circumstances. While the whole "____ was a reaction to ____" is a nice story for journalists to tell in hindsight, it kind of avoids the whole possibility that some people were just doing their own thing and didn't care what was popular. Especially in metal, where there is no monoculture, people can live entire musical lives playing & listening to what they like without ever _knowing of_ any of the so-called progressive bands are. Comparatively, cock rock was more popular, prevalent, and in some ways unavoidable; progressive metal is double-niche.


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## CaptainD00M (Feb 15, 2017)

Demiurge said:


> I think that it's a different set of circumstances. While the whole "____ was a reaction to ____" is a nice story for journalists to tell in hindsight, it kind of avoids the whole possibility that some people were just doing their own thing and didn't care what was popular.



Yeah you raise a valid counter point - I know from having studied popular musicology in the case of punk some bands are on record saying they were reacting to the excess of 70's prog, but I suspect that the majority were doing their own thing and it happened to transpire at the same time.

I think your point is perhaps even more valid today than in the 70's because of that lack of monoculture, and its these days music is even more driven by interconnected scenes that are connected through the web and so on. So the chance of people looking at other scenes and thinking 'hey they are doing something similar I like lets do this' even though they might be separated by many thousands of miles - is a reality.


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## amonb (Feb 15, 2017)

CaptainD00M said:


> I went off technical music quite a few years back and went back to my love of Doom and worshiping riffs - the Doom scene has become pretty dam huge nowadays with the inter webs and connecting people...



It's funny you mention that, as I definitely see doom/sludge as having that same 90s grunge aesthetic... that was the genre I was primarily thinking of when I wrote the thread (hence the tag).


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## amonb (Feb 15, 2017)

Demiurge said:


> I think that it's a different set of circumstances. While the whole "____ was a reaction to ____" is a nice story for journalists to tell in hindsight, it kind of avoids the whole possibility that some people were just doing their own thing and didn't care what was popular.



Well said, I 100% agree, which is why I worded the original post the way I did... that story is just how journos told it. At the time, being just a 14 year old music fqn when Nirvana broke, I didn't see it as a changing of the guard, I just saw it as being a bunch of guys who weren't dressed like girls playing huge riffs. That appealled to me. It wasn't until later, when Def Leppard put out "Slang", Poison put out the Ritchie Kotzen album and Motley Crue put out the self-titled album, that I started to really see that something had happened.


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## CaptainD00M (Feb 15, 2017)

amonb said:


> It's funny you mention that, as I definitely see doom/sludge as having that same 90s grunge aesthetic... that was the genre I was primarily thinking of when I wrote the thread (hence the tag).



Yeah - while I think dimurge has a point I know I went back to Doom and Sludge because somehow a riff that you can move like a seasick sailor too has much more appeal to me than overly staccato playing.

In 2008 I saw Mesh and enjoyed it, but felt then it was lacking something. When I saw them 8 years later I was like 'Meh, not for me' and left a half hour into their set. I wanted to have a groove or something I could get into, Meshuggah was a bit too much like watching brain surgery for me.


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## TedEH (Feb 15, 2017)

amonb said:


> This brings me to the current state of progressive metal. While nowhere near as popular as cock rock was back in the 80s, I can see some murky parallels... the advanced technique, the reliance on very similar (and expensive) gear, a very vocal "scene" with a million rules... I'm sure there's more.



I honestly don't see the point anyone is trying to make. Neither prog nor metal are new, and neither has taken a recent culturally relevant place like any major wave of historically significant music. There's a trend for noodly djent solo albums being appreciated by the guitar-forum-following crowd, but there's no "revolution in music" happening here.

The closest thing to a musical revolution that I think is happening or relevant at all is the lowering of barriers to entry for independent / home recordings and distribution, at the same time that the traditional "biz" is dying a slow painful death. This means that niche genres, and music born from hobbies and side projects and people who have day jobs, have the opportunity to thrive in their own small way, while nobody feels obligated any longer to listen to whatever the radio wants to beat us over the head with. It's a distancing of the art form from the business side of things. We're hearing more passion products and less just the "products" being sold to us.

But no, "modern prog metal" is not the new anything. I don't think there's even a consensus as to what that even means as a genre- it's one of those giant umbrella terms that covers such a vague variety of stuff that two people can claim to be fans of the "same genre" but not like any of the same bands. I can understand the desire to make your own interests culturally relevant, but lets not pretend our niche interests are some kind of revolution.


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## Herrick (Feb 15, 2017)

I don't see much of a connection between Hair "Metal" and modern Prog Metal. The work ethic and outlook on writing music is just too different. Prog Metal bands tend to take their work very seriously. They're not trying to write hit singles or get on the radio or MTV. They're not trying to become "rock and roll stars" or "take over the world". 

That being said, I don't listen to a whole lot of Progressive or Technical Metal especially Tech Death or Djent. The Tech Death can come off like like an indecipherable flurry of notes flying around and the Djent stuff can sound like random start stop riffing. I know I'm being extremely general here but where are the heavy memorable RIFFS?


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## vilk (Feb 15, 2017)

Cock rock, in my mind, was essentially pop music. It was about the singing and the lyrics. There was guitar solos, but outside of that the songs are pretty simplistic, like pop music always is. Like _You Give Love a Bad Name_ by Bon Jovie.

Progressive metal is usually complex, with tendency for longer songs that change as they go on (progress, if you will). That's a turn off to pop listeners right there. It's organized around the instruments more than "singing the words", which is boring to pop listeners, as they're mostly only concerned with singing the words.

Short of impressive guitar solo sections and use of clean vocals, I don't see many other similar elements between prog metal and cock rock.


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## extendedsolo (Feb 15, 2017)

Name me a musical movement that doesn't have a set of "rules" that seem too extensive. Really the beginning and end of it is that players in the 80s and prog now can play fast. That's where the similarities start and stop in my mind. There were guys in the 80s that were technical, but I think players now are so much more technical it's not even fair to compare. Many of the hair bands used progressions that had been used in the 50s and 60s and many of them used a ton of blues based songs. Guys now still do that, but so many new sounds that haven't been as utilized are being used. Yeah there will be blowback with the current prog scene, but the cream will always rise to the top and stick around.


Also why in the world are you watching Anthony Fantano? That guy is a pretty big hack in my opinion and it's unbelievable how popular he is on youtube. Why do I want to be told what to think or feel about music? throw pitchfork in there too as far as popular things that people rely on that are stupid. 

Also, let's talk about Smells like Teen Spirit. There is this thought that there is a big dividing line that once that song came out EVERYTHING else ended. That is simply not true. Hair metal was still pretty popular for a little after that, but in 1991-92 hair metal was on its last legs already. It had run its course and was ripe for the picking. What's more is that when you go back and listen to hair metal it had some really strong acts, but so many of the acts were not good. Yes there was def lepard and motley crue, but there was also bullet boys and tygers of pang tang. Just like now. For every AAL out there, there exists 1000 guys trying to make it on bandcamp.


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## Herrick (Feb 15, 2017)

vilk said:


> Cock rock, in my mind, was essentially pop music. It was about the singing and the lyrics. There was guitar solos, but outside of that the songs are pretty simplistic, like pop music always is. Like _You Give Love a Bad Name_ by Bon Jovie.
> 
> Progressive metal is usually complex, with tendency for longer songs that change as they go on (progress, if you will). That's a turn off to pop listeners right there. It's organized around the instruments more than "singing the words", which is boring to pop listeners, as they're mostly only concerned with singing the words.




Well said. This is why pop music does not appeal to me for the most part. I do like some 80s Queen because I'm a semi Freddie Mercury fanboy but when the main focus of music is to prop up the singer, then I look elsewhere. 

There are exceptions though. I've never been a fan of stuff like James Brown or Big Bang music but at least that stuff seems to have more *music* in it than pop music from the last few decades. I could listen to old R&B & big band stuff if I had to.


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## Rachmaninoff (Feb 15, 2017)

Herrick said:


> I don't see much of a connection between Hair "Metal" and modern Prog Metal. The work ethic and outlook on writing music is just too different. Prog Metal bands tend to take their work very seriously.



Hair metal guys took themselves too unseriously; modern prog takes themselves too seriously. These extremes end up being similar to me, both exhibiting Spinal Tap traits.


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## sakeido (Feb 15, 2017)

Prog metal is not the new cock rock. Cock rock bands sold millions of albums, played sold out stadium tours, had lots of girls at their shows, and still get radio airplay to this day. A successful prog metal release sells 2,000 copies, plays small bar shows to audiences of tens of dudes, and hardly even manage to get on satellite radio when the songs are brand new. It isn't even relevant right now. It just plays to an audience that heavily overlaps with people inclined to use online forums (ie. nerds) and as such is totally overrepresented on places like this. 



TedEH said:


> I honestly don't see the point anyone is trying to make. Neither prog nor metal are new, and neither has taken a recent culturally relevant place like any major wave of historically significant music.



Hair metal defined the 80s


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## Emperor Guillotine (Feb 15, 2017)

JustMac said:


> There's all these subsets of "prog metal" today though. You have this Plini, Sithu Aye, Polyphia, Intervals, Helix Nebula, CHON-type instrumental stuff that to me just all sounds the same, and then you have Meshuggah, SikTh, Protest the Hero etc., which is just good music that has little regard for what's trendy. I'm not really into the first bracket at all, because it's all very homogeneous -- pleasant, but I can't listen to a whole album of diatonic fretboard wanking (honestly, people who call CHON "jazz" are insane).
> 
> I realise the first set is all instrumental, but I wouldn't put AAL in there, for example.


^ I second all of this.

I actually was just thinking to myself about what is going to happen to these guys who are scraping a living off of music (specifically the now-booming prog scene which is still fairly niche) once the trend dies down and they are tossed aside by the industry for the next trending thing/sound. Will they adapt? Will they continue to ripoff each other? Or will they settle into obscurity working average day jobs like the rest of us?


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## TedEH (Feb 15, 2017)

sakeido said:


> Hair metal defined the 80s



And....? There's zero connection between this and current prog metal trends. I didn't say metal was never culturally relevant, I said that prog metal now doesn't have the cultural significance that something like hair metal used to have. The 80s no longer counts as "recent".


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## KnightBrolaire (Feb 15, 2017)

like others have mentioned the only real parallel I see is technical ability being praised in both groups to an extent.


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## bostjan (Feb 15, 2017)

The influences totally trace back.

Look, musical styles never go away, they just get more or less popular from day to day. Cock rock never went away. But think about it, guys like Tony MacAlpine, Yngwie, Paul Gilbert, and Steve Vai (also hundreds more) were the guitarists of cock rock, and they went on to influence the likes of John Pettrucci, Buckethead, Ron Jarzombek, Michael Romeo, etc., in the 1990's and those guys went on to influence guys like Misha and Tosin etc. from the 2000's-2010's...

Meanwhile, Nirvana influenced grunge bands (Stone Temple Pilots, Pearl Jam, Creed, etc.) who influenced post-grunge bands (Three Days Grace, 3 Doors Down, Shinedown, etc.), who influenced whatever is left of that lineage today (Kings of Leon?, Daughtery?). The grunge thing fell largely out of favour, though, once Nickelback became the diplomatic representative of the genre.

What do we have left at the bleeding edge of popularized rock music today? Hmmph, I don't know exactly what it is, but you have Imagine Dragons and Mumford and Sons kind of blending in elements of rock into other popular styles, but rock as a pure art form is largely stagnant in the world of popular songs. It's easy to be a fan of Periphery complaining about post-grunge, or a fan of Shinedown complaining about djent, but with your relevance to mainstream music waning heavily either way, we might as well all stick together and try to bring rock back to the status it once had, whether people are going to listen to the next Queen, the next Queensryche, the next Queens of the Stone Age.


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## Unleash The Fury (Feb 15, 2017)

It mainly comes down to mainstream media. Today you can choose what you want to see, hear, and read. In the 80s you had 20 tv channels max; only one of them, MTV, showed music videos. You didnt have napster and pandora and youtube. You had very little in means of entertainment and broadcasting, so you swallowed it up!


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## endmysuffering (Feb 15, 2017)

bostjan said:


> The influences totally trace back.
> 
> Look, musical styles never go away, they just get more or less popular from day to day. Cock rock never went away. But think about it, guys like Tony MacAlpine, Yngwie, Paul Gilbert, and Steve Vai (also hundreds more) were the guitarists of cock rock, and they went on to influence the likes of John Pettrucci, Buckethead, Ron Jarzombek, Michael Romeo, etc., in the 1990's and those guys went on to influence guys like Misha and Tosin etc. from the 2000's-2010's...
> 
> ...



THANK YOU!


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## AngstRiddenDreams (Feb 15, 2017)

Yeah for sure. If anything djent/prog has devolved into the pop of modern metal, which is essentially what Cock Rock was. Shreddy guitars and hooks? Check. Ridiculous lyrics? Check. 
Popularity of bands like Nails, Code Orange, Cult Leader, Primitive Man are showing that it swings the other way eventually.

Also, don't hate on Anthony Fantano because he might not have the same opinion on a record as you do. He never says his views are objective and I think he gives tons of reasoning why he likes or dislikes things.


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## Emperor Guillotine (Feb 15, 2017)

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> Popularity of bands like Nails, Code Orange, Cult Leader, Primitive Man are showing that it swings the other way eventually.


Well, high energy punk like Code Orange and Knocked Loose is a currently trending sound, and their trending is completely independent of the now-booming prog scene. (I say this because I know guys who are now fans of this high energy punk and they have never listened to some of the trending prog bands.) It's got nothing to do with musical tastes/preferences/trends swinging the other way.


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## extendedsolo (Feb 15, 2017)

Unleash The Fury said:


> It mainly comes down to mainstream media. Today you can choose what you want to see, hear, and read. In the 80s you had 20 tv channels max; only one of them, MTV, showed music videos. You didnt have napster and pandora and youtube. You had very little in means of entertainment and broadcasting, so you swallowed it up!



Yeah, but cock rock wasn't the most popular music in the 80s. It was stuff like Prince, micheal jackson, george michael, whitney houston. Yeah bon jovi was in there, but as popular as hair metal was it paled in comparison to many other things that were getting more mainstream exposure.



AngstRiddenDreams said:


> Yeah for sure. If anything djent/prog has devolved into the pop of modern metal, which is essentially what Cock Rock was. Shreddy guitars and hooks? Check. Ridiculous lyrics? Check.
> Popularity of bands like Nails, Code Orange, Cult Leader, Primitive Man are showing that it swings the other way eventually.
> 
> Also, don't hate on Anthony Fantano because he might not have the same opinion on a record as you do. He never says his views are objective and I think he gives tons of reasoning why he likes or dislikes things.



To your first point, I don't think music really swings in a pendulum anymore. With so many ways to put out or listen to music I think that it's more of a "swirl" than a pendulum. I would also hardly call Nails and bands like that popular so much as noticed now? In metal/hardcore there are very few popular bands. 

I don't dislike Fantano because of differing opinions. I just think making an entire channel devoted to your opinion on music is gross and self-serving. I know he would frame it as "hey man just my opinion!" but he's forming a lot of opinions for other people too which I think is really unfortunate. I mean he literally has videos that are called the best and worst tracks of the week. I'm fine with "best" but "worst"? Really? That to me is where it's obvious he isn't doing it for the love of music, but trying to get views mainly. Do you really think people care about best and dont' sit through and watch for the worst? What's more is that it's impossible, literally impossible for him to form any kind of relationship with any of the music he is listening too. There simply isn't enough time for him to have a song/album burrow into his brain. These aren't problems I have with him, but rather music reviews in general. I've seen a couple of his videos on other sites and at the end I half expect him to start sniffing his own farts at the end of the video. This isn't to say that suggestions are never welcome, but lets be real, he ranks it with a 1-10 number at the end of his videos. It's not a suggestion anymore at that point.


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## AngstRiddenDreams (Feb 15, 2017)

extendedsolo said:


> opinions




Okay so your point is basically that he's a YouTube reviewer and you think that concept is stupid? How do you feel about people who do this for gear? This forum does the same thing with pickup shootouts or whatever it may be. If you think that music reviews in general are dumb then call everyone a hack, not just Fantano. 
Also, you're spreading your opinion of reviews being dumb. Which is ironic. You may not see value in hearing someone else's review of music, but by flaming people for watching reviews based on your opinion of them you're doing the same thing. You're also making a lot of assumptions.

I'd say Nails is pretty big right now, 133,000 FB likes isn't something to scoff at. I mean I consider Periphery to be huge in the metal scene and they've got about 450,000. 
If Grunge was the follower of cock-rock, then sludge/doom/hardcore emergence is the follower of prog's mainstream prevalence.

EDIT: I know sluge/doom/hardcore have been around forever but I feel they're becoming more talked about now than before. The scene in Seattle right now couldn't be more dominated by it.


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## amonb (Feb 16, 2017)

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> If Grunge was the follower of cock-rock, then sludge/doom/hardcore emergence is the follower of prog's mainstream prevalence.



I agree with this. And from the viewpoint of being a niche of a subset of a genre not known for being consistently popular (metal) Nails are HUGE.


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## Grand Moff Tim (Feb 16, 2017)

People have been saying Doom is going to be the the "next thing" since like 2005, you guys. For similar reasons, too: Necrophagist's _Epitaph_ came out in 2004, and weedly tech death was really blowing up. Doom seemed like just the right swing back in the other direction. I was excited at the prospect back then, but by now I just don't see it happening. I think many people are conflating "I got into this genre recently" with "this genre is recently gaining ground." 

Not saying you all are new to Doom or anything, I'm just really not seeing a drastic increase in popularity or number of bands. It'd be friggin' awesome if it _did_ become more popular, but I have to think that if it was going to, it would've by now.


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## Vres (Feb 16, 2017)

Herrick said:


> and the Djent stuff can sound like random start stop riffing. I know I'm being extremely general here but where are the heavy memorable RIFFS?



Right? I can't remember a single memorable or interesting riff. It's all sped-up American Football with distorted guitars.


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## AngstRiddenDreams (Feb 16, 2017)

Crescendo said:


> Right? I can't remember a single memorable or interesting riff. It's all sped-up American Football with distorted guitars.



 Totally! All of my friends I know that like Djent either came from Dream Theater or listening to Emo bands. Don't get me wrong I think American Football are tight. 

@Tim I don't mean JUST Doom. But to me Doom, Hardcore and sludge go hand in hand. It's kinda like how djenty bands are different than the Prog that Between the Buried and Me are doing but they're both popular and in the same vein. 
I just see a swing away from the polished, neat and pretty sound of prog that exists today. And Necrophagist and Tech Death never were anywhere near as popular as bands like Periphery with the mainstream. I mean jesus, Periphery was nominated for a grammy. 
And it's not just me, I go to a lot of shows in Seattle and most of the local bands are in this vein. Granted it's not reflective of the entirety of music it's definitely a big deal on the west coast.


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## vilk (Feb 16, 2017)

Yeah, but like, The Melvins and Earth are both from Seattle. I would assume there's a huge sludge doom stoner metal scene there just because it's kind of the "birth place".


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## AngstRiddenDreams (Feb 16, 2017)

vilk said:


> Yeah, but like, The Melvins and Earth are both from Seattle. I would assume there's a huge sludge doom stoner metal scene there just because it's kind of the "birth place".



Neither of them are from Seattle but I get what you mean. Still, both of those bands formed in the 80's. Portland has a huge doom scene, so does San Fran. Denver's is large too I.E. Primitive Man


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## fps (Feb 16, 2017)

sakeido said:


> Prog metal is not the new cock rock. Cock rock bands sold millions of albums, played sold out stadium tours, had lots of girls at their shows, and still get radio airplay to this day. A successful prog metal release sells 2,000 copies, plays small bar shows to audiences of tens of dudes, and hardly even manage to get on satellite radio when the songs are brand new. It isn't even relevant right now. It just plays to an audience that heavily overlaps with people inclined to use online forums (ie. nerds) and as such is totally overrepresented on places like this.



This. Prog metal has minimal cultural influence.


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## mongey (Feb 16, 2017)

I would liken progressive metal , especially the really "progressive" stuff , more to jazz.It takes a certain level of interest in music to appreciate in its really intense forms 


everyone knew who all the big cock rock bands were. outside of a few hardcore circles no one knows who meshuggah or periphery are 

personally I think the current vocabulary of prog metal has run its course. there just isn't anything left left to discover in its current format. 

I know the new mushuggah album is good , but I cant get into it cause I just feel like I have heard it all before on the last 4 albums . 


Its always going to be there in its current form for those that appreciate it . but will be for a select few


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## AngstRiddenDreams (Feb 16, 2017)

I would relate prog to jazz if anyone improvised. Improv has always been an integral component of jazz to me.


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## Humbuck (Feb 16, 2017)

It's actually more like the original thrash scene to my eyes...fairly obscure save for a few standouts so far. Widely known by a dedicated fanbase, yet ultimately, sparsely attended. Misunderstood and highly disliked by most.

Periphery is like the Metallica of the scene to my mind but I don't know who the other 3 would be of the djent "big four". Metallica brought a lot of bands with them that I don't know would've ended up the same without their presence and influence. Metallica also wrote great songs that could not be forgotten (as did Slayer, Megadeth and even Anthrax to various lesser degrees). Love 'em or hate 'em, some of the cock rock bands managed to write honest to goodness good songs too. Some great songs as well. Djent...not so much. So far. 

IMHO of course...your milage may vary.


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## KnightBrolaire (Feb 16, 2017)

Humbuck said:


> It's actually more like the original thrash scene to my eyes...fairly obscure save for a few standouts so far. Widely known by a dedicated fanbase, yet ultimately, sparsely attended. Misunderstood and highly disliked by most.
> 
> Periphery is like the Metallica of the scene to my mind but I don't know who the other 3 would be of the djent "big four". Metallica brought a lot of bands with them that I don't know would've ended up the same without their presence and influence. Metallica also wrote great songs that could not be forgotten (as did Slayer, Megadeth and even Anthrax to various lesser degrees). Love 'em or hate 'em, some of the cock rock bands managed to write honest to goodness good songs too. Some great songs as well. Djent...not so much. So far.
> 
> IMHO of course...your milage may vary.



If we're going to go that route then i'd say tesseract,after the burial, and animals as leaders would be the other big 3.


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## amonb (Feb 17, 2017)

Crescendo said:


> It's all sped-up American Football with distorted guitars.



That's a sig waiting to happen!


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## TedEH (Feb 17, 2017)

KnightBrolaire said:


> If we're going to go that route then i'd say tesseract,after the burial, and animals as leaders would be the other big 3.



The problem is that we can't go that route, because the genre is too big an umbrella, and there's no consensus as to who the heavy hitters really are. If you asked me for a "big four" of vaguely proggy metal, I'd have named bands like DTP, Gojira, Mesh, etc., since AAL / Tesseract / Periphery have always been, in my mind, a small niche subsection of wanky nonsense that resonates well with guitarists but that don't really carry a genre on their own (outside of calling it "djent", but everyone hates that word for stupid reasons). Don't get me wrong, some if it is very good niche wanky nonsense, but all the bands I've mentioned in this post lack the "big" part of qualifying for "big four" - just like anyone else in a niche genre. They're big in our relatively small world, but in the bigger cultural picture, they're not very big at all.

They call those other bands by fancy titles like "big four" because of their cultural impact - James Hetfield is a household name. Non-guitarists know who he is. I don't know the names of most of the members of any of the other bands I mentioned.


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## Microtonalist (Feb 17, 2017)

Personally I don't think it's an applicable comparison, 
As others have mentioned, djent isn't popular. Sevenstring.org is part of the djent echo chamber, so to speak, so if you spend all your time on here, Periphery is the centre of the universe. 
However, most of the people I meet in the real world (mostly guitarists of some kind, incidentally) haven't heard of any of it.

imo djent is nowhere near popular enough to be brutally killed off in a massive backlash against technical music. People will simply leave the echo chamber in search of something else.......like doom metal for instance.......

Hair metal was a legitimate way to make money, get famous, and get laid-none of which applies to prog metal 



If technicality is the only link then I think the echo chamber has struck again, djent is FAR from being the only genre to include a lot of notes

Probably the most accomplished player I have ever met, or can think of for that matter, spends most of his time playing jigs and reels on an acoustic 


So, is folk the new cock rock?


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## bostjan (Feb 17, 2017)

The whole hair metal boom, really, only lasted a few years. Periphery is famous for a (new) metal band. People don't care about music the way they used to, so there will never be an exact equivalent to butt rock again.


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## endmysuffering (Feb 17, 2017)

bostjan said:


> The whole hair metal boom, really, only lasted a few years. Periphery is famous for a (new) metal band. People don't care about music the way they used to, so there will never be an exact equivalent to butt rock again.



Music has really become a commodity over the past decade I feel, I really witnessed it.


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## endmysuffering (Feb 17, 2017)

If I had to weigh in with and alternative I'd probably say trap is the new cock rock. Prog metal is pretty much in the shadows.


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## Triple-J (Feb 17, 2017)

The only similarity I see is that it's lost it's sheen because there's a second (or is it the third?) wave of bands around who are competent but predictable which for better or worse has been the downfall of every genre anyway.

As for the Rolling Stone approved rock journalism legend that Grunge/alternative killed cock rock? I actually believe it's a three way split because......
1) the genre got stale 
2) Grunge/Alt-rock was a nail in it's coffin 
3) Metallica's _Black_ album 

The Black album deserves credit for killing hair metal as it was released around the same time as _Nevermind_ and was a sales behemoth plus I've met a lot of older rockers who were into hair metal but found _Black_ and moved towards that wave of early/mid 90's alt metal (Prong, FNM etc) or the Seattle bands.


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## WishIwasfinnish (Feb 17, 2017)

The point about prog rock/metal being full of rules I don't agree with. There are no rules about gear - CHON plays super analog equipment - and people like me play Axe Fxs and Strandbergs, so I'm definitely one of the prog metal gear "stereotypes" to some, but in my mind I'm looking for the most advanced and modern gear. Gear nerds do not equal prog metal musicians. There just happens to be an overlap, possibly due to a certain type of person (like myself) who likes to research heavily and nitpick and I guess that somehow correlates to a technical form of music that happens to be metal. That's as narrow of a box as I can possibly fit myself and other gear oriented prog musicians into.

However, obsession with technique and shredding is part of the genre, yes, but another part is experimentation. In that respect, prog metal is like jazz and modern classical music, breaking rules of genre through the blending of many influences and the addition of avant-garde elements. This is similar to prepared piano modern classical music a la John Cage or modern jazz that combines electronic influences with traditional jazz sounds. 

I don't think the cock rock --> prog metal thing makes much sense to be honest. Sure some of the genre fits into that category, but like everything, there are many sides to the issue.


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## Andless (Feb 17, 2017)

TedEH said:


> The closest thing to a musical revolution that I think is happening or relevant at all is the lowering of barriers to entry for independent / home recordings and distribution, at the same time that the traditional "biz" is dying a slow painful death.



^
THIS.


Revolution in music was over in the 80:s. Not even "rock n roll" is rock n roll anymore. The last death throes might have been grunge.

By end 80:s everything had been done. Extreme rock. Hip Hop. Extreme electronic music.

There has not been any revolutionary to anything in music since.

Except for the democratisation of the production means. I have the equipment needed for a professional grade production in my home (and so do a lot of the people on this board! Yay!). And distribution too is at least possible to arrange by yourself especially digitally.


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## Microtonalist (Feb 18, 2017)

Andless said:


> ^
> THIS.
> 
> 
> ...



Check my username and get back to me on that




On a serious note, though, I agree with you in context. But I don't entirely agree in a broader sense 

imo we can think of this in terms of comfort zones, hair metal is pop music with added hair and a solo in the middle, no comfort zones were threatened in the making of 80s rock and surprise surprise there was some commercial success.

Prog metal intrudes on more comfort zones, probably lacks a marketable image, and is much less popular



I have seen terms like 'tasteful dissonance' thrown around on this very forum. What's that supposed to mean? Let me translate: "does not intrude on my personal comfort zone"
I'm nor directing any of this at anyone in particular, and I really hope no one takes offence, I literally do not care if your tastes differ from mine BUT if anyone here is expecting actual 'progression' in a format wherein they can tap their feet, hum melodies in the shower and describe all dissonance as 'tasteful' then I'm afraid they're doomed to a lifetime of waiting.

Microtonality is a really good example of this, it's a largely unexplored area, but what I've noticed about the various examples of works on YouTube (besides the absurdly low view count) is that the only songs/pieces with a positive reaction from the comments section are those that do not explore the possibilities and work within a largely standard framework.



To sum up what I'm saying here, ACTUAL progression is not cool, and it hasn't been since the 60s as far as I can see.

So it's not that progression can't happen, or isn't happening, it's that when it does the majority of people hate, misunderstand, or laugh at it

And what really worries me is that the more progressive a composition gets, the more people will hate it, misunderstand it, and laugh at it 


If you want to see progression, the instructions are simple : burn your comfort zone into the ground and face the music like a man 


/rant


Apologies for the above, I couldn't help myself


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## Andless (Feb 18, 2017)

Microtonalist said:


> imo we can think of this in terms of comfort zones, hair metal is pop music with added hair and a solo in the middle, no comfort zones were threatened in the making of 80s rock and surprise surprise there was some commercial success.
> 
> Prog metal intrudes on more comfort zones, probably lacks a marketable image, and is much less popular



Mmmh.... I started a thrash metal band 1985:ish and felt at the time as on the frontier, playing harder and faster than (without ditching the musical aspect, mind you) previously heard music.

It felt new, it felt fresh. Although, in hindsight not as much as it felt right then.

For the last 20years 99% of what I can hear is a re-hash or mash-up of things already heard. It's not a coincidence why so many songs can be played with the same 4 chords, and I for one, am guilty as charged.

Although, the electronic scene (not EDM, I'm talking modulars etc here) has always had a more natural relationship with experimentalism, I think part of it comes from literally shaping sound from filtering and folding waves generated by electronic oscillators, which puts "sound" as a concept in a slightly different perspective.



Microtonalist said:


> To sum up what I'm saying here, ACTUAL progression is not cool, and it hasn't been since the 60s as far as I can see.


Close, I'd still draw the line in the 80:s, but we can haggle and agree on the 70:s



Microtonalist said:


> If you want to see progression, the instructions are simple : burn your comfort zone into the ground and face the music like a man



I'd like for nothing more than this to be true, but it certainly will not be played on a mahogany 58' re-issue guitar.


_If there is a new way, I'd be the first in line... but it'd better be new this time!_


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## extendedsolo (Feb 19, 2017)

bostjan said:


> The whole hair metal boom, really, only lasted a few years. Periphery is famous for a (new) metal band. People don't care about music the way they used to, so there will never be an exact equivalent to butt rock again.



While you are correct about the 'exact equivalent' part, I really think modern country gets really close to hair metal. Here are some of the parallels

Bad music generally speaking
Insane backup musicians
Cringe worthy overly sappy lyrics in slow songs
Most songs are about partying and/or finding a girl to get laid
Appeals to middle america largely
Male singers wear a ton of makeup 
Lead singer is the least talented member of the band

I would actually say that hair metal was more masculine than modern country. I think every guy in modern country waxes his chest and sculpts his eyebrows. There was at least SOME balls in hair metal.



AngstRiddenDreams said:


> I would relate prog to jazz if anyone improvised. Improv has always been an integral component of jazz to me.


Prog is still closer to rock than it ever will be to jazz to my ears. It does have the jazz influence of adopting new sounds way more than rock ever will.



Triple-J said:


> As for the Rolling Stone approved rock journalism legend that Grunge/alternative killed cock rock? I actually believe it's because......
> 1) the genre got stale
> 
> \


This, it's actually happening with EDM music right now. Nothing is going to kill EDM but it will eat itself similar to hair metal.



TedEH said:


> The closest thing to a musical revolution that I think is happening or relevant at all is the lowering of barriers to entry for independent / home recordings and distribution, at the same time that the traditional "biz" is dying a slow painful death.



THIS X100000000. The revolution will never be in anything rock based for the forseeable future. The "revolution" is happening when an artist gets noticed on the internet and becomes huge. Guys like Chance the Rapper who released their first mixtape for free and are now blowing up. The revolution is happening in hip hop/rap/various forms of electronic music. It's similar to rock in the 50s and 60s where anyone can get in on the game, just make a song people can dance to. Rock is so far up its own butt at this point it's almost closer to jazz and classical where there is this sense of elitism and gatekeeping from the older generation. That world view is passed to younger generations that it's the only "real music". Why buy a guitar and spend hours working on it when I can steal a computer program and make beats easily almost right away? In a type of music where it's ok to blatantly use existing songs and call it a mashup or sample a part of a song. It's way more of a community feel that everything is at your fingertips, not this crap that rock has done where it's like "OH MAN HE RIPPED OFF TOM PETTY BETTER SUE THEM!". 

To think a revolution is going to be caused by prog means you need to be exposed to more music.


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## McKay (Feb 19, 2017)

People started moving to hardcore a few years ago now. I noticed all the kids shifted from wearing metalcore type merch to Desolated hoodies 18 months ago.





It's natural, and genres never really die out. People who get into new styles early also want something different sooner than everyone else, meanwhile you get people who get into things late and people who really love something and never drift away. I've been listening to Djent since Misha was doing demos back in the mid 2000s, so I was bored of it by the time the 32nd band with a pluralised name doing syncopated riffs came around in like 2011. Djent bands keep doing what you're doing, there's nothing wrong with it, but people go through phases of what they like and want to play. There's a reason this board isn't as active as it used to be.


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## McKay (Feb 19, 2017)

extendedsolo said:


> THIS X100000000. The revolution will never be in anything rock based for the forseeable future. The "revolution" is happening when an artist gets noticed on the internet and becomes huge. Guys like Chance the Rapper who released their first mixtape for free and are now blowing up. The revolution is happening in hip hop/rap/various forms of electronic music. It's similar to rock in the 50s and 60s where anyone can get in on the game, just make a song people can dance to. Rock is so far up its own butt at this point it's almost closer to jazz and classical where there is this sense of elitism and gatekeeping from the older generation. That world view is passed to younger generations that it's the only "real music". Why buy a guitar and spend hours working on it when I can steal a computer program and make beats easily almost right away? In a type of music where it's ok to blatantly use existing songs and call it a mashup or sample a part of a song. It's way more of a community feel that everything is at your fingertips, not this crap that rock has done where it's like "OH MAN HE RIPPED OFF TOM PETTY BETTER SUE THEM!"



This is because you're stuck in the metal world. Hardcore is where all the innovation is going on because unlike metal which post 2000s became a genre kept alive by bedroom shut-ins who talk on forums, it's got a real underground and is a very social genre where people talk, meet and exchange ideas. The internet is paradoxically very good at shutting out new experiences, there is all the music in the world but unless someone says "check these guys out" you won't hear it. In 2017 word of mouth is more important than ever.

I'm not quite on point with these posts, because what I'm talking about is a move away from "modern" production as much as it is prog metal. I say modern but there's no reason why the tones people go for are modern rather than old. At this point using Slate kick 10 and podfarm or axefxs isn't modern, it's just one aesthetic to choose from. Something more natural or raw sounding isn't less modern, that's just ridiculous.


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## couverdure (Feb 20, 2017)

McKay said:


> People started moving to hardcore a few years ago now. I noticed all the kids shifted from wearing metalcore type merch to Desolated hoodies 18 months ago.
> 
> It's natural, and genres never really die out. People who get into new styles early also want something different sooner than everyone else, meanwhile you get people who get into things late and people who really love something and never drift away. I've been listening to Djent since Misha was doing demos back in the mid 2000s, so I was bored of it by the time the 32nd band with a pluralised name doing syncopated riffs came around in like 2011. Djent bands keep doing what you're doing, there's nothing wrong with it, but people go through phases of what they like and want to play. There's a reason this board isn't as active as it used to be.



I don't hear anything innovative about those two bands, Norma Jean has already done this style of heavy music over a decade ago.

To the claims about prog metal becoming the new cock rock, I highly doubt that it's true because if it were the case, then bands like ERRA and Northlane would be as big as The Amity Affliction or Crown The Empire (Architects are getting there).

The nu metal revival that started around four years is arguably bigger and more commercial than the "technical-shred-000" style has been going around as long as Bulb's career. Though there are some crossover here and there, like Volumes and Issues but they sound drastically different from something like Monuments or After the Burial.


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## McKay (Feb 20, 2017)

couverdure said:


> I don't hear anything innovative about those two bands, Norma Jean has already done this style of heavy music over a decade ago.
> 
> To the claims about prog metal becoming the new cock rock, I highly doubt that it's true because if it were the case, then bands like ERRA and Northlane would be as big as The Amity Affliction or Crown The Empire (Architects are getting there).
> 
> The nu metal revival that started around four years is arguably bigger and more commercial than the "technical-shred-000" style has been going around as long as Bulb's career. Though there are some crossover here and there, like Volumes and Issues but they sound drastically different from something like Monuments or After the Burial.



If you think Norma Jean sounds anything like Code Orange you need your ears checked.


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## GunpointMetal (Feb 20, 2017)

McKay said:


> If you think Norma Jean sounds anything like Code Orange you need your ears checked.



Chug Riff + dissonant sounds + Screaming 

Code orange is just Ferret-style hardcore filtered through deathcore.


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## McKay (Feb 20, 2017)

GunpointMetal said:


> filtered through deathcore



No.

What you two are saying is like hearing Death and going oh, Slayer did this already. Or someone who likes Country saying metal all sounds the same because it's all screaming and yelling and distortion. Chug riff + dissonant sounds + screaming also describes Slayer. And Gojira.


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## TedEH (Feb 21, 2017)

Microtonalist said:


> a largely unexplored area



I feel like there's several parallel conversations happening at the same time here, each centered around a different interpretation of what they want "x is the new y" to mean. Seems like some of us want our niche genre to be bigger than it really is. Some of us want a cultural revolution of some sort that they can associate themselves with. Some want music in general to branch out into more unexplored space.

I think this whole thread boils down to an exploration of the connections between music and identity politics, for lack of a better word for it. I think we all like music for music's sake, but we also tie our music to our picture of 'self', so understandably we want to make our music culturally relevant, because by association we would can then feel personally culturally relevant. If music is part of the self, and that music has a place in the world, then so does the self inherit that place in the world.


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## JKM777 (Feb 21, 2017)

I really do not understand the obsession with categorising music and labeling it as "Djent, Metal, Post Hardcore with a slice of progressive pirate ect,)

Music is art, the artist creates what the artist wants to create, I do not think most musicians create music to follow fashion, it really shouldn't matter what gear was used or it if only has 1 chord or is completely complex. Its subjective, you either like it or you do not. Music is one big family tree, almost all contemporary music can be traced back to blues. Let people make the music they want to and stop labeling it! Just enjoy it!


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## TedEH (Feb 21, 2017)

JKM777 said:


> stop labeling it!



There's value in both perspectives - music looked at strictly as art doesn't have to conform to any set of rules, but there are plenty of reasons people would want to categorize something once it's been created already (or sometimes before, or as part of the process). There's value in associating with similar styles, value in discoverability, value in creating a specific brand, it can come back around to the whole music-as-identity thing I mentioned before, etc. It's difficult enough to market a product without stripping away identifiers and just saying "either you like it or you don't."


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## vilk (Feb 21, 2017)

I think we should stop labeling audible sounds whatsoever. Why we gotta pretend that a car alarm and a Pink Floyd record aren't just both reverberating waves though the air?


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## Great Satan (Feb 21, 2017)

I'm pretty much a meathead who likes their metal as stripped back as possible, almost like punk.
If it ain't catchy in some way, then it ain't worth listening to ¯\_(&#12484_/¯


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## Andless (Feb 22, 2017)

McKay said:


> There's a reason this board isn't as active as it used to be.



Not sure what the purpose of the linked bands were, was there anything new about them?

But yeah, after a 2 year hiatus from SSO I have noticed that the activity seemed to have dropped significantly. I used to come here mainly for the instrument discussions (not so many other places to find 7-strings that I know), and about playing guitars... 

...so where did everybody go?


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## CaptainD00M (Feb 22, 2017)

McKay said:


> People started moving to hardcore a few years ago now. I noticed all the kids shifted from wearing metalcore type merch to Desolated hoodies 18 months ago.



Pretty sure Hardcore has been around since the 80's and influencing other genres of music for over 30 years so Im not sure what you're trying to say here  the mention of the hoodies actually seems to contradict all the other stuff you later say about it being original, because if 'kids' are switching that means its about to become the next feeding consumer frenzy - which conversely means the end of its 'underground' status.



McKay said:


> This is because you're stuck in the metal world. Hardcore is where all the innovation is going on because unlike metal which post 2000s became a genre kept alive by bedroom shut-ins who talk on forums, it's got a real underground and is a very social genre where people talk, meet and exchange ideas.



#ironyforsayingthisonaforum

The metal world is a lot bigger than what you've listed as bands you grew up listening too. There is plenty of innovation in a number of different genres of metal that much like hard core have evolved and changed with the times - BM for example is like a small universe of different flavors, Doom, Stoner, sludge and thats just the small corner of metal I bother to pay attention too.

I think your point only stands in relation to what the latest hyped trend is, and thats nothing new man. Trends have been going on since the birth of mass marketed music. And I know thats what OP was getting at, in that Djent was a hyped trend for a while - if what you say is true (the jury is out on that one), Code Orange's take on Hardcore MIGHT be the next one.

I'm not convinced the 'underground' still exists anymore between Youtube, bandcamp and FB and the fact that virtually every small band I've seen in the last 2 years had had an account with regular updates on ALL of these platforms - including the bands that work day jobs. And if the underground does exist then I'm afraid to say its not unique to Hardcore. 

So I'm kinda scratching my head as to what your point is.



Andless said:


> ...so where did everybody go?



Maybe they are playing guitars like I'd love to be right now if I was in the same country as my guitars.


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## budda (Feb 22, 2017)

Andless said:


> ...so where did everybody go?



Chances are they finished post secondary, got in serious relationships and got day jobs.


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## bostjan (Feb 22, 2017)

Andless said:


> ...so where did everybody go?



Some of us are still here off and on. There's another message board where almost all of the more active legacy members went. After that, a lot of people were permabanned for one reason or another, so you won't see them here any more.


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## amonb (Feb 23, 2017)

It's funny, I like ss.org more now than when the legacy guys were in charge...

But anyway, back on topic...


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## Bloody_Inferno (Feb 23, 2017)

vilk said:


> I think we should stop labeling audible sounds whatsoever. Why we gotta pretend that a car alarm and a Pink Floyd record aren't just both reverberating waves though the air?



But if a tree falls in the forest and nobody's around, how are we going to sub-categorise it and bicker how it sounded more brootulz over another stupid tree when it hit the ground?


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## bostjan (Feb 23, 2017)

amonb said:


> It's funny, I like ss.org more now than when the legacy guys were in charge...
> 
> But anyway, back on topic...



I was never in charge of anything. If I had been, the site would have likely fallen over and caught fire without any reasonable explanation.









Bloody_Inferno said:


> But if a tree falls in the forest and nobody's around, how are we going to sub-categorise it and bicker how it sounded more brootulz over another stupid tree when it hit the ground?



If a tree falls in the woods, it's "Rottencore." If no one is around to hear it, it's "TRVE KULT Rottencore."


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## Microtonalist (Feb 23, 2017)

TedEH said:


> I feel like there's several parallel conversations happening at the same time here, each centered around a different interpretation of what they want "x is the new y" to mean. Seems like some of us want our niche genre to be bigger than it really is. Some of us want a cultural revolution of some sort that they can associate themselves with. Some want music in general to branch out into more unexplored space.
> 
> I think this whole thread boils down to an exploration of the connections between music and identity politics, for lack of a better word for it. I think we all like music for music's sake, but we also tie our music to our picture of 'self', so understandably we want to make our music culturally relevant, because by association we would can then feel personally culturally relevant. If music is part of the self, and that music has a place in the world, then so does the self inherit that place in the world.



That post was only there as a response to the 'progression is dead' attitude 

Oh, and one of the points I was trying to make (probably badly) is that progressively minded musicians and composers are still out there, busy doing their thing, it's just that they have an audience of about 10 people worldwide

It's the popular music movements that have stopped progressing, not music itself



I think this thread is demonstrating how most people think of music as entertainment rather than art, even if they say otherwise 
If music is art then it doesn't necessarily have to be melodic, danceworthy, catchy or anything of the sort, however if it's simply entertainment then all of those things apply.

That's fine, by the way, I don't care what anybody else listens to, like I said, and while I would like to see more widespread exploration of the far reaches of music (microtonality is only one of them) I know that's not going to happen, and if every time I pull a guitar out, everybody goes cross eyed and runs for their lives I would consider that an honour 



Wasn't going to mention it but since I am here writing another post, my reference to the 60s as the last time progression was cool wasn't suggesting that music last progressed in the 60s (should be clear by now anyway) or even that it was the last time popular music was progressive, what I was talking about is the direct links World Music, the cutting edge visual arts scene and the avant garde classic scene had with some of the most popular acts of the time

Still arguable (David Bowie was aware of Steve Reich after all) but at least you now know what I meant


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## Unleash The Fury (Feb 23, 2017)

Microtonalist said:


> That post was only there as a response to the 'progression is dead' attitude
> 
> Oh, and one of the points I was trying to make (probably badly) is that progressively minded musicians and composers are still out there, busy doing their thing, it's just that they have an audience of about 10 people worldwide
> 
> ...



If music isnt melodic, danceworthy or catchy, or evoke some kind of emotion, than it is not art. And that goes for other forms of art such as painting. 

You ever see that elephant "artist" that applied paint to a canvas because someone taught it how to hold a paintbrush and apply the paint? Thats not art. Likewise, If you teach an elephant how to strum a guitar using its trunk, than thats not art either. Nor is it music.

So i would just say yes, music does necessarily have to be "danceworthy, melodic, catchy or anything of the sort".


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## AngstRiddenDreams (Feb 23, 2017)

Unleash The Fury said:


> If music isnt melodic, danceworthy or catchy, or evoke some kind of emotion, than it is not art. And that goes for other forms of art such as painting.



This is how I feel about shreddy music or technical music for the sake of being technical. 
Like, cool. Your playing technique is good. But it's so much more of what you play and how you play it. 
I'd rather listen to Mac Demarco than shred all day every day.


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## Harry (Feb 24, 2017)

Andless said:


> But yeah, after a 2 year hiatus from SSO I have noticed that the activity seemed to have dropped significantly. I used to come here mainly for the instrument discussions (not so many other places to find 7-strings that I know), and about playing guitars...
> 
> ...so where did everybody go?



I used to actively participate a lot more in these kind of discussions but after a while it gets REALLY stale when you notice the same topics are argued again and again every few months. Different thread title, same .... really. 
So for me, among other reasons, it's no longer worth the time engaging in these type of threads anymore. That and I'm mostly just a weirdo lurker in general now anyway heh.
OTOH for people that enjoy the debates, that's cool too, I have nothing against that.


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## Microtonalist (Feb 24, 2017)

Unleash The Fury said:


> If music isnt melodic, danceworthy or catchy, or evoke some kind of emotion, than it is not art. And that goes for other forms of art such as painting.



Ok so that's true of a lot of people, however, it is fantastically incorrect. I am LIVING, BREATHING PROOF that it's possible to enjoy music without ANY melody or rhythm 

Please don't waste time arguing with that, you're not me, you can't possibly prove me wrong 


Now, let me draw your attention to this


Unleash The Fury said:


> or evoke some kind of emotion



I actually spend quite a lot of time in modern art galleries, and you know the funny thing? I don't actually recall a single gallery in which the only emotions invoked were positive........


No idea what you're driving at with the elephant thing, last time I looked in the mirror, I wasn't an elephant


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## fps (Feb 24, 2017)

Unleash The Fury said:


> If music isnt melodic, danceworthy or catchy, or evoke some kind of emotion, than it is not art. And that goes for other forms of art such as painting.
> 
> You ever see that elephant "artist" that applied paint to a canvas because someone taught it how to hold a paintbrush and apply the paint? Thats not art. Likewise, If you teach an elephant how to strum a guitar using its trunk, than thats not art either. Nor is it music.
> 
> So i would just say yes, music does necessarily have to be "danceworthy, melodic, catchy or anything of the sort".



Disagree with the start. Disagree with the middle. Disagree with the ending.


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## HeavyMetal4Ever (Feb 24, 2017)

Bloody_Inferno said:


> But if a tree falls in the forest and nobody's around, how are we going to sub-categorise it and bicker how it sounded more brootulz over another stupid tree when it hit the ground?



You are totally missing the point...if the tree wasn't endangered koa with roasted pau ferro branches and quilted-flamed-birds-eye maple bark then it's utter garbage and couldn't possibly sound any good at all if turned into a musical instrument...


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## bostjan (Feb 24, 2017)

Unleash The Fury said:


> If music isnt melodic, danceworthy or catchy, or evoke some kind of emotion, than it is not art. And that goes for other forms of art such as painting.
> 
> You ever see that elephant "artist" that applied paint to a canvas because someone taught it how to hold a paintbrush and apply the paint? Thats not art. Likewise, If you teach an elephant how to strum a guitar using its trunk, than thats not art either. Nor is it music.
> 
> So i would just say yes, music does necessarily have to be "danceworthy, melodic, catchy or anything of the sort".





the dictionary said:


> *art* (noun): the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.



I guess you are technically correct on the elephant part, although I'm probably missing your point entirely.

If a piece of music is intended to be "art," in other words, to be appreciated for its beauty and emotional power, then probably, it is not going to be danceworthy and catchy.

"Come on baby, let's do the twist; come on baby let's do the twist; take my little hand and go like this," made Chubby Checker a very rich man, and many people appreciated the song, but what emotion does it evoke?


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## AngstRiddenDreams (Feb 24, 2017)

Microtonalist said:


> I actually spend quite a lot of time in modern art galleries, and you know the funny thing? I don't actually recall a single gallery in which the only emotions invoked were positive........



He also said evokes emotion. That's a catch all for positive or negative feelings.


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## tedtan (Feb 24, 2017)

Microtonalist said:


> I am LIVING, BREATHING PROOF that it's possible to enjoy music without ANY melody or rhythm



Music is comprised of melody, harmony and rhythm (and you can sometimes throw in timbre as well). If it lacks melody and rhythm, how is it music?

Not trying to tell you what to like, just trying to figure out what you're talking about because you seem to be contradicting yourself.


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## HeavyMetal4Ever (Feb 24, 2017)

Is "Progressive" a genre in and of itself, is it a good word to describe some element previously unheard in some other currently existing genre, or does it have to be something fresh and original to earn the label?

It's been a long time since I've heard new music that I would call fresh and original. Not because it doesn't exist, but because I'm not really looking much anymore, and have no clue at all about what today's "Progressive" is.

Is Prog Metal the new Cock Rock? Probably not imho. Music just doesn't work like it did back then, with one trend/style killing off any widespread popularity held by what came before it as it takes it's place. The market, and people's tastes are so much more diverse now days, where even the most casual listeners have access to so much more than what the industry says is the next big thing.


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## HeavyMetal4Ever (Feb 24, 2017)

tedtan said:


> Music is comprised of melody, harmony and rhythm (and you can sometimes throw in timbre as well). If it lacks melody and rhythm, how is it music?
> 
> Not trying to tell you what to like, just trying to figure out what you're talking about because you seem to be contradicting yourself.


 
I agree with you, I'm just wondering where things like soundscapes and drone fit into this?

While most examples have some melodic or rhythmic variation, I have heard tracks that are just a single sustained note...are they music or just noise that some people like?


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## Unleash The Fury (Feb 24, 2017)

bostjan said:


> I guess you are technically correct on the elephant part, although I'm probably missing your point entirely.
> 
> If a piece of music is intended to be "art," in other words, to be appreciated for its beauty and emotional power, then probably, it is not going to be danceworthy and catchy.
> 
> "Come on baby, let's do the twist; come on baby let's do the twist; take my little hand and go like this," made Chubby Checker a very rich man, and many people appreciated the song, but what emotion does it evoke?



Thats a fun and happy song.


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## Microtonalist (Feb 24, 2017)

tedtan said:


> Music is comprised of melody, harmony and rhythm (and you can sometimes throw in timbre as well). If it lacks melody and rhythm, how is it music?
> 
> Not trying to tell you what to like, just trying to figure out what you're talking about because you seem to be contradicting yourself.



Hmm well I wouldn't say myself that music HAD to be comprised of all of those elements at once

However, that does raise an interesting question which I have been thinking about a lot recently
Now, if nobody here listens to classical music this won't make any sense, but as far as I can see J S Bach was a primarily harmony based composer, which is why I like it so much
Melody is certainly present, and so is rhythm, but both of those are subservient to the will of the harmonic backdrop.

French composers throughout the 20th century though seem almost to a man to be focused on changing timbres and gorgeous sounds. Some are highly melodic and some barely have a melody at all, but they're all beautifully put together with regard to timbre

I could go on, but the point is that ANY of the four elements you mentioned could be the composers focus, if it suits his/her vision best, to the exclusion of all of the other three

If every person focussed on the same things when writing music it'd get boring pretty quick


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## Microtonalist (Feb 24, 2017)

AngstRiddenDreams said:


> He also said evokes emotion. That's a catch all for positive or negative feelings.



That was my point


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## AngstRiddenDreams (Feb 24, 2017)

Microtonalist said:


> That was my point


I missed that.


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## Microtonalist (Feb 25, 2017)

HeavyMetal4Ever said:


> I agree with you, I'm just wondering where things like soundscapes and drone fit into this?
> 
> While most examples have some melodic or rhythmic variation, I have heard tracks that are just a single sustained note...are they music or just noise that some people like?



This is probably where the term 'Sound Artist' comes in

I don't think anybody knows the answer, though, everyone is going to have a different view on it and there are valid arguments in both directions


By the way, I wrote the comment which started this little subdiscussion while under the influence of a headache, and I can't remember whether I was referring to timbre based soundscape stuff without any notes in it, or to music which has multiple pitches on multiple instruments (which would then be technically classified as a melody) but which contains nothing which somebody who requires melody in their music would classify as a melody, in other words absolutely impossible to hum or sing in the shower


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## Andless (Feb 25, 2017)

Microtonalist said:


> This is probably where the term 'Sound Artist' comes in



The latest frontier is the modular/electronic scene (not discerning between analog, digital or mixed)

[SC]https://soundcloud.com/ideal-recordings/henrik-rylander-object[/SC]


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## Microtonalist (Feb 25, 2017)

Andless said:


> The latest frontier is the modular/electronic scene (not discerning between analog, digital or mixed)
> 
> [SC]https://soundcloud.com/ideal-recordings/henrik-rylander-object[/SC]



Interesting, you're not the first in this thread to say something to that effect

Doesn't matter who I'm with I'm always defending some kind of music, seems very few people truly have fingers in all the pies.

Let me explain. If you say the words 'electric guitar' to a classical musician, the image that appears in their head is of someone with no musical training and no technical skill playing smoke on the water at an unnecessarily high volume.
The guitarist in their head does not practice, gets drunk frequently and only started playing a musical instrument in a belated attempt to attract females

Classical musicians of this viewpoint are ime invariably surprised and impressed when it's brought to their attention that there are in fact players of the electric guitar that practise several hours a day (like a classical musician) learn theory (like a classical musician) and play long complicated pieces with many many notes (like a classical musician) 


This is the opposite way around. Chances are if I say 'classical music' to most of the people in this thread, what'll come to mind is a room full of very old people listening to snippets of Tchaikovsky ballet music.
Which like smoke on the water played by a dude who can't play guitar, has a grain of truth to it.

Classical music didn't stop in 1850 though, what happened in the 20th century is that, unshackled from the stricture of having to appeal to a rich aristocrat, classical music set off and got as radical as it possibly could (in exactly the same way as visual art has done, and at the same time too)

Classical music ditched conventional harmony, having a home key, the conventional ensemble and playing actual musical instruments at all.
And yes, electronics were pioneered by classical composers long before popular music got hold of it (PLEASE GOD tell me you have heard of Karlheinz Stockhausen.......)

Of course, it then becomes a different genre, but 'classical music' is a bit like 'rock music', it's an umbrella term.


What's really interesting though is when people take completely different routes and end up in a similar place. This seems to happen with electronics especially. Drone Metal seems to be slightly in radical classical territory as well.

Meshuggah, despite what it may sound like on the face of it, has a lot in common with what Steve Reich was doing in the 70s. Always reminds me of Flamenco too

Anyway. Point is, despite the fact that a lot of composers that I've heard use electronics in radical ways (either on their own or with acoustic instruments as well) physical objects have produced most of the strangest and most interesting sounds I've heard-most notably a 'sound artist' creating a soundscape using bowls of water and potato starch.


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## Andless (Feb 25, 2017)

Microtonalist said:


> Interesting, you're not the first in this thread to say something to that effect
> 
> 
> Doesn't matter who I'm with I'm always defending some kind of music, seems very few people truly have fingers in all the pies.



Excuse me while I put my money were my mouth is
[SC]https://soundcloud.com/andless/fools-gold[/SC]

- half joking tho, I do not claim to be on any frontier myself anymore - my material is very traditional in essence, just using the fruits of it. But yeah, modulular synthesis has been around since Don Buchla, the concepts are not new.



Microtonalist said:


> Classical music didn't stop in 1850 though, what happened in the 20th century is that, unshackled from the stricture of having to appeal to a rich aristocrat, classical music set off and got as radical as it possibly could (in exactly the same way as visual art has done, and at the same time too)
> 
> Classical music ditched conventional harmony, having a home key, the conventional ensemble and playing actual musical instruments at all.
> And yes, electronics were pioneered by classical composers long before popular music got hold of it (PLEASE GOD tell me you have heard of Karlheinz Stockhausen.......)
> ...



No, I'm going to disappoint you by saying I've missed Karlheinz Stockhausen, but Steve Reich I have not. Reich's stuff is interesting as in how Mr. Glass' stuff is interesting.



Microtonalist said:


> Anyway. Point is, despite the fact that a lot of composers that I've heard use electronics in radical ways (either on their own or with acoustic instruments as well) physical objects have produced most of the strangest and most interesting sounds I've heard-most notably a 'sound artist' creating a soundscape using bowls of water and potato starch.



In the 60:s and the 70:s electronic musicians were limited to what analog hardware could produce. With digital around, we can produce sounds that couldn't be produced with analog or physical instruments, simply defying the laws of physics.

But speaking of experimental sound, the waterphone is seriously cool


Sometimes, the physical world sometimes simply cannot be made up...


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## Unleash The Fury (Feb 25, 2017)

Andless said:


> Excuse me while I put my money were my mouth is
> [SC]https://soundcloud.com/andless/fools-gold[/SC]
> 
> - half joking tho, I do not claim to be on any frontier myself anymore - my material is very traditional in essence, just using the fruits of it. But yeah, modulular synthesis has been around since Don Buchla, the concepts are not new.
> ...




How could would that be to start a song or album with one of those? I need to get me one.


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## Microtonalist (Feb 26, 2017)

Andless said:


> Excuse me while I put my money were my mouth is
> [SC]https://soundcloud.com/andless/fools-gold[/SC]



Not accusing you of anything, apologies if that's how it came across

Not claiming to be personally right in the forefront myself either



Andless said:


> No, I'm going to disappoint you by saying I've missed Karlheinz Stockhausen, but Steve Reich I have not. Reich's stuff is interesting as in how Mr. Glass' stuff is interesting.


Yeah Glass can be great too, but I'm not always convinced by him.

One of the best concerts I've ever been to was Reich's music for eighteen musicians at the Royal Festival Hall in London, there's a section for choirs behind the stage and when there's no choir you can buy tickets for those seats. I sat there practically above the grand pianos and I've got this image etched on my mind of this guy leaving the piano and standing in the middle of the stage, silhouetted against the packed-to-capacity audience, keying in the chord change on an unplugged vibraphone, just ringing out above the sea of rhythm....

I was in an uncharacteristically good mood for a week because of that 



Andless said:


> In the 60:s and the 70:s electronic musicians were limited to what analog hardware could produce. With digital around, we can produce sounds that couldn't be produced with analog or physical instruments, simply defying the laws of physics.



Sure, I was referring to contemporary stuff though

Heard a piece recently by a French composer, lots of electronics but also a mixed ensemble of ordinary instruments. Sounded like a sci fi plane crash


Thing is, some people seem to have the ability to make familiar things sound very different. I don't how it works but I'd love to understand how I can be physically there watching someone play a violin and there's this voice in my head going "there's no way that's a violin....."


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## Microtonalist (Feb 26, 2017)

Unleash The Fury said:


> How could would that be to start a song or album with one of those? I need to get me one.



Be sure to post a 'new waterphone day' thread


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## Unleash The Fury (Feb 26, 2017)

Microtonalist said:


> Be sure to post a 'new waterphone day' thread



I see on ebay starting at $300, all the way up to $1000. Looks like i wont be getting one too soon!


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## Microtonalist (Feb 27, 2017)

Unleash The Fury said:


> I see on ebay starting at $300, all the way up to $1000. Looks like i wont be getting one too soon!



Bicycle wheel


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## endmysuffering (Feb 27, 2017)

This thread became a real ....storm.


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## Andless (Feb 28, 2017)

endmysuffering said:


> This thread became a real ....storm.



Not really, we're just jumping on the opportunity to shoot some breeze. 

SSO seem to have lost a lot of momentum... feels a bit deserted around here.


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## couverdure (Feb 28, 2017)

endmysuffering said:


> This thread became a real ....storm.



For real, I thought this thread was about the commercialization of the genre due to its huge exposure on the internet and worldwide popularity, and then it became "THIS ISN'T MUSIC IF IT DOESN'T SOUND LIKE THIS".

I think the popularity of the progressive metal/djent genre would have a better comparison with indie rock bands than any of those cock rock/buttrock bands that were being talked about early in this discussion. I'm surprised no one here mentioned that MTV was a thing because during that time, labels had to pay the station just to have their music videos be played nationwide during a certain timeslot, and then there are bands without any music videos (an example being Metallica until "One"). Nowadays, any person could upload whatever the heck they want on the world wide web without any extra charges and online communities, like this forum that consists of enthusiasts from all over the world, could gain them exposure.


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## bostjan (Feb 28, 2017)

couverdure said:


> For real, I thought this thread was about the commercialization of the genre due to its huge exposure on the internet and worldwide popularity, and then it became "THIS ISN'T MUSIC IF IT DOESN'T SOUND LIKE THIS".
> 
> I think the popularity of the progressive metal/djent genre would have a better comparison with indie rock bands than any of those cock rock/buttrock bands that were being talked about early in this discussion. I'm surprised no one here mentioned that MTV was a thing because during that time, labels had to pay the station just to have their music videos be played nationwide during a certain timeslot, and then there are bands without any music videos (an example being Metallica until "One"). Nowadays, any person could upload whatever the heck they want on the world wide web without any extra charges and online communities, like this forum that consists of enthusiasts from all over the world, could gain them exposure.



That's an excellent point. Mtv was a huge influence on 80's and 90's kids. Back when "Headbanger's Ball" was a source of new heavy music, it was pretty much every band's dream to be featured there, because it meant tons of exposure to just the right audience.

In the youtube age, though, you can upload whatever you want, but it doesn't mean anyone will see it. If a band uploads a music video to youtube, posts it on facebook, and calls it a day, they will not reach any new levels of exposure. On the other hand, the band could do that, then pay youtube to feature the video, but again, this really lacks the focus of targeted marketing, and would likely be a waste of money for a metal band. You could do targeted marketing through youtube, which would be a much better option, but facebook- I don't believe there is anything comparable- and you have to know a thing or two about what you are doing, strategically.

Things are a lot more friendly toward DIY than they were ten years ago, but, on the flip side of that, if you don't know what you are doing, you are just going to end up wasting your money.

So, you brought up Metallica. I first heard of them via old-fashioned music sharing (cassette tape), back when no radio stations were playing them during normal hours. That's how I heard of an awful lot of bands back then, and even up to about ten or twelve years after that. Being a metalhead in the 1990's was fun, but there was no Siris Liquid Metal channel or anything anywhere near that. Sometimes WRIF would play metal at, like 3 in the morning, but mostly, you had to have metalhead friends who bought CD's, tapes, or LPs for you to check out, and a lot of metal albums were expensive back then ($16+ in 1990's money - like $26 or 27 in today's money) for something you might not particularly like. I paid $32 for the new Symphony X CD in 1995 ($50 in 2017 money) because I had heard that they had a new singer who sounded better, and I had not even heard a single track yet.

Stuff like Bon Jovi and Poison was really quite mainstream just before Nirvana broke out. I don't know if Misha and Tosin have been featured on poster tear outs in teen magazines, but I'm guessing not, nor whatever the modern equivalent would be.

Just because many aspects do not compare, though, does not mean that there are not other aspects of the music, the careers, or the personalities that can compare.


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## tedtan (Feb 28, 2017)

HeavyMetal4Ever said:


> I agree with you, I'm just wondering where things like soundscapes and drone fit into this?
> 
> While most examples have some melodic or rhythmic variation, I have heard tracks that are just a single sustained note...are they music or just noise that some people like?



Good question.

If it is truly just a sustained note without any element of rhythm, harmony or even timbral variation, I don't think I'd personally call it music. Nor would I call it noise as that implies that it is unwanted. Perhaps I'd just call it sound at that point.

If it involved just a sustained note with timbral changes, I think I'd call it sound design or soundscape or something similar.

If it goes beyond that point, that's when I'd personally call it music.


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## tedtan (Feb 28, 2017)

Thanks for elaborating; I think I understand your position much better now.



Microtonalist said:


> Hmm well I wouldn't say myself that music HAD to be comprised of all of those elements at once



Agreed.




Microtonalist said:


> However, that does raise an interesting question which I have been thinking about a lot recently
> Now, if nobody here listens to classical music this won't make any sense, but as far as I can see J S Bach was a primarily harmony based composer, which is why I like it so much
> Melody is certainly present, and so is rhythm, but both of those are subservient to the will of the harmonic backdrop.
> 
> French composers throughout the 20th century though seem almost to a man to be focused on changing timbres and gorgeous sounds. Some are highly melodic and some barely have a melody at all, but they're all beautifully put together with regard to timbre



Your analogy makes perfect sense.




Microtonalist said:


> I could go on, but the point is that ANY of the four elements you mentioned could be the composers focus, if it suits his/her vision best, to the exclusion of all of the other three



True, but I think this approach can be taken far enough that the end product of such a focus becomes sound rather than music, such as the single sustained note with no variation that HeavyMetal4Ever mentioned above, or even John Cage's 4:33.

Are such pieces art? Definitely. Are they music? I don't know. I think I'd personally call them audio art at that point rather than music because sound &#8800; music; music is a subcategory of sound.




Microtonalist said:


> If every person focussed on the same things when writing music it'd get boring pretty quick



Absolutely!


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## Microtonalist (Feb 28, 2017)

tedtan said:


> True, but I think this approach can be taken far enough that the end product of such a focus becomes sound rather than music, such as the single sustained note with no variation that HeavyMetal4Ever mentioned above, or even John Cage's 4:33.



I agree, I wasn't making a differentiation between sound design and music in my original comment, you were right to point that out.

I think it's probably arguable about 4:33, I won't try though. Cage's way of thinking currently eludes me, frustratingly, it's the same with Partch and Cage's painter friend Rauschenberg.

My personal favourite of the four elements is definitely harmony, (hence the interest in microtonality) and I do think that it's almost inevitable that even in an extreme harmony (or destruction of) based composition that both melody and rhythm will be at least TECHNICALLY present, just because of the need for more than one note


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## bostjan (Feb 28, 2017)

The idea behind Cage's 4'33" was that the environment would perform the music. Much of Cage's later work was influenced by that idea, with pieces where the performers were instructed to write something, or where an amplifier was left just below the feedback threshold with no one deliberately using it.

So, is the takeaway from 4'33" that music is a living breathing thing, or is it that art can be found anywhere? Maybe both of those and a little of something else.

I think you either get it or don't. Probably somebody, at least one person, out there, gets it and still thinks it's dumb.

Despite the piece setting itself up to be the butt of a whole genre of music jokes, I think that the original idea of it was quite daring, and a little bit brilliant.


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## Microtonalist (Feb 28, 2017)

Andless said:


> Excuse me while I put my money were my mouth is
> [SC]https://soundcloud.com/andless/fools-gold[/SC]



Forgot to mention, nice track

The one you posted earlier by someone else was interesting too



Just to clarify, I wasn't suggesting electronics isn't the latest frontier, my point was just that it's only one of the frontiers, albeit perhaps the one with the most popular momentum


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## tedtan (Mar 1, 2017)

bostjan said:


> The idea behind Cage's 4'33" was that the environment would perform the music. Much of Cage's later work was influenced by that idea, with pieces where the performers were instructed to write something, or where an amplifier was left just below the feedback threshold with no one deliberately using it.
> 
> So, is the takeaway from 4'33" that music is a living breathing thing, or is it that art can be found anywhere? Maybe both of those and a little of something else.
> 
> ...



I still remember the first time I heard 4'33". I was a music composition major, a freshman in my first semester, and the music department faculty put on a performance of 4'3" (something I'd never heard of before that point). One of the professors came out onto the stage, walked over to the piano and made a big to do out of setting up some sheet music and opening the fall board. Then he sat there for a bit. The people in the audience were talking amongst themselves, some asking when the performance would begin, most talking about the trivial things 18-year-olds discuss. Outside, a janitor was noisily removing trash bags from the bins near the main entrance and a jet flew by overhead.

All in all, a fairly typical performance of 4'33". But it did change the way I think about things.

I think Cage's intent with this piece is to make us realize that there is music all around us every day: the hammering at the construction site we drive by on the way to work, the whining/buzzing of the computer fans in laptop we we use to check SSO, the songs of the birds, frogs, cicadas, crickets and such that play nonstop throughout the day and night, etc. That there is really no such thing as true silence. How dependent we are on the sounds around us.

I think there is also something to what you are saying about art being alive. No two performances of 4'33" will ever be the same due to the audience and environmental contributions, which I interpret to mean that music needs to have an element of surprise and variation via improvisation in order to come alive.

But that is all just my take; I'm sure there are other equally valid, or even more valid, opinions out there.


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## Microtonalist (Mar 2, 2017)

tedtan said:


> All in all, a fairly typical performance of 4'33". But it did change the way I think about things.



Absolutely, I listened to a radio program about Cage online several times and it changed the way I view musical instruments. Most people seem to have an instrument they don't like (bagpipes, typically) and I was no exception (although I've always liked bagpipes...) but listening to that program made me feel like that was a facile view and that if I couldn't think of a way to use a sound, the problem lay with me, not the instrument.

I can't, however, connect all this stuff with Cage's prepared piano works, it's not that I don't like them, it's just that I don't see how they relate to the 4:33" way of thinking. Which is why I feel under qualified to have a debate on whether 4:33" is sound design or music


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## McKay (Mar 3, 2017)

CaptainD00M said:


> Pretty sure Hardcore has been around since the 80's and influencing other genres of music for over 30 years so Im not sure what you're trying to say here  the mention of the hoodies actually seems to contradict all the other stuff you later say about it being original, because if 'kids' are switching that means its about to become the next feeding consumer frenzy - which conversely means the end of its 'underground' status.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



My definition of underground is "scene where small <5000 Facebook like bands, which is an arbitrary number but you get my point, can get shows across their county and cross continents with only other small bands and pull good crowds of people who mostly listen to small <5000 like Facebook bands, with a series of photographers, artists, producers, promoters and friends who all part of this thing". I don't see this in metal. I don't see it much in metalcore or deathcore either. Those scenes operate on a totally different level with a totally different vibe but metal USED to be like this. Djent was, just online, and that's the last time there was a new trend in metal. Hardcore has a new trend, fashion or musical constanty because the way the scene is structured is much more social and bottom-up. The most influential bands in hardcore are pretty tiny. Trends happen all the time, I can name a few right now. That's a good thing, not a bad thing, it means a genre is still alive. When Djent dies what's going to replace it? To bring the thread full circle, what replaced cock rock? Underground music that got picked up by labels. Bands from a scene where innovation was happening because it had the characteristics I described above.

Maybe I'm out of the loop, but someone show me some metal that is as different to Djent as Djent was to SYL, or Gojira back in 2007. Show me evolving fashion and tastes because yes they represent an evolving aesthetic sensibility. From where I'm at, people who play Djent and Metal haven't changed in years. In Hardcore fashion has changed in the past 12 months. I'm not saying any of this to disparage metal, I love metal, I just watch say festival videos from 1988 then 1991 then 1995 then 1999 and I see big changes in guitar tone, drum sound, fashion, vocal styles etc every jump. Contrast that to Wacken 2004 and Wacken 2017. Seriously, check Nevermore or Meshuggah or Fear Factory out and you'll see that the only real change from 2001 onwards was the addition of some skinny jeans and moving to AxeFX setups. There's less aesthetic variety now in every way in the metal mainstream. If I wasn't on my phone trying to keep this semi coherent I'd link to demonstrate all this.


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## McKay (Mar 3, 2017)

bostjan said:


> That's an excellent point. Mtv was a huge influence on 80's and 90's kids. Back when "Headbanger's Ball" was a source of new heavy music, it was pretty much every band's dream to be featured there, because it meant tons of exposure to just the right audience.
> 
> In the youtube age, though, you can upload whatever you want, but it doesn't mean anyone will see it. If a band uploads a music video to youtube, posts it on facebook, and calls it a day, they will not reach any new levels of exposure. On the other hand, the band could do that, then pay youtube to feature the video, but again, this really lacks the focus of targeted marketing, and would likely be a waste of money for a metal band. You could do targeted marketing through youtube, which would be a much better option, but facebook- I don't believe there is anything comparable- and you have to know a thing or two about what you are doing, strategically.
> 
> ...



Quality post that illustrates the point I'm clumsily trying to make.


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## Double A (Mar 4, 2017)

amonb said:


> Well said, I 100% agree, which is why I worded the original post the way I did... that story is just how journos told it. At the time, being just a 14 year old music fqn when Nirvana broke, I didn't see it as a changing of the guard, I just saw it as being a bunch of guys who weren't dressed like girls playing huge riffs. That appealled to me. It wasn't until later, when Def Leppard put out "Slang", Poison put out the Ritchie Kotzen album and Motley Crue put out the self-titled album, that I started to really see that something had happened.


For me, at the time I think I was around 13 when Nevermind came out and I was listening to Poison and Motley Crue and I _knew_ things were changing. That album blew me away and just just ripped the carpet out from underneath all of those other bands and just made all of that style of music seem silly and instantly dated. 

That all could just be me looking back with 20/20 and because it was the first album that changed my life (although I think In Utero is way better today) though.


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## JohnIce (Mar 6, 2017)

Interesting topic. I see art in general moving to a more humble and DIY approach lately, like it did in the early 90's, I think as the internet brings us closer up in each other's faces we appreciate humility and sincerity more because it's way easier to spot pretentious bs and fakers from up close. And since social media gives us daily insight into artists lives, we also appreciate someone who's productive and releases something simple and cool every other day over someone who spends 2 years making an album of 10 over-produced songs and one $5000 high-production music video that took 6 months to make. An artist who _doesn't_ pretend to be richer or more successful than they are is the new unicorn. They're the ones who seem fresh and interesting.

So if quick, humble and sincere is the trend right now, anything that signifies that you care too much about looking impressive is on the way out. So yeah, technically difficult playing that takes years of practice, $3000 custom guitars configured to look like they're $6000 custom guitars, home studio mixes that try to sound super expensive, programmed drums trying to sound like they're not programmed drums... well it all kind of paints a picture of a vain musician trying to brag. And frankly, bands who do all these things typically aren't the people who can write lyrics that anyone connects with. And there, the whole machinery finally coughs a cloud of black smoke and the trip is cancelled.

TL;DR: Yeah, I think audiences have moved on again, in the same way they did after cock rock. People (at least the 7 billion who don't visit guitar forums) are fed up with the same things as they were last time.


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## oc616 (Mar 6, 2017)

^ I think you raise a good point. Frontierer were easily my favorite new band to break out in the last 2 years, and the lead writer uses...an Orange RG7321? Could be wrong there, but it absolutely isn't a Prestige Ibanez or custom hand-built number. Is the music overly clean, sterile and precise? Nope. It takes the "djent" tropes and slams them head-first into hardcore punk ala Converge. Is the group a bunch of trendy kids with kit bought from Daddy's latest paycheck? It's a few guys from around the globe, only now looking into doing something bigger because there's an audience for it.

All of this made Orange Mathematics the most refreshing album I've heard in half a decade.


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## bostjan (Mar 6, 2017)

Double A said:


> For me, at the time I think I was around 13 when Nevermind came out and I was listening to Poison and Motley Crue and I _knew_ things were changing. That album blew me away and just just ripped the carpet out from underneath all of those other bands and just made all of that style of music seem silly and instantly dated.
> 
> That all could just be me looking back with 20/20 and because it was the first album that changed my life (although I think In Utero is way better today) though.



Take a step back, though, and look at a slightly bigger picture. People, for the most part, didn't stop liking cock rock and start liking grunge. The people who liked cock rock got older, and the kids who were listening to grunge were now old enough to join the consumer end of the economy.

Where cock rock was about partying and having a good time, it appealed to the more hedonistic culture of the baby boomers. As the baby boomers were moving into middle adulthood in the early 1990's, Generation X was becoming the dominating music market. Gen X was much more prone to embrace nihilism, which is why Nirvana exploded.

Not to sh_i_t all over everyone's favourite band, but Nirvana was not really exceptional in any way. They were not the first grunge band, they were not writing new guitar riffs, and they were not bringing new lyrical ideas with them. Actually, there was not too much original about them. Let's be brutally honest, they were a mixture of the Melvins and the Pixies incorporating 80's riffs and screaming into the mix. There were tons of grunge bands coexisting with them before they broke out big, and really, a lot of those bands were quite similar to Nirvana. Nirvana was just in the right place at the right time to move up. Now, that's not to say that Nirvana wasn't a big part of a huge movement, but I think they get wayyy too much credit for the what the grunge movement, as a whole, did. Gen X chose Nirvana to be their flagship band, but this placed way too much pressure on Kurt. It could have just as easily been Mother Love Bone or Soundgarden or Meat Puppets, or a non-grunge band like Red Hot Chili Peppers (actually to be fair, the spotlight wasn't too kind to any of these bands - come to think of it, the singer from MLB OD'd from the rising pressure of them starting to get famous, the original bass player from Soundgarden quit because of the commercial direction the band was taking, Meat Puppets self descructed for the same reason, and the guitarist of RHCP quit the band because he was too uncomfortable with the band getting so big so quickly - I guess it's way more of a recurring theme than I realized before typing this)...

Anyway, with Gen X moving on and leaving the state of the music industry to Millennials in the early 2000's, it seems like the next big thing in music ended up becoming the pop music of the 2000's and early 2010's, but I'm quite impressed with the underground stuff that has been going around. Heavy bands have gotten so much heavier and there is so much diversity in different kinds of heavy music these past ~15ish years. But I think we have come to the point where it is apparent that Millennials are going to be passing the torch soon to the next generation, if they decide what kind of music they are going to like. It'll be ~5 years before it's apparent to everyone, but the groundwork for it is being laid down right now.


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## JohnIce (Mar 6, 2017)

oc616 said:


> ^ I think you raise a good point. Frontierer were easily my favorite new band to break out in the last 2 years, and the lead writer uses...an Orange RG7321? Could be wrong there, but it absolutely isn't a Prestige Ibanez or custom hand-built number. Is the music overly clean, sterile and precise? Nope. It takes the "djent" tropes and slams them head-first into hardcore punk ala Converge. Is the group a bunch of trendy kids with kit bought from Daddy's latest paycheck? It's a few guys from around the globe, only now looking into doing something bigger because there's an audience for it.
> 
> All of this made Orange Mathematics the most refreshing album I've heard in half a decade.



^My point exactly  Thinking about it further, I think this is the reason why the Wintersun campaign got so many people reacting, both positively and negatively. On one side, you've had people saying asking for that kind of money to make an album is insincere, greedy and pompous. On the other side they say the opposite, people appreciating the transparency and direct fan communication (sans record labels and behind-closed-doors marketing strategies for once) as _entirely_ sincere and humble. So regardless of your own opinion, it's clear that sincerity and humility is what everyone wants, because nobody in this whole reaction storm seems to question the band's ability to make good music at the end of the day. It's the why and the how that people care about so much right now. That goes for all genres at the moment, the same goes for media, politics, everything.


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