METALLICA SURVIVOR 2016: Results - Fade to Black wins again

Are you satisfied with the results?

  • Total voters
    9
  • Poll closed .
JudasMyGuide said:
To put it bluntly, they sound like a bunch of angry teenagers here. For better or worse.
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They are a bunch of angry teenagers here.
That is precisely the album's strongest point, or at least the level at which I can appreciate it.
 
Yea I don't mind that. It's at least authentic, unlike a bunch of family men in their 50s trying to sound like angsty teenagers (I'm looking at you Hardwired).
 
2Foro
I enjoy the album, because I don't feel the need to skip anything bar HTL, I headbang a bit etc. It's perfectly enjoyable. Yet I don't like it as a Metallica album, because I cringe just as often. It sounds very immature and Horsemen stick(s) out like a sore thumb, because it doesn't really fit, IMHO. I enjoy Anaesthesia while it's on, but were it not a part of the album, I wouldn't put it on separately, unlike Ktulu, Orion, Suicide... Also, this is probably the only time in Metallica's history where Hetfeld actually drags them down. Those screeches are just terrible.

That said, I respect your opinion and in fact I am glad the album has its share of fans. Well, other fans than those still pining for the "early days". :)

2Mckindog & Mosh
I don't blame them for being teenagers - I agree it's authentic, it got them a lot of fans etc.

But apart from some very specific cases (Beach Boys? I guess), I don't like teenagers in my music, going more for a bit of maturity myself. Also, metal and naivety don't mix all that well, IMHO.

But as usual, IRYO, these are just my personal preferences.
 
Mosh said:
Justice is very much following the same trajectory as the previous two albums. It breaks away from the formula a little bit but songs like Blackened, One, and Harvester of Sorrow are par for the course for what they were doing at the time.
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It's different enough not to merge with Ride and Master, which have way more stuff in common. "A little bit" is underselling it.

Blackened is quite different as well, it has an unusual time signature somewhere, the band hadn't explored with time signatures up to that point before. Not to mention the way more self indulgent soloing.
 
JudasMyGuide said:
But apart from some very specific cases (Beach Boys? I guess), I don't like teenagers in my music, going more for a bit of maturity myself. Also, metal and naivety don't mix all that well, IMHO.
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This raises a very important point about musical intention and enjoyment, and I agree completely. I am firmly on your side of the camp, Judas. In my experience, most people really get into music during their adolescent or teenage years and those people generally get into one of two things first:

a) Music that sounds like a bunch of relatable peers doing something that you could do. It's inspiring because the music is presenting the same limited scope that you have at that time and it's immediately identifiable. Your ideas, problems, mindsets, etc. are being broadcast by these larger than life musical artists, thus validating your current state of being and making it seem like you could take on the world because someone else gets you. The music itself will mostly likely be simpler because it's easier for the mind to understand - like the many open E, quick chromatic turnaround, dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun riffs on Kill 'Em All A lot of metal (thrash/glam), punk, hard rock and pop fit into this category.

b) Music that sounds like a group of people doing something that you couldn't do, but can strive for. It's inspiring because the music sounds more mature, more polished, and resonates with a level of maturity that you desire or possibly identify with at a young age. The ideas and thoughts being presented either require more thought and reflection (and study) or simply give the listener a sense of escape, fictional lyrics as opposed to the non-fictional approach of Group A. The music itself will usually be more complicated, either in technicality or in density of sound layers. Most classical, metal (progressive/power/many others), jazz, and some folk fit into this category.

Kill 'Em All fits into Group A, and I've never been a person who relates to that kind of music. I can appreciate it to a certain extent, but that content has never done much for me. To me, music is larger than life and reaches behind common language and life problems to project relatable themes through melody and story rather than literally spelling them out for the listener. It's the same reason why as a teenager I would have rather watched Star Wars than some slice-of-life indie movie about an angsty teenager doing angsty things - that's not enjoyable, that's life. Same reason I'd rather read an urban fantasy novel about crime-solving wizards than an autobiography about a troubled man from Middle America. I want music to take me somewhere else, not reinforce the world I already live in. Not to hate on those who do enjoy the Group A thing (a la Kill 'Em All), but I'll always prefer songs about Cthulhu to songs about banging your head against the stage like you never did before.

This was a very long, philosophical post and I'm sorry. :)
 
MrKnickerbocker said:
This was a very long, philosophical post and I'm sorry. :)
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Don't be. That was beautifully put.

I don't extend this to other art as much (I go both ways for movies, for example) and even in music it's not always like this for me (there is a lot of people I love who sing about relatable things in a not-that-complex way - Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Sinatra) and I even like quite a lot of the "simple" music myself, but in general I get what you mean and mostly agree.
 
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MrKnickerbocker said:
This raises a very important point about musical intention and enjoyment, and I agree completely. I am firmly on your side of the camp, Judas. In my experience, most people really get into music during their adolescent or teenage years and those people generally get into one of two things first:

a) Music that sounds like a bunch of relatable peers doing something that you could do. It's inspiring because the music is presenting the same limited scope that you have at that time and it's immediately identifiable. Your ideas, problems, mindsets, etc. are being broadcast by these larger than life musical artists, thus validating your current state of being and making it seem like you could take on the world because someone else gets you. The music itself will mostly likely be simpler because it's easier for the mind to understand - like the many open E, quick chromatic turnaround, dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun riffs on Kill 'Em All A lot of metal (thrash/glam), punk, hard rock and pop fit into this category.

b) Music that sounds like a group of people doing something that you couldn't do, but can strive for. It's inspiring because the music sounds more mature, more polished, and resonates with a level of maturity that you desire or possibly identify with at a young age. The ideas and thoughts being presented either require more thought and reflection (and study) or simply give the listener a sense of escape, fictional lyrics as opposed to the non-fictional approach of Group A. The music itself will usually be more complicated, either in technicality or in density of sound layers. Most classical, metal (progressive/power/many others), jazz, and some folk fit into this category.

Kill 'Em All fits into Group A, and I've never been a person who relates to that kind of music. I can appreciate it to a certain extent, but that content has never done much for me. To me, music is larger than life and reaches behind common language and life problems to project relatable themes through melody and story rather than literally spelling them out for the listener. It's the same reason why as a teenager I would have rather watched Star Wars than some slice-of-life indie movie about an angsty teenager doing angsty things - that's not enjoyable, that's life. Same reason I'd rather read an urban fantasy novel about crime-solving wizards than an autobiography about a troubled man from Middle America. I want music to take me somewhere else, not reinforce the world I already live in. Not to hate on those who do enjoy the Group A thing (a la Kill 'Em All), but I'll always prefer songs about Cthulhu to songs about banging your head against the stage like you never did before.

This was a very long, philosophical post and I'm sorry. :)
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How did you relate to Bad Religion? Certainly more category A-ish than B-ish isn't it? Definitely the music and the singing are not complex. The singing is executed very well, but it doesn't sound complicated. The lyrics do sound complicated, but the strength of Bad Religion is certainly the musical and vocal package the lyrics are carried in.

For the record:
The gratifying aspect of headbanging isn't only the banging itself. It's the music and the feeling for that music that makes you do it. A riff can be so infectious that it initializes the body to move. The music takes you somewhere else (another "state" so to speak) as described in B. So the power of A shouldn't be underestimated or ridiculed. Tapping with your feet or dancing to a beat is the same process. The music makes you do it. That can happen in both A and B categories.

Speaking for myself: I can't deny that growing up with "simple" music, with feel for melody, in eighties pop-era music surely must have influenced me. From there on, more and more B happened, without decreasing or denying the strong A fundament.

I think that if people start with B they have more trouble with tolerating/enjoying A than vice versa.
 
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Forostar said:
How did you relate to Bad Religion? Certainly more category A-ish than B-ish isn't it? Definitely the music and the singing are not complex. The singing is executed very well, but it doesn't sound complicated. The lyrics do sound complicated, but the strength of Bad Religion is certainly the musical and vocal package the lyrics are carried in.

For the record:
The gratifying aspect of headbanging isn't only the banging itself. It's the music and the feeling for that music that makes you do it. A riff can be so infectious that it initializes the body to move. The music takes you somewhere else (another "state" so to speak) as described in B. So the power of A shouldn't be underestimated or ridiculed. Tapping with your feet or dancing to a beat is the same process. The music makes you do it. That can happen in both A and B categories.

Speaking for myself: I can't deny that growing up with "simple" music, with feel for melody, in eighties pop-era music surely must have influenced me. From there on, more and more B happened, without decreasing or denying the strong A fundament.
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You read my mind - I was going to include a shout-out to you and Bad Religion in my original post but decided against it because of the thread being Metallica related. Bad Religion is musically and spiritually a Group A band, but lyrically a mix of both because they write about real-world problems but in a very intelligent, often erudite way. I'm certainly not saying that there aren't mixes of both A and B in every genre (or even within every band).

I 100% agree that a headbanging riff can come out of either group and it's more about the feel than the technicality. The power of A (as you put it) is exactly why so many young people identify with it - it's instinctual. However, relating to either A or B, I think, is based on personality types and some people are more external at that age (Group A being the immediate gut reaction) while some are more internal (Group B being the more analytical reaction).

As always, a lot of what I'm talking about is lyric-related. I can jam out to a simple 3 chord rock song all day long, but not if the lyrics are, "I'm rocking all day, listen to me rock." Relating to Kill Em All - I find many of the riffs to be amateurish and stemming from naivety, as Judas said.

Forostar said:
I think that if people start with B they have more trouble with tolerating/enjoying A than vice versa.
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Indeed. I'm a prime example of that. I started with B and I have a lot of trouble with much of A.
 
This has certainly sparked some interesting conversation.

Is there anyone who hasn't voted yet? I just want to get an idea of who is all playing.
 
Perhaps naivety isn't the best word to express that, but I can't think of a better one at the moment.

Thing is, I realise that metal is very over-the-top, probably by its very nature. I accept the naivety in power metal, for example, where it's part of the shtick and where the silly lyrics actually try to express high concepts, some being better at it, some worse. I don't mind when a band stylise into such style, because I feel it's really an act, a mannerism, if you like. Yet I don't really like when I can't help but feel cleverer than the band at hand. Digressing even further - an excellent example would be religion bashing - it's very noticeable whether the person at hand actually knows what they're talking about (the chief difference between Umberto Eco and Richard Dawkins, if we stray away from music) the rule of thumb being Epica = good, Motorhead = bad (though I really like Motorhead and it's more complex than that, okay?).

This might be one of the reasons I don't like the overtly "Satanic" bands - they very often don't know what they're really talking about, going for the purest of shock values, using bad Latin and being at the same time ridiculously silly, yet deadly serious.

Or take Kiss, for example. While I respect them musically, I agree with George Starostin that their lyrics and overall message is not about "keeping it simple", but "keeping it simple, stupid", where "stupid" is the key. Here it's probably mannerism as well, but it's annoying as f*ck.

Sorry for the digression from the topic at hand, which is Metallica, but to me the difference between these two approaches is what makes the jump between Kill and Ride so uncanny. Yep, the latter's title track rhymes "pain" with "brain", but I have no problem taking it seriously. And yes, Metallica's string RTL -> MOP -> AJFA is pretty awesome (though I still think MOP is overrated) and their "biggest metal band in the world" status is IMHO understandable and not completely random.
 
Never was a very big fan of Bell. My friend, a huge Metallica fan, swears by it, says it's one of his favorite Metallica songs. I get the praise for it, it's a good song, but I think one of the weaker ones from Ride the Lightning. The Call of Ktulu I liked a lot in high school, but I think it's kinda boring now. The Pink Floyd vibe to it's nice though.
 
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