On music genres

It's a thing. The border between a thing and a genre depends on your definition of "a genre".

I have a friend who's into melodic death metal, doesn't like the "extreme metal" label, in his opinion it is too broad. In his own opinion there's a shit ton of difference just between melodeath bands he listens to, while if you ask me, they're pretty much all generic. What's genuine difference to him is a gimmick to me. On the other hand he considers Helloween and Maiden basically the same band (he likes them both, especially Helloween).

How do you reconcile these opinions, make a category system that fits all?
 
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Zare said:
I have a friend who's into melodic death metal, doesn't like the "extreme metal" label, in his opinion it is too broad. In his own opinion there's a shit ton of difference just between melodeath bands he listens to, while if you ask me, they're pretty much all generic.
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I suppose that when Melodic Death Metal started it was considered "Extreme" by many because of it was an offshoot from "regular" Death Metal and was probably considered to be "extreme" for the time. When I think about Extreme Metal I think about the satanism and church burning involved in the Norwegian Black Metal scene or the rape and disembowelment obsession in the lyrics of bands towards the more brutal end of the Death Metal genre. I don't know the Melodeath genre in much detail but what I do know is not "extreme" by my own probably erroneous standards, so I agree with your friend that there are many differences between Melodeath bands. For example, the classic In Flames and At The Gates albums from the 90s sound so different despite both bands coming from the same Gothenburg Death Metal scene. I suppose someone who doesn't listen to much or any Metal would find both bands "extreme" but At The Gates sound significantly more "extreme" to me. In Flames embodied the "melodic" part of Melodeath a lot more and At The Gates are more on the "death" side.
 
That can be said of any new genre. Jazz was extreme, rock and roll was extreme, heavy metal, thrash, death, etc.
 
Black Wizard said:
In what way was Jazz considered to be extreme? I don't listen to or know anything about Jazz.
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Here is when I wish SMX was still here, but from the little I know music was very rigid and structured from the three genres that made up "classical" music up to the early 20th century and Jazz. Jazz brought back improvisation, jamming and like most new genres was attached to the vices of the time. In the 1920s U.S it was speakeasies, drugs and sex. Having been innovated by musicians of color (like blues, rock, gospel, soul, disco, hip hop...) was another reason to hate it.
 
Black Wizard said:
your friend that there are many differences between Melodeath bands.
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Not between all the bands in the genre, but bands he usually listens to. Blastbeats, downtuned guitar "carpet", non-clean vocals and a folk instrument every now and then. With different lyrical themes, different kind of non clean vocal and different kind of a gimmick (such as folk instrument) these bands fall into entirely different subgenres of death metal, while the whole genre of death metal being larger and wider than some genres proper.

This above is all his opinion. In my opinion those bands are pretty much generic subgenre stuff. That's why I mentioned him, as an example of someone who I wouldn't be able to sit down and agree upon acceptable classification. As an example why genres are subjective.

For me extreme metal, each of instruments represented in the band, is influenced only by "pure" metal elements. The word is bad but I don't have better - think about the generations influencing one another, and how blues/r'n'r/jazz/funk might be too down the line for it to manifest in the instrument playing.
 
Black Wizard said:
In what way was Jazz considered to be extreme? I don't listen to or know anything about Jazz.
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It was extreme enough that conservative reactionaries associated it with degeneracy. Its experimentative, free-flowing nature compared to the rigidity of established genres was associated with similar attitudes on other walks of life and received similar visceral hatred.
 
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