The Greatest Metal Song Cup - Part II, Round 4, Matches 82-87

What is your favourite song in each match? Vote in all six matchups!

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  • Total voters
    8
  • Poll closed .
Like I wrote in the behemoth post, I am rather well-acquainted with Rush, I was actually quite a fan at first, until it crashed and I fell out of love hard. I admit that many of the latter-day albums fuse together, but I'm pretty sure I have heard more or less every album in their discography at least once or twice. The only albums I like for the most part are Farewell, Hemispheres, Clockwork Angels and, for some inexplicable reason, Presto.

Otherwise I find them really spotty, though it's sometimes really hard for me to tell why. Often it's probably just the vibe - for example, Tom Sawyer makes me almost irrationally angry, especially the beginning. I hear the synth buzzing and "mean mean pride" and I literally want to punch Lee in the face.
I guess it's the combination of vocals, the overall atmosphere of the band and how they are revered among some circles that's just inherently offputting. Other than that... dunno, the sound? The melodic choices?
I listen to Grand Designs and Afterimage and I actually quite like the tracks and then I try to listen to the whole albums and I'm dying. They very often annoy me or bore me, though I admit that it's very subjective, kinda personal and to a degree, inexplicable. I mean, there must be a reason why I mostly accept ELP and King Crimson and Dream fucking Theater, but when I hear Jacob's Ladder or Camera Eye, it just feels so pretentious to me I want to strangle someone.

For the record, the songs I could imagine voting for in this cup are Working Man, Limelight, BU2B, Freewill and Red Sector A. Make of that what you will.


P. S. - In fact, I realised something - although I'm into prog and although I can appreciate black and death metal, vocals are really important to me. LedZep used to be my favourite band, the first band I really loved and I still would love to enjoy them, because the rhythm section is just so sweet. But over the years, I've become allergic to Plant and his whiny screechy moaning of babybabybaby and I just can't love the band anymore. It influences even how I hear the songwriting and other stuff. It is ... always there. For that reason I haven't been able to get into other bands I've been recommended so far, like Between the Buried and Me or Muse. The insane vocal stylings are why Spirogyra (the prog band), whom I otherwise like very much, will probably never be my favourite band. I just can't seem to be able to overcome this.
(and yes, I can listen to Dylan. I can even listen to Bolan or Roger Chapman. There's no easy "rule of a thumb" here. The vocals don't have to be "pretty", but they shouldn't be whiny/obnoxious in a specific way. Don't know, I'm thinking aloud, so to speak)

It is, for better or worse, the human face of the band. Geddy Lee is really unfortunate choice, because his very specific vocals combined with the certain pretentiousness of the band in general (and that goes for the lyrics, too) give off this really unpleasant vibe. Lifeson can do some cool stuff and although he's not my favourite, I respect Peart as a drummer. Heck, Lee himself can do some very solid grooves on the base. But the whole is less than the sum of its parts, it seems.
 
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Like I wrote in the behemoth post, I am rather well-acquainted with Rush, I was actually quite a fan at first, until it crashed and I fell out of love hard. I admit that many of the latter-day albums fuse together, but I'm pretty sure I have heard more or less every album in their discography at least once or twice. The only albums I like for the most part are Farewell, Hemispheres, Clockwork Angels and, for some inexplicable reason, Presto.

Otherwise I find them really spotty, though it's sometimes really hard for me to tell why. Often it's probably just the vibe - for example, Tom Sawyer makes me almost irrationally angry, especially the beginning. I hear the synth buzzing and "mean mean pride" and I literally want to punch Lee in the face.
I guess it's the combination of vocals, the overall atmosphere of the band and how they are revered among some circles that's just inherently offputting. Other than that... dunno, the sound? The melodic choices?
I listen to Grand Designs and Afterimage and I actually quite like the tracks and then I try to listen to the whole albums and I'm dying. They very often annoy me or bore me, though I admit that it's very subjective, kinda personal and to a degree, inexplicable. I mean, there must be a reason why I mostly accept ELP and King Crimson and Dream fucking Theater, but when I hear Jacob's Ladder or Camera Eye, it just feels so pretentious to me I want to strangle someone.

For the record, the songs I could imagine voting for in this cup are Working Man, Limelight, BU2B, Freewill and Red Sector A. Make of that what you will.


P. S. - In fact, I realised something - although I'm into prog and although I can appreciate black and death metal, vocals are really important to me. LedZep used to be my favourite band, the first band I really loved and I still would love to enjoy them, because the rhythm section is just so sweet. But over the years, I've become allergic to Plant and his whiny screechy moaning of babybabybaby and I just can't love the band anymore. It influences even how I hear the songwriting and other stuff. It is ... always there. For that reason I haven't been able to get into other bands I've been recommended so far, like Between the Buried and Me or Muse. The insane vocal stylings are why Spirogyra (the prog band), whom I otherwise like very much, will probably never be my favourite band. I just can't seem to be able to overcome this.
(and yes, I can listen to Dylan. I can even listen to Bolan or Roger Chapman. There's no easy "rule of a thumb" here. The vocals don't have to be "pretty", but they shouldn't be whiny/obnoxious in a specific way. Don't know, I'm thinking aloud, so to speak)

It is, for better or worse, the human face of the band. Geddy Lee is really unfortunate choice, because his very specific vocals combined with the certain pretentiousness of the band in general (and that goes for the lyrics, too) give off this really unpleasant vibe. Lifeson can do some cool stuff and although he's not my favourite, I respect Peart as a drummer. Heck, Lee himself can do some very solid grooves on the base. But the whole is less than the sum of its parts, it seems.
Thank you for your honest post man! :)
 
Frankly, there's not nearly as much Rush in this game as I was expecting. All of it is in the prelims, so I bet a few songs will get knocked out before group. Only 8 songs total.
 
I honestly wouldn't mind having more Rush after all, since Popoff's list brought a whole bunch of questionable songs in anyway. Not that I mind that inclusion, Martin if anyone is a pro in this field.
 
I checked the sheet and out of those, there are 2 tracks I love (and will probably vote for even against some other bands), 2 I more or less like, 1 I'm OK with/neutral about, 2 mostly meh ones and only 1 I actively hate. So all in all, I won't even be all that negative, it seems.

Also, I might sound radical or hostile sometimes, but even the bands I actively hate I usually try to "get into", periodically, again and again. In general, I'd rather like than dislike something, it's just that I don't want to lie to myself or others.
I haven't had this "mercy attempt" with Rush for quite some time, but maybe I might.
 
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That stuff has made far more of a contribution to metal than some of the niche genres ever have or ever will. They weren't the formative years of metal, they were it's heyday, and the proliferation of all the subsequent genres is verging on parody.
This game is not about the musical roots of metal nor the historical importance of its predecessors for music in general though
 
I love Rush and I still think 8 songs is too many for a "metal" competition.

I just checked and if I'm counting correctly, there's actually more GNR songs than that, 9, to be precise - and I know Loosey hates them, it's just that I see them fitting the metal cup much more in general - expecting more overlap in fandoms.

I was looking at it in the weak and futile hope someone actually nominated the best song by them ... and they did! (match 73) :yey:
 
This game is not about the musical roots of metal nor the historical importance of its predecessors for music in general though

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I'd say this game is about what we make of it. Even the hyper-elitist pricks at Metal Archives - who refuse entire subgenres because they just don't like them - admitted Deep Purple and Rush, for example. And they get pretty decent reviews.
(Also, Progarchives actually admitted Blind Guardian, which I think is cool)

Is Rainbow's Man on the Silver Mountain metal? Not entirely sure. Am I fine with it winning, potentially? Absolutely.

Also, where do we draw the line? Are early Judas Priest metal? I guess you could make a case for and against it, honestly. Are Motorhead metal? Same case.

Just sayin', I like that @LooseCannon is keeping it less strict in general and I say that as someone who's been listening to mostly pure metal primarily.

I admit that Pink Floyd in the metal album cup were a bit too much, though.
 
I just checked and if I'm counting correctly, there's actually more GNR songs than that, 9, to be precise - and I know Loosey hates them, it's just that I see them fitting the metal cup much more in general - expecting more overlap in fandoms.
I'm pretty split on considering either of them metal, TBH. Some Rush songs are far more metal in nature than Estranged, for instance, and vice versa.
 
I'm pretty split on considering either of them metal, TBH. Some Rush songs are far more metal in nature than Estranged, for instance, and vice versa.

Yep, Estranged is a bit of an outlier. However, stuff like Welcome to the Jungle, Coma, Garden of Eden, Back Off Bitch, Outta Get Me... are closer, if you squint a bit. Like I said above, if Motorhead are metal an Kyuss are metal and Motley Crue are metal and even Extreme are metal and whatever else is, I guess the hard rock paradigm is IMHO more or less acceptable.

I'm just glad I can vote for Nightrain, that's all.
 
From what I gather on the internet, Power Plant had this rather weird shelf life - I have seen just as many people considering it the possible pinnacle of Gamma Ray's (and Hansen's) career and just as many decrying it as the main example of the band's generally uneven output.
Yeah, it's kind of both. Half the tracks are great and half the tracks are hopelessly cheesy and/or insipid. I would obviously put "Gardens Of The Sinner" in the great half.

There's a lot of Americans here who - IMHO - tend to be the origin of the overratedness and weirdly protective of the band, after all. :p
Hey, I resemble that remark...!
 
Someone likes nu metal don’t they lol

Not really, I was talking primarily about medieval metal - In Extremo, Subway to Sally and others - that all used to be there, but then got deleted one day. All those bands, no reason.

Tool aren't there, either.

Motley Crue are there and Extreme aren't.

Also, I genuinely don't like Rammstein, but excluding them for "not being metal" feels stupid to me.

As for nu metal, I only care because System of a Down, one of the more creative and interesting bands is not included, because weird reasons. Folk ambient bands can be there. Fucking Deep Purple can be there.


I like Prog Archives much more, because they try to be as inclusive as possible - there's a a lot of stuff that didn't have to be there, like a lot of the metal bands (Blind Guardian, Meshuggah), stuff like Vangelis or some bands that are more or less pure folk rock, and yet they can include them.
 
GNR played at Donington 88 QED

OTOH, so did Kiss... and Bon Jovi the year prior. And ZZ Top and Marillion in 85. :D

Don't tell me nobody nominated Going Blind, I'll Be There for You, I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide and Heart of Lothian for the cup!
 
Also, where do we draw the line?

Why is it also ok to draw a revisionist line about what is and isn't metal on the heaviness scale at one end of that scale but not the other?

All those early bands you mention were certainly considered metal at the time those albums and songs were out.

I'm fairly sure that when Prowler was number 1 in the Sounds Magazine charts there was also Rush tracks included in that chart. I made the fatal mistake of doing a search for "prowler in the sounds magazine chart" in work so I could post that chart here, DO NOT DO THAT SEARCH! :lol:
 
For the first matchup, neither of these songs are my speed, truly. They both have aspects I like, and dislike, and in the end I'll give the edge to Pantera, but I don't really think either song is a truly worthy addition to the tournament.

Man, that Manowar song was cheesy, and then it turned from cheesy to *bad*. What the hell was up with that ending? I thought the song was over and it goes on and on. Gardens of the Sinner, by contrast, is pretty standard fare Gamma Ray and power metal, but much better than Manowar. Gamma Ray.

Napalm Death is pretty fine, and I can get into their stuff for short periods, but I really dug what Edge of Sanity has brought. Dan Swanö is someone I keep seeing pop up, I gotta dig in one of these days. It's not exactly my favourite genre, but I enjoyed the song a fair bit.

Rush, lol.

I get Overkill, I understand their place, and I even like their stuff, but Quasarborn was something new and fresh. Why not.

At the end of the day, Learning to Live is a Dream Theater song, and I remain not a huge Dream Theater fan. This song didn't motivate me to change it, so The Ocean.
 
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