klimov explains metal [split from Thor]

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I’m a couple of years younger than you folks, didn’t get into metal/grunge until 1991-2 and therefore never listened to Guns’n’Roses. Anyway, checked out a couple of their albums on Spotify the other day and have to say they’re real one-hit wonders, aren’t they - a right load of crap!

Re: Thor

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klimov wrote: 19/06/22, 09:29:04 I’m a couple of years younger than you folks, didn’t get into metal/grunge until 1991-2 and therefore never listened to Guns’n’Roses.
GNR is neither metal nor grunge. I'd consider them a slightly more talented version of the hard rock hair bands that infected the late '80s. Grunge is actually what helped kill GNR (that and Axel Rose being a huge asshole that no one could work with). And of course the Nirvana/GNR feud is fairly infamous now.
Just cut them up like regular chickens

Re: Thor

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you're fucking mental. you make as much sense as the program directors on the original incarnation of MTV's "Headbanger's Ball". that album came out the same year as Bathory's Under The Sign of The Black Mark. it's your position that they are the same genre?

Re: Thor

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After thorough intellectual consideration, I'd suggest that if the following two elements are prominent features of a composition:
- a modern drum kit played in a rock style
- an electric guitar run through a distortion pedal
this composition may reasonably be categorised as metal. The composition may of course cross over into other genres or sub-genres too.

If you consider this too broad a definition, bear in mind there are many who would define ALL 20th and 21st century music composed outside a trained classical framework as pop music.

Re: Thor

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Oh i will “bear that in mind”. I will also take it under advisement that you - who love to watch films and TV with a very critical eye and can take them apart skillfully when you want to - seem incapable of or unwilling to critically listen to music, apparently. Your two points above as to what constitutes “metal” are the same two points that constitute rock. G&R are no more a metal band than AC/DC or Ratt. If you can’t differentiate between Black Sabbath and G&R and want the continue to categorize actual metal as people growling stupidly, feel free to stop talking about it or get the fuck out of here.

Re: klimov explains metal [split from Thor]

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Straight rock (eg. Stones, electric Dylan, Creedence, etc) doesn't tend towards heavy distortion on the guitars. Maybe the definition could be tweaked to make that clearer, sure. Otherwise, how would you define it?

Wiki goes with this: "a thick, monumental sound characterized by distorted guitars, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats and loudness." - and mentions Guns & Roses btw.

Re: klimov explains metal [split from Thor]

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there is a clue on crosswords with friends today about "rock band from australia" where the answer is ACDC. rock. even dumb crosswords with friends knows that the spectrum of rock has widened since buddy holly days. if you want to say "hard rock" i'd be down with that. black sabbath is heavy metal, as is iron maiden, ala NWOBHM. neither hard rock or heavy metal is pure metal. again, citing wiki as a source of truth is suspect. millions of pleebs making their voices heard doesn't make it correct or biblical source of truth. G&R is closer to gordon lightfoot than deicide.

Re: klimov explains metal [split from Thor]

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klimov wrote: 19/06/22, 09:29:04 I’m a couple of years younger than you folks, didn’t get into metal/grunge until 1991-2 and therefore never listened to Guns’n’Roses. Anyway, checked out a couple of their albums on Spotify the other day and have to say they’re real one-hit wonders, aren’t they - a right load of crap!
Appetite for Destruction was monumental when it came out. Looking back on it and the band's later catalogue without understanding the context of rock music at the time is foolish and naive.

1987. This is pre-grunge. Forget about grunge. GnR has nothing to do with grunge.

I was 11 years old, 5th grade. Just starting to learn about music that I liked apart from what my parents liked to play (lots of Rolling Stones by my dad). You've got all the 80s pop music on the radio. Michael Jackson released Bad that same year and is all over the place. Bon Jovi released Slippery When Wet in '86 and it was massive. Def Leppard's Hysteria came out in '87 and was everywhere. Hair metal bands are dominating in LA. Thrash and metal are thriving, but very much in the underground. Nobody I knew in elementary school was listening to metal yet.

Then came Appetite for Destruction. Slash's guitar solos. Axl's wail on "Welcome to the Jungle." THIS was something different. This was raw. These guys didn't give a fuck. They're drinking Jack Daniels and singing about drugs and sex and rock 'n roll and look like they're in a biker gang. This isn't Warrant singing "Cherry Pie" or Bon Jovi "Living on a Prayer." This was dangerous, and your parents didn't like it. The music was much more rooted in the blues/rock tradition like the Stones than anything coming from hair metal or heavy metal.

Appetite is a badass album that had a big impact on music at the time. I had GnR shirts and posters. My friend and I devoured Lies (the naked chick inside the liner notes, wow!) and Appetite over and over while we waited for the next studio album. That took years, and they finally dropped a bloated double album with mixed quality, but it was enough for them to rise to the top again for a while.

But Appetite will forever be a classic, and a monumental album in my childhood.

Re: klimov explains metal [split from Thor]

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Musically, Sabbath are closer to G&R than, say, Burzum. "Hard rock" is a retroactive classification that didn't exist at the time. And since metal is a sub-genre of rock, the crossword is correct regardless of whether or not ACDC are metal (I've never listened to ACDC, and never will, so can't comment on that...). As for "pure metal", there's no mention of such a thing on Wiki, so you'd definitely need to provide a definition... Does it require a Scandinavian white supremacist growling about killing women?

To the other guy - I never said G&R are grunge, I said they're one hit wonders... But yes, like I mentioned right at the start, I missed out on their cultural impact by a few years. By the time I was that sort of age, it was Alice in Chains, RATM, NIN, Smashing Pumpkins, Pearl Jam, RHCP and Nirvana. Oh the drama when Cobain topped himself... But the relevant thing here is that we called ourselves "metalheads". At least until a couple of years later, when we embraced LTJ Bukem, Goldie, ShyFX, Photek, Squarepusher, Grooverider, TPower, etc, and declared anything with a guitar to be deader than Kennedy... Tribal nonsense, of course, but such is the way of the playground.

Re: klimov explains metal [split from Thor]

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Saying metal is a subgenre of rock is like saying humans are a subspecies of ape, or rock is a subgenre of baroque. While rock came before metal, thus on the timeline of music rock did spawn metal, metal is its own thing and entirely different. Just because you and your friends were incorrect when you were kids doesn’t mean you have to stay that way.

Obviously I didn’t mean “pure” in the aryan sense. Don’t be a twat.

Re: klimov explains metal [split from Thor]

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That was the parlance of the time, used by pretty much everyone. Metalheads and Ravers, locked in a primordial conflict like Mods and Rockers...Metalheads tended to be middle class and Ravers working class. Just relaying some historical facts here...

I don't think anyone's really going to buy that metal is "entirely different" from rock unless they're personally very invested in the former and can't see the wood for the trees... End of the day you've got a drumkit and electric guitars and a vocalist playing together in a band... Humans ARE apes btw...

Re: klimov explains metal [split from Thor]

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There's a potential solution in this article that by coincidence popped up on the guardian yesterday (obv I don't agree with the premise that Gn'R have 20 great songs, but that aside...)

Writer describes them as a rock band with hair metal roots. But furthermore highlights that they recorded songs in different genres. Welcome to the Jungle is described as "heavy metal", Shadow of Your Love as "speed metal" and Madagascar as "orchestral metal" (whatever that is!), whereas Paradise City and You Could Be Mine are "hard rock", Double Talkin' Jive is a "dance anthem" and YYI "covers everything from folk to prog". This could perhaps explain the differences of opinion.