Topic: The Music Thread

@Jimmer-jammer I just don’t like making a link between technical ability and what makes ‘good music’. The tendency from jazz and rock fans to downplay pop music for example is just silly because there are probably more progressive steps and risks being taken by pop musicians than rock musicians just now. The fact that Greta Van Fleet have a career attests to that. Whereas Charli XCX can’t do a clearly Led Zeppelin inspired guitar solo but she can completely sell pretty wild and interesting music.

If we only paid attention to bands that could play their instruments like maestros then punk wouldn’t exist today as the Sex Pistols and their contemporaries wouldn’t have made it. The sad thing is that while someone like Prince can clearly play a guitar extremely well, he’s still left out of the conversation when it comes to the ‘best’ guitarists in favour of the traditional picks. Rock and metal fans make fun of Lil Wayne constantly for being bad at guitar but would never say the same about Sid Vicious playing the bass considering they’re both dreadful. There’s a fair amount of ‘genre wars’ and also considering metal’s very prominent ties to white supremacy, that probably plays a part when it comes to metal fans’ attitudes towards rap too. I wish people would just listen to whatever genres they want and not be a ‘rock fan’ or ‘metal fan’ or ‘rap fan’. It would be like only watching Westerns, you’re just missing out on stuff you probably would have liked if you’d given it a shot.

@nessisonett What genre would you say Prince fell into then? pop? funk? jazz-funk? I think he was his own man entirely. Also, with regard to your comments on metal fans, that's largely true but I also think, just to back up your point, that there is a strong belief in the metal community that one should only listen to metal and all the sub-genres therein. @ShaiHulud, you obviously listen to a lot of metal, care to weigh-in on this? You obviously like jazz as well, but I think I can safely assume you're probably in the minority when it comes to liking jazz as well as metal, and therefore can attest to the niche headset of the majority of metal fans out there, yourself excluded.

@nessisonett "metal’s very prominent ties to white supremacy"
That's quite a sweeping statement you're making there! I know there are a couple of extreme-rightwing bands out there, you'll find that the vast majority of metal musicians and listeners are quite emphatic and liberal-minded and won't have anything to do with such tendencies. They're quite vocal in condemning these bands.

@TheBrandedSwordsman Actually, the idea of metal listeners being more shallow-minded than people listening to other music genres is not something I've come across a lot. Sure, there are probably diehard Slayer fans out there or sixteen-year-olds claiming that it's not trve to listen to something non-metal, but on the whole people seem quite open-minded in my experience. Most people I know who listen to metal also listen to other stuff, eg electronic music, jazz, pop (even Coldplay!), classic etc. I don't think it's very fair to pigeonhole people like that.

@ShaiHulud I stand corrected, I was just basing it on personal experience where we were just 16-18 year old kids listening to rock and metal almost exclusively, at college, although I knew one guy who listened to the Beach Boys and loads of other stuff and I'm still in touch with him, we were even in a band together and the wide variety of music we listened to helped expand the sound of the band we were in. So yeah, in retrospect, there are actually a lot of open-minded metalheads.

@TheBrandedSwordsman Well, everything's in perspective of course - 16-year-olds might consider things differently nowadays but I've long since passed that age bracket

I have to say, I've known lots of metal fans who were totally closed-minded. I'm not sure if they're more or less or just the same level of closed-mindedness as non-metal fans though.

@ShaiHulud It’s not that metal fans are all white supremacists - it’s that metal as a genre does have ties to that mentality. You don’t get boy bands or DJs making songs about the Third Reich. I can only think of a couple of black band members as well, the guy from Animals as Leaders and... Ice-T I guess because of Body Count. The metal fans I’ve known have always been the sort that stick to their own and only listen to a very select group of bands, which is just a bit silly.

@nessisonett I still think it's a bit blown out of proportion. Most genres probably have connection to more unsavoury things in society. Heck, some lyrics I hear on a general pop music station are so misogynistic they make me turn the radio off.

@Jimmer-jammer Sorry to hear about your less-than-pleasant experiences. As I said before, as with all things in life there isn't a black-and-white distinction here either unfortunately. Experiences can differ for everyone, but I've been to loads of metal festivals when I was younger and still frequent a concert or two nowadays, and I've always had good experiences. I'm not really into metalcore generally but I'm always willing to give it a shot so I'll check August Burns Red out later!

@RogerRoger Nicely put!

@Jimmer-jammer I used to be a huge fan of 36 crazyfists (do you like them?) and loved Brock Lindow's ability to do both kinds of vocals, but he was a much better clean singer in the sense that he seems like such a nice person and a genuinely good guy, so coming off as heavy metalcore guy with the unclean vocals he did was a harder act to pull off imo, but still, both sets of vocals work really well, and, like he said in an interview, it's interesting to hear heavy music/vocals coming from a place of positive energy on their second record.

@ShaiHulud Just to steer the conversation in a more affable direction, what are your top 5 metal albums?

Mine are:

1)Eden Maine - To You, the First Star
2)Slayer - Seasons In The Abyss
3)Elder - Omens
4)Megadeth - Rust In Peace
5)Metallica - ...And Justice For All

As I've said before, I mostly listen to and play jazz nowadays though.

@Jimmer-jammer Guitar, I used to sing, but not so much now, I don't really do that any more. I was attracted to jazz by my former guitar teacher transitioning from metal to jazz, and, starting with fusion guitarists like Allan Holdsworth and John McLaughlin branched out to "purer" jazzers like John Scofield, Pat Metheny and Bill Frisell. I like the intellectual sophistication of the music and the fact that engages both my mind and my emotions when I listen to it - vocal jazz more for the emotional side of it. Why? Do you like any jazz?

N.B Metal guitar didn't really suit me in the first place, it was just a genre (classical with distortion, as you've said before) for loners and misfits so I felt like I had something in common with that crowd and that's why I started a band as a teenager, but we didn't get very far. So, jazz, as another outside and niche genre which was calm and melodic and emotional, reflective even for the most part appealed to me much more because I was able to identify with it much more on a personal level, but still able to be an interesting guitarist. Which jazz artists do you like, if any?

My cousin's daughter has just released her debut single. The language is rather strong so I won't directly post it, but if you'd like to give it a listen her name is Issey Cross and the song is titled "Who".

@Jimmer-jammer I can recommend some albums if you'd like?

@TheBrandedSwordsman Top 5 metal albums? Oh dear, that's a hard question. I liked that you picked ..And Justice as it's my favourite Metallica album too, which is quite unusual I think. Anyway, here's my favourite three albums for the moment, in chronological order:

Agalloch - The Mantle
Katatonia - Last Fair Deal Gone Down
Opeth - Still Life

@Jimmer-jammer John Scofield - Pick Hits Live (that's a great place to start with him) Bill Frisell - Unspeakable then Nashville if you like that one, then try History, Mystery if you're really a fan of it. If you're a fan of the melodic side of Sco's playing, try Time On My Hands next, or if you like faster tracks like Protocol try Rough House (the album) next, I know less about Pat Metheny than the other two, but his last album 'From This Place' garnered a lot of enthusiasm from me. Those are all guitarists though, Oscar Peterson's Walking the Line is great for jazz piano, and try the album @nessisonett recommended to me, by Herbie Hancock, Sextant, for more great keyboard playing. Let me know what you think if you listen to any of it!

@Jimmer-jammer did you listen to any of those albums yet? What do you think of Brian Eno, if you're familiar with him?

Oh jeez, SOPHIE seems to have died in an accident. I’m crushed, I’ve been a fan for years and her latest album showed that she had loads to offer and she was on the up and up. She meant a lot to loads of people. I honestly have no words.

@Jimmer-jammer She was as much a producer as a singer, produced for Charli XCX, Madonna, Vince Staples, Nicki Minaj and others. I’ve been a big fan of the PC Music label for almost as long as it’s been around and she was a big influence on a lot of those artists. 34 is no age at all.

@nessisonett Sorry to hear about SOPHIE dude.

@Jimmer-jammer Have you heard the live version of Protocol off Pick Hits Live yet? How metal is that for a jazz song eh?!?!? Glad you're enjoying it though.