Counterpoint: All musical genres aren’t melodically based. Some are groove based and recognizable with only the drums playing. I came upon this while studying funk. There’s that great scene in “Get On Up” where Chadwick(Brown) basically says as long as they’re in the funk pocket, the notes don’t matter. Metal is very similar in this way. You can call it semantics but for me a musical description is accurate when it’s instructive. For metal and funk, the rhythmic templates are instructive more so than the sound design description is.
I mean this whole video is pretty much semantics so I can't criticize you for that hahaha. You're not wrong, BUT I think funk has a few distinct grooves that are unifying across the whole of the style's output - you can recognize metal from the drumming style, but there's no consistency across the whole genre, so we have to eliminate that as criteria.
@@treyxaviermusic That's a fair way to think about things. I disagree on the basis that if we take the idea in reverse, I can un-metal a track based on rhythm alone(which you pretty much say in the video, but I'm willing to eschew sound design in this thought experiment.) While funk is an island of the coast of jazz/blues, metal is an archipelago. I love the vid and the overall lesson, though, about not getting caught up in the trappings of metal while sacrificing a song. But if I was teaching someone metal, I think I could give them the 10 or so basic rhythmic ideas and be mostly right.
Yeah, I feel like metal has a distinctive rhythmic/dynamic identity more than a melodic/harmonic one (although I think it often does have some of that stuff in its identity too). Funk is a good comparison. Same goes for hip hop. You can make something hip hop or not by its rhythm alone.
@@johnmcintyre2123 Turn rap cadences into metal riffs or vice versa and you'll see how true you are. Energetically, I think metal and hip hop are very very close, but structurally so different.
I'd be inclined to disagree; Metal is like a phylogenetic grouping of related types of music, and you can trace the genres back through each other to the foundational idea of Heavy Metal from the late 60s/early 70s, just as we can trace the lineage of animals back through time to see their common ancestors. We can look at reptiles and see that there are commonalities between them (although if you know reptiles, not as many as a layperson may expect) - but just like metal there are almost as many exceptions as there are rules; birds are warm blooded and have feathers rather than scales, turtles have fused ribcages forming shells, many species of lizards don't lay eggs and many don't have legs, some are venomous and other's aren't, and so on... If you look at reptiles, it would be very easy to say 'reptiles are not a type of animal - they are too disparate, and the common trait they share is a backbone'. But they do actually have a shared genetic history and lineage, that we can clearly trace back and see how they're related to each other. And THAT is what metal is; a shared musical lineage and evolution. We can even see the sub-families within it; Death, Thrash and Black are more closely related to each other than they are to Hair Metal and Doom - and we do see shared musical ideas within genres and between closely related genres; Thrash, Death and Black Metal sound more similar to each other than they do to Hair Metal or Doom (generally). We also see the evolution of genres and the passing of traits down the lineage; Power Metal is descended from NWOBHM, but so are Thrash and Hair Metal, and they each have commonalities with that parent genre, like it's technicality, it's tonality, it's lyrical ideas. But they also evolved in different directions and that's where you see the differences between them. Obviously music can cross pollinate and draw influence from unrelated musical families, giving us Nu Metal and Folk Metal (amongst others), which does make drawing the phylogenetic musical family tree somewhat harder, but that's just part of what makes music brilliant. Metal IS a type of music, in the same way that 'Reptile' is a type of animal; it's just that it's such a broad definition and there are so many exceptions to the rules that it's not a particularly USEFUL term to describe something at an individual level.
Maybe slightly poking the bear here but id also argue that melodically things like the the flat 2 in the minor scales and just generally the harmonic minor and phyrigian scales are very emblematic of metal. Of course these arent exclusive to the genre but if you played a 0 1 3 4 based melody or riff even on a clean setting people tend to recognise it as metal. As well as the unique rhythmic style that metal has. But i also realise this is just a fun thinking exercise and i do agree with your take on it too!
Reported this as a hate crime for calling metal "tofu". Seriously though, having listened to a lot of metal over decades, I can't really tell you what "metal" is and I don't find it a useful descriptor unless a person already knows the genre. To many, metal is simply music that's too aggressive for them (I've heard Def Leppard be called "too metal"), or music with distorted guitars. People in Japan, for instance, see distorted guitars quite differently, so that's not it either, especially since Apocalyptica is "metal". There are ostensibly "metal" songs that are mostly clean guitar tones but the overall darker aesthetic and more dissonant leanings make them as such. I've come to associate it with a broad descriptor of rhythm, aesthetic and an overall more aggressive flavour to the music. You've articulated it much better here though, well done.
I’m 52 so when I was growing up we basically had three styles of metal: Death, Thrash and Metal. Of course there were bands with similarities but that’s basically it. Nowadays, I agree “metal” sounds so much different and what some call metal now would be labeled totally different in the 80’s & 90’s. What I love about some metal bands now is the influence of Jazz that we didn’t really have back then. Also, I agree have been saying this for 20+ years. A great blues, or pop, or jazz guitarist probably can’t play metal music, but a metal guitarist can play blues, pop or jazz.
I'd argue that even Soft Rock is harder physically than some genres of metal like Nü Metal. Downtuning, playing with 1 finger and open chugs don't take much dexterity.
Bait: deployed 🎣 I think this is a preaching to the choir kind of situation where you gotta have a certain metal-leaning background to contextualize and receive this gem through the hyperbolic spicy claims made here lol. It’s an antagonistic but effective way to hammer composition priority into the minds of the aesthetic priority metalhead crowd. Still though, I might say that your one note caveman riff did have a characteristically metal composition in the rhythm/phrasing department even on piano lol. I feel like Unholy Confessions still has a pretty metal identity when played on piano. Master Of Puppets as well.
I remember growing up when metal was finding its place. I saw Metallica with cliff. Twice. Saw dio with sabbath and then on his first solo tour. Saw maiden on number of beast tour. And world piece tour and world slavery tour, etc. That’s how old I am. one of the defining characteristics of metal was that it absolutely did not get played on radio. That meant songs were longer, there were extended parts without lyrics, the topics were heavy, and lots more. It was the “you can’t do that so then we will” genre. It was the piss off the parents and teachers music. The “my kids going to grow up to be an axe murderer or something” music. It was as much an attitude as anything. It was also a lot of great musicians who were allowed to do whatever they wanted. And what we got was the most amazing music ever. Yeah, metal isn’t looked down upon anymore. Maybe that’s good maybe that’s bad. I don’t know.
Riff Salads == Tofu Pizza? I have seen obscure examples of metal songs given a genre-switch. Cowboys from Hell becomes folk/country -- as one example (Hillbilly Orchestra cover). I don't go out of my way to listen to country/blue-grass, but I actually found their take to be both unique and enjoyable. Just one odd ball example of it working the other way around.
You know, I've asked this question a lot, or thought about this. Never got any answers other than "who cares?" But when gatekeepers try to say,"That's not metal." Or trying to explain Metal isn't all devil music and cookie monster vocals. Interesting ideas presented.
Interesting points but I think metal isn't just sound design. Metal to me is high intensity, often times completely over the top music. Sound design plays a big role for sure but I'd say there are definitely musical aspects that are distinctively metal. Even though the usage of intense sounding modes like phrygian and aeolian, staccato articulation and either very fast or very slow tempos are found in other genres but not to the extent like you hear it in metal. Take Apocalyptica as an example. From a sound design perspective you might see them as classical but to me they sound metal as fuck because of the heavy usage of the aspects mentioned before. I'd argue even Beethoven has stuff that you could call metal. Just my two cents, either way great video!
14:17 To be fair, we are not all using the same 12 notes. Some uses different 12 notes others uses more than 12 nodes. I guess we all are using the frequency space between ~20-22k Hz, and most people can hear 50-15k Hz. 🤷♂
@@treyxaviermusic What are you talking about? Indian Ragas, Arabian MaqamIn and Traditional Chinese all use a different tuning that 12-TET. Those 3 systems probably have over 2 billion listeners every day. Fair that is less that listens to 12-TET, but it is way more than "9 people on earth". Think it would have been more honest just to say that you don't know anything about other tuning systems and there music so you just defaults to the system that you are using. I too limit almost all of my music consumption and production to 12-TET. But it is an arbitrary limitation and if we want to sound like something different/new we cannot complain about only having 12 notes, just as well as we cannot complain about only using guitar, drum and bass. We are free to use whatever we want we have just chosen to limit ourselves to 12 notes, guitar, drum, bass and 4/4 time, precisely because it sounds like the musik we grew up with. We want to sound different and the same as everything else, at the same time. Quite a paradox 😂.
Im leaning more towards Rob Scallons Theory that anything is Metal with Heavy Drums (and maybe a Bass to back up the Drums). Or mayhap Heavy Percussion? Well thats a Video Idea Right there. Producing Metal by using Baroque Instruments and Baroque Percussion, lol :D
The pizza metaphor works better than the tofu one, I think, because the greatest toppings will NOT save a pizza with shitty dough, bland sauce and/or poor-quality cheese. The same is 100% true of metal: I don't care how great the didgeridoo part is in your Aboriginal Metal song if it sounds like a bag of quarters going through a meat grinder.
I didn't even get into whether or not the music is any good hahaha, just metal or not. That's a whole other can of worms (which I hope no one in the pizzeria kitchen is opening)
By that definition Subgenres like Black Metal or Slam WOULD be genres because they do have structures and chord progressions that are indicative of these subgenres.
Yes, 100%, although to me, I would substitute "musical style" for "genre" because I think genre includes all the other things that aren't just musical. Like, I almost called the video "Metal isn't a genre" but I think genre is more broad.
@@treyxaviermusic Right. I mean I'm aware you also wanted a bit of clickbait and I ain't mad at it lol. I watched the vid w my gf we both thought you had good points!
Some pushback: If you applied the same scrutiny to Classical as you did to Metal, then you would come to the same conclusion that Classical isn't music. Bach sounds nothing like Tchaikovsky using your same metrics! The same is true with other parent styles; such as Jazz (smooth vs avant-garde), Country, etc.
That's not even wrong though, the term Classical (as someone else pointed out in a different comment on here) is applied broadly but wrongly. The different eras (baroque, renaissance, early romantic) of composers sound far more close to each other - Bach was Baroque, and Tchaikovsky was Romantic, so it stands to reason that they don't sound that alike. Classical isn't music. The different eras are like the metal sub-genres - way more in common with each other than with "classical" as a whole. And it's not just about whether or not they SOUND that similar - there are musical elements that are unifying and exclusive that place them in the same category. Outliers like avant-garde jazz don't change the core identity of the rest of the style, we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
@@treyxaviermusic I completely agree with most of what you said. In fact I had originally wrote about the eras of classical music being analogous with the metal sub-genres - but didn't want to post a novel, so I deleted it. :) But there are some core musical elements in metal that links them (agree that we shouldn't allow outliers to discard babies in bathtubs). One major component, that I'll mention now, is the predominate use of parallel 5ths. As you might know, such was forbidden/avoided in classical music (this was mainly driven by changes in tuning/temperament at the time which made the 5th more dissonant in order to have purer 3rds). This in tandem with the propensity of the bass to follow the guitar an octave lower (resulting in them outlining the harmonic series which leads to them sounding like more like one instrument) causes a "heavy sound". We don't call them "power chords" for nothing! :)
@@treyxaviermusic And yes, one can validity argue that Rock has this same attribute. But I would argue it's much more predominant in Metal. Also maybe the Rock artist are being influenced by the Metal artists (I know of turning Country musicians who were influenced by Black Sabbath). At the end of the day, basically all styles of music will have some overlap with each other. Also one could argue (and this I would agree with) that Metal is a sub-genre of Rock - I don't think anyone would see that as a controversial take..... but we are on the internet.... so..... there's that. lol
I see Metal as not simply a form of music, but a way of life. Metal is what a person is and reflects in the music that they create and they way they look. I am Metal..... I just cant fit into my leather pants anymore. 😆
Timbre is a musical characteristic. Almost all forms of Metal share distorted guitar. They also share a similar instrumentation and dynamic range. Also all forms are aggressive sounding, more so than Rock which differentiates the two genres. You can refer to bands XY&Z as outliers but I would say most Metal shares a lot of characteristics. Would the same arguments you make for Metal being "tofu" not HAVE to apply to Jazz and Western Classical Music? Fats Waller - "Aint Misbehavin" ', Miles Davis - "Rated X" and Chick Corea - "Crystal Silence" are all considered Jazz yet are just as disparate stylistically as your initial examples. As are Johannes Ockeghem - "Deo Gratias", György Ligeti - "Lontano" and Steve Reich - "Electric Counterpoint" for Western Classical Music. I mean is this argument not completely void with the concept of subgenres? Some early Jazz would still be recognised as a Blues composition but as the genre continued to develop it gained new characteristics identifying it as Jazz. It continued to develop further and different branches from the same roots evolved different sounds just like Metal has. Most Metal compositions still contain loud distorted electric guitars playing short melodic phrases (riffs) in some form of Minor scale in between chord progressions that are played in 5ths with the 3rd often being implied. This is more than often played with a drummer providing a back beat. Check out Bardcore or 8 Bit versions of Metal songs, Still easily identifiable as Metal composition.
Timbre is a musical characteristic, but as I endeavored to demonstrate here, it may be the ONLY definitive distinction of the whole of metal, and other musical styles retain their distinction when the timbre changes entirely. Metal does not.
@@treyxaviermusic And what Im saying is that each of the other genres you mention also vary their traits to the point of which to which is may be considered merely aesthetic. Metal composition is still recognisable when played in different styles. This can be seen in Radio Disney covers of Death Metal, Maromaro1337's "Retro Poland" versions of Metal and in the aforementioned Chiptune and Bardcore styles. Consider classic Metal compositions in comparison to more modern/progressive and technical ones. Then do the same for classic Jazz comparing to Fusion. We can both agree that the latter is often much more complex and "evolved" in comparison to latter. What you are arguing is that the development of composition techniques in Metal, that used to be relatively similar up until the birth of extreme metal in the mid 80s which expanded the horizons of the umbrella term "metal" to cover compositions that are more and more disparate as the years go by which just makes it an aesthetic instead of a genre. If you applied that same thinking to Jazz then Jazz is also just an aesthetic. You can say 251 and Chromatic melodic phrases for Jazz but how many metal songs have similar chord progressions to each other spanning multiple subgenres such VI VII i or i iib. Doesn't matter the subgenre how many Metal bands base their riffs in Harmonic minor or Phrygian Dominant?
While I have no specific gripe with any of the arguments you make, I wonder why it is that I can tell metal and thrash from hardcore, melodic death metal from metalcore etc and death metal from deathcore, despite all their similarities, if there isn't something musical at the bottom?
The main characteristics lie in the tonality of the band. The sound and style of drums, bass and guitar. Along with lyrics that traditionally are a bit out there, like death, the occult and such
So...would you not think that chugs are the one unifying piece to metal? I feel like all metal songs have some amount of chugs in it. 🤷♂️ I feel like if there are not any chugs in it it's just Rock or Hard rock.
Tofu 🥵 but you are right about metal. I think modern worship fits this also. I dislike people saying it’s a style when it’s not. Three things I’m reminded of is two jokes about it and a third reason why it’s not its own style. First joke is Southpark. Cartman creates a Christian band that takes love songs and replace boyfriend, girlfriend etc with Jesus or God. Makes fun of how weak the lyrics are and how Cartman is in it for the money and bragging rights. But it does give an example of how easy and corny the songs and lyrics are with some revelations of the Christian music scene. Not all are like that but many are in it for easy money and are just shallow songs. Second joke the songs are just U2 in a box/inspired. Even Billy Corgan said that. I’ve heard it lots of times and they lack complex chords and voicing. It’s all delay delay delay delay. 😂 Three is its based on 90’s spiritual music like Enya. Again lyrics are lacking and simple long holds and atmospheric sounds on midi instruments. But the common problems they all have is weak or bad theological lyrics and easy, easy, easy music with no 9, 13 etc chords and complex scales. Almost no melody and catchy hook. Nothing hard because as most music ministers I’ve talked to said it needs to be easy as not to confuse people. 🤦♂️🤷♂️🥵 I was even told not to play on three (I’m a drummer) or use cross stick because the cross stick can’t be heard over click track 🙄🤦♂️. It needs to change. I’ve actually grown to appreciate old hymnals because they did sometimes have a bounce or swing with deep lyrics. Many people complain about this and the music ministers don’t listen.
Well aren't most categories like this. Chords, melody, nations, langrage, species, life etc. (don't think about it too hard if you want a simple life cause the real world is complex) "I know it when I see it" 🤷♂
So in theory, metalcore is just straight tofu? 😆(i enjoy metalcore, just jokes) Also things really clicked with the "more metal covers of pop songs than the inverse", as well as the Bach demonstration.
It was a fun and entertaining video for sure but I do think you're fundamentally mixing up genre and form. Musical form absolutely relate to pitch and rhythm but equally production options absolutely do distinguish some genres from others. Also genres are not mutually exclusive. Like in your jazz example. You're right that playing it on heavy guitar absolutely does still sound recognizable as jazz but that doesn't make it not metal too. Each of these being true doesn't make the other less true. You covered some awesome points and I do agree there's virtually no uniformity to the musical form of most metal but that doesn't mean its not a genre.
I didn't say it's not a genre - the production, aesthetic etc are what group it into genre. I said it's not a musical style. Seems like you missed the point on the jazz example - I applied the metal aesthetic to jazz, and it remained jazz, but the opposite is not true, therefore it is mutually exclusive. Doesn't make it bad or anything, it's just a different aspect that gives it its identity.
@@treyxaviermusic it remained jazz but it also became metal so its really not mutually exclusive. Lets not be pedantic, you used the term sub genres quite a bit but kept it to "style" for most of the video. What you're actually referring to for the majority of it is musical form.
Its a different sort of gain. But isn't sound design very much a part of the music? Imagine shoegaze without reverb or atmospheric black metal without a shrieking guitarre tone.
It works in tandem with the music to create the experience, but they're not the same thing. You can have your amp and effects set however you like, but if you don't play any notes through it then it doesn't make music. My only point is that you can write whatever music you like, and then make it metal.
Sherlock's aphorism is wrong. It presumes that you can always know all possible explanations. There remains the possibility that there is another explanation you have failed to account for due to some data you lack.
He doesn't say anything about eliminating all the things you know about, he says once you've eliminated the impossible. Sure, you can't know all of those, but that doesn't make it wrong, only impossible to achieve perfectly. That only describes 100% of everything we'll ever do on earth, so it's obviously hypothetical, but the reasoning is sound, as is yours. That possibility is always there, but we're all just squishy idiots doing our best
So, is your thesis that (1) metal isn’t a proper musical genre? Or that (2) metal isn’t music (or perhaps that (3) metal + nothing else isn’t music)? I think your points go a decent way towards establishing (1), and some of the way towards establishing (3), but don’t really give us a reason to believe (2) (though I don’t think (2) was your thesis, but really just a provocative title). I’m not sure what it takes for something to be a proper musical genre. I suspect many musical genres are best understood as cluster concepts where a piece of music counts as being in that genre if it exhibits enough of a cluster of features, even if not all members of that genre exhibit all of the features. Some genres have more unity than others-more overlap among the shared properties-and some have less (metal is more disparate than jazz, for example, as you point out). I’d put things like brutality, heaviness, precision, aggression, etc., in the metal cluster. Maybe the issue is that these aren’t musical concepts (but rather “sound design” concepts), but I think I disagree. I think all of these choices are musical; they imply certain rhythmic choices, certain tone color choices, and even certain harmonic or melodic choices (it’s just that lots of very different melodic and harmonic choices can be dark, aggressive, etc.). Just my first thoughts. I suspect metal is a genre, but its unifying features are just more abstract or general (though no less musical) than other genres.
I think of "genre" as something that encompasses BOTH the musical style and all the other parts, ie the aesthetic, the culture, the dress code etc. I think metal is a genre, but not a musical style. It's more like a DLC skin in a video game, it's an aesthetic that doesn't determine anything else about the character. Heaviness/aggression etc that you mentioned can limit your musical choices somewhat, but they don't determine the musical content of something. As I demonstrated, you can do more or less anything, musically, within a metal aesthetic context.
@ hmm, I think the features I mentioned do shape the content, just not as specifically or determinately as the features of some other musical styles. You can’t do *literally* anything and it be metal; there are limits, and I do think those limits are musical (even timbre is musical, but I think the limits, while broad, extend to rhythm, harmony, and melody too), not merely aesthetic (that’s probably not the right word to contrast with ‘musical’, as beauty (aesthetics) in music is very much affected by ostensibly musical choices). Personally, I think you’ve shown that metal is an unusually flexible musical style, not that it doesn’t constitute a musical style.
This is why being tribal over a specific style of metal is a very ridiculous stance to have. I'd take it even further and say all music that consists of heavy guitars, heavy drums, and powerful vocals all falls within this tofu analogy. So Punk/Rock/Metal/Hardcore and so on need to stop arguing over the toppings and realize it's still pizza at the end of the day🍕
That’s the opposite of true, and the opposite of my point. The core composition is what’s “classical” (Baroque actually, in this case). If Bach was born in 1997, he’d write for instruments we have now.
I disagree. Metal tends to be heavier than rock with Chugs on guitars like Djent music, Drop D, Screams/gutteral vocals and more. You can play any instrument with lower tuning, chugging and gutteral vocals and youll see. Its the same how most Industrial EDM music is confused for Heavy Metal or Industrial Metal. By your definition, Country music wouldnt be a genre either, because without their acoustic guitars, banjos and country accents, they dont have a genre. You cannot setup guidelines to fit your argument and then not compare to more than Jazz
Country, as I mentioned in the video, like jazz, has consistent musical characteristics that set it apart from other musical styles. Metallica, Black Sabbath, and Iron Maiden all played in standard tuning with no gutterals. Are they not metal?
is Shy from Sonata Arctica a metal song? I think it is. are all ballads metal? obviously not. is a Sonata made with the harmonic and melodic themes of Autumn Leaves played with heavy drums, guitars and a Shehnai Metal, Jazz, Classical or Indian music? Who fkn cares! I dunno where I'm goin' with this opinion but all I Know is that it only exists three genres: Folk, popular and academic, and neither they are pure. All music is fusion music. None the less I 100% agree with the practical implications of the video. I love pizza but I have to say neither it or tofu are human food! Eat meat! Cheers! 🙃🙃🙃
Correct, what you're describing is a symptom of the shift from musical content towards sound design. It's a general thing and not just a phenomenon in Metal. Metal can, and should be music. And there's enough good examples out there. But what we're dealing with is bad musicianship and low audience expectations. You have people who never learned to play or write music and never wanted to, and were just attracted to the aesthetics and the wall of sound of Metal - or what they understood it to be. What comes out is music with literally almost no substance, it's just exciting noise. That explains why nearly all contemporary "modern" as well as extreme Metal is complete garbage.
Nope! You are wrong! Metal is Intent! Can't be "cute", can't be "romantic". It HAS to repel the "parents', "normies", "squares".... And it CAN"T (ffs) be multimillion dollar selling industry darlings. But hey, Good times create Soft Men and soy(tofu)boys.
None of those things are musical concepts. Important aspects of the aesthetic, for sure, but not concrete musical ideas. You can apply any of that to any composition.
🎸Black Friday sale is live! All my songwriting courses are 50% off right now: howsongsaremade.com/courses
All music is lounge if you sit down and chill while listening to it
Counterpoint: All musical genres aren’t melodically based. Some are groove based and recognizable with only the drums playing. I came upon this while studying funk. There’s that great scene in “Get On Up” where Chadwick(Brown) basically says as long as they’re in the funk pocket, the notes don’t matter. Metal is very similar in this way. You can call it semantics but for me a musical description is accurate when it’s instructive. For metal and funk, the rhythmic templates are instructive more so than the sound design description is.
I mean this whole video is pretty much semantics so I can't criticize you for that hahaha. You're not wrong, BUT I think funk has a few distinct grooves that are unifying across the whole of the style's output - you can recognize metal from the drumming style, but there's no consistency across the whole genre, so we have to eliminate that as criteria.
@@treyxaviermusic That's a fair way to think about things. I disagree on the basis that if we take the idea in reverse, I can un-metal a track based on rhythm alone(which you pretty much say in the video, but I'm willing to eschew sound design in this thought experiment.) While funk is an island of the coast of jazz/blues, metal is an archipelago. I love the vid and the overall lesson, though, about not getting caught up in the trappings of metal while sacrificing a song. But if I was teaching someone metal, I think I could give them the 10 or so basic rhythmic ideas and be mostly right.
Yeah, I feel like metal has a distinctive rhythmic/dynamic identity more than a melodic/harmonic one (although I think it often does have some of that stuff in its identity too). Funk is a good comparison. Same goes for hip hop. You can make something hip hop or not by its rhythm alone.
@@johnmcintyre2123 Turn rap cadences into metal riffs or vice versa and you'll see how true you are. Energetically, I think metal and hip hop are very very close, but structurally so different.
@@NelsonBlakeIII've always thought slam death metal was just the hip hop of metal
Pizza and sex.
Even when it's bad, it's still pretty good.
this guy gets it
And that's why I love metal! You can do anything you want!!
Musically, right?
@ hmmmm
Good lord, how do you shut your brain off at night?
is that a thing people do? if you find a way please let me know
Sometimes I wonder if Trey is a fellow ADHDer like myself, since I share A LOT of mannerisms and train of thoughts with him. lol
@@hatempirehe is
@@hatempire wonder no more, I very much am
@@treyxaviermusickudos for being open about it. No judgement!
I'd be inclined to disagree; Metal is like a phylogenetic grouping of related types of music, and you can trace the genres back through each other to the foundational idea of Heavy Metal from the late 60s/early 70s, just as we can trace the lineage of animals back through time to see their common ancestors.
We can look at reptiles and see that there are commonalities between them (although if you know reptiles, not as many as a layperson may expect) - but just like metal there are almost as many exceptions as there are rules; birds are warm blooded and have feathers rather than scales, turtles have fused ribcages forming shells, many species of lizards don't lay eggs and many don't have legs, some are venomous and other's aren't, and so on...
If you look at reptiles, it would be very easy to say 'reptiles are not a type of animal - they are too disparate, and the common trait they share is a backbone'. But they do actually have a shared genetic history and lineage, that we can clearly trace back and see how they're related to each other.
And THAT is what metal is; a shared musical lineage and evolution. We can even see the sub-families within it; Death, Thrash and Black are more closely related to each other than they are to Hair Metal and Doom - and we do see shared musical ideas within genres and between closely related genres; Thrash, Death and Black Metal sound more similar to each other than they do to Hair Metal or Doom (generally).
We also see the evolution of genres and the passing of traits down the lineage; Power Metal is descended from NWOBHM, but so are Thrash and Hair Metal, and they each have commonalities with that parent genre, like it's technicality, it's tonality, it's lyrical ideas. But they also evolved in different directions and that's where you see the differences between them.
Obviously music can cross pollinate and draw influence from unrelated musical families, giving us Nu Metal and Folk Metal (amongst others), which does make drawing the phylogenetic musical family tree somewhat harder, but that's just part of what makes music brilliant.
Metal IS a type of music, in the same way that 'Reptile' is a type of animal; it's just that it's such a broad definition and there are so many exceptions to the rules that it's not a particularly USEFUL term to describe something at an individual level.
Maybe slightly poking the bear here but id also argue that melodically things like the the flat 2 in the minor scales and just generally the harmonic minor and phyrigian scales are very emblematic of metal. Of course these arent exclusive to the genre but if you played a 0 1 3 4 based melody or riff even on a clean setting people tend to recognise it as metal. As well as the unique rhythmic style that metal has. But i also realise this is just a fun thinking exercise and i do agree with your take on it too!
The production of this video is next level! Great Job dude!!!
Reported this as a hate crime for calling metal "tofu".
Seriously though, having listened to a lot of metal over decades, I can't really tell you what "metal" is and I don't find it a useful descriptor unless a person already knows the genre. To many, metal is simply music that's too aggressive for them (I've heard Def Leppard be called "too metal"), or music with distorted guitars. People in Japan, for instance, see distorted guitars quite differently, so that's not it either, especially since Apocalyptica is "metal". There are ostensibly "metal" songs that are mostly clean guitar tones but the overall darker aesthetic and more dissonant leanings make them as such.
I've come to associate it with a broad descriptor of rhythm, aesthetic and an overall more aggressive flavour to the music. You've articulated it much better here though, well done.
soybeans are not a protected group
@@treyxaviermusic 😢Well at least now I have a cause upon which to base my identity
Metal is pizza. I can get behind that. 🤘
Your blues riff demonstrates how you turn the blues into Opeth.
A finnish metal band called Diablo has had for decades a slogan "even the shittiest metal is still the best"
Dad finally returned with the milk 😊
I’m 52 so when I was growing up we basically had three styles of metal: Death, Thrash and Metal. Of course there were bands with similarities but that’s basically it. Nowadays, I agree “metal” sounds so much different and what some call metal now would be labeled totally different in the 80’s & 90’s. What I love about some metal bands now is the influence of Jazz that we didn’t really have back then.
Also, I agree have been saying this for 20+ years. A great blues, or pop, or jazz guitarist probably can’t play metal music, but a metal guitarist can play blues, pop or jazz.
Tofu is the song, metal is the flavoring. 🔁
We all know what ‘rock music’ is. It’s called ‘metal’ because it’s harder than rock. Sonically and physically. Go figure. 🤓
I'd argue that even Soft Rock is harder physically than some genres of metal like Nü Metal. Downtuning, playing with 1 finger and open chugs don't take much dexterity.
You just know when you hear it, it's more like an intention thing rather than the concrete aspects of it.
very true! gotta hand it to you, I've never thought about metal being anything other than distortion and lyrical content
That bit at 12 minutes screams BTBAM to be and I love it.
Love the video. I had never thought about metal that deeply before, busier enjoying the massive variety that’s available.
I think this video might finally 100% prove that metalcore is, in fact, metal.
For better or worse
Bait: deployed 🎣
I think this is a preaching to the choir kind of situation where you gotta have a certain metal-leaning background to contextualize and receive this gem through the hyperbolic spicy claims made here lol. It’s an antagonistic but effective way to hammer composition priority into the minds of the aesthetic priority metalhead crowd.
Still though, I might say that your one note caveman riff did have a characteristically metal composition in the rhythm/phrasing department even on piano lol. I feel like Unholy Confessions still has a pretty metal identity when played on piano. Master Of Puppets as well.
well it's no fun if you're gonna take the bait and then say some shit that makes sense
My favorite flavors of tofu/metal are pizza flavored/thrash, beef flavored/death, fish flavored/prog and toothpaste flavored/nu
I remember growing up when metal was finding its place. I saw Metallica with cliff. Twice. Saw dio with sabbath and then on his first solo tour. Saw maiden on number of beast tour. And world piece tour and world slavery tour, etc. That’s how old I am.
one of the defining characteristics of metal was that it absolutely did not get played on radio. That meant songs were longer, there were extended parts without lyrics, the topics were heavy, and lots more.
It was the “you can’t do that so then we will” genre. It was the piss off the parents and teachers music. The “my kids going to grow up to be an axe murderer or something” music.
It was as much an attitude as anything. It was also a lot of great musicians who were allowed to do whatever they wanted. And what we got was the most amazing music ever.
Yeah, metal isn’t looked down upon anymore. Maybe that’s good maybe that’s bad. I don’t know.
I've called metal a pizza for almost a decade now. Glad I have a video that I can show to people to back it up with
Anything given a time value and has a rhythm can be considered music.
Riff Salads == Tofu Pizza?
I have seen obscure examples of metal songs given a genre-switch. Cowboys from Hell becomes folk/country -- as one example (Hillbilly Orchestra cover). I don't go out of my way to listen to country/blue-grass, but I actually found their take to be both unique and enjoyable. Just one odd ball example of it working the other way around.
You know, I've asked this question a lot, or thought about this. Never got any answers other than "who cares?" But when gatekeepers try to say,"That's not metal." Or trying to explain Metal isn't all devil music and cookie monster vocals. Interesting ideas presented.
I wasn’t sure where you were going with this, but I like where you went. I grew up in New Orleans. My life’s goal is to make second-line metal work.
Side note. That band 1349. Where have I been? Holy sh**. That’s some good noise.
yeah they're CRAAZY
I would never describe Hansi Kursch vocals as "operatic", he sounds more like a 80 thrash metal singer with melody
Tarja from ex Nightwish is operatic
“And then we got Sleeps Dopesmoker”
AWWWW YEAH BOI WE DOIN THIS
bowwwwwwwwwwwww
Man, Trey is so cool. Excellent video that makes a man think 🧠
Interesting points but I think metal isn't just sound design. Metal to me is high intensity, often times completely over the top music. Sound design plays a big role for sure but I'd say there are definitely musical aspects that are distinctively metal. Even though the usage of intense sounding modes like phrygian and aeolian, staccato articulation and either very fast or very slow tempos are found in other genres but not to the extent like you hear it in metal. Take Apocalyptica as an example. From a sound design perspective you might see them as classical but to me they sound metal as fuck because of the heavy usage of the aspects mentioned before. I'd argue even Beethoven has stuff that you could call metal. Just my two cents, either way great video!
That piano kinda went hard though
As a Pizzaiolo who loves Metal I have to applaud 👏👏👏
I had to look up what that is and now I wish to taste your wares. Also I guess I was once a pizzaiolo (I worked at Round Table hahaha)
Trey discovers Wittgenstein
I discovered him from this comment just now and I'm going down the rabbit hole a bit hahaha
John. Phillips. Souza. The total weight of his band(in metal) was about half a ton. That's Heavy Metal.
John Phillips Tuba
metal is blues
To me metal it's the horror movies of music.
5:26
It would sound like metal with high gain, more speed and powerful drumms.
14:17
To be fair, we are not all using the same 12 notes. Some uses different 12 notes others uses more than 12 nodes.
I guess we all are using the frequency space between ~20-22k Hz, and most people can hear 50-15k Hz. 🤷♂
I'm ignoring microtonal systems because that's a long dark rabbit hole for the 9 people on earth who care about them
@@treyxaviermusic What are you talking about?
Indian Ragas, Arabian MaqamIn and Traditional Chinese all use a different tuning that 12-TET. Those 3 systems probably have over 2 billion listeners every day.
Fair that is less that listens to 12-TET, but it is way more than "9 people on earth".
Think it would have been more honest just to say that you don't know anything about other tuning systems and there music so you just defaults to the system that you are using.
I too limit almost all of my music consumption and production to 12-TET. But it is an arbitrary limitation and if we want to sound like something different/new we cannot complain about only having 12 notes, just as well as we cannot complain about only using guitar, drum and bass. We are free to use whatever we want we have just chosen to limit ourselves to 12 notes, guitar, drum, bass and 4/4 time, precisely because it sounds like the musik we grew up with. We want to sound different and the same as everything else, at the same time. Quite a paradox 😂.
Im leaning more towards Rob Scallons Theory that anything is Metal with Heavy Drums (and maybe a Bass to back up the Drums). Or mayhap Heavy Percussion? Well thats a Video Idea Right there. Producing Metal by using Baroque Instruments and Baroque Percussion, lol :D
Your the man Gear God 🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘
I'm going to buy me some tofu and make some delicious stuff!
The pizza metaphor works better than the tofu one, I think, because the greatest toppings will NOT save a pizza with shitty dough, bland sauce and/or poor-quality cheese. The same is 100% true of metal: I don't care how great the didgeridoo part is in your Aboriginal Metal song if it sounds like a bag of quarters going through a meat grinder.
I didn't even get into whether or not the music is any good hahaha, just metal or not. That's a whole other can of worms (which I hope no one in the pizzeria kitchen is opening)
Patterns of Angry Noise?
Alternate title: Metal is pizza
RRRRRRAAAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHHH! Now it's METALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!
By that definition Subgenres like Black Metal or Slam WOULD be genres because they do have structures and chord progressions that are indicative of these subgenres.
Yes, 100%, although to me, I would substitute "musical style" for "genre" because I think genre includes all the other things that aren't just musical. Like, I almost called the video "Metal isn't a genre" but I think genre is more broad.
@@treyxaviermusic Right. I mean I'm aware you also wanted a bit of clickbait and I ain't mad at it lol. I watched the vid w my gf we both thought you had good points!
Metal is considered cannon (classical) music.
1349!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It has a melodie the beginning and at 1:25 that I realy like.
Forgot to mention you wrote the theme for 70,000 tons of metal
Some pushback:
If you applied the same scrutiny to Classical as you did to Metal, then you would come to the same conclusion that Classical isn't music.
Bach sounds nothing like Tchaikovsky using your same metrics!
The same is true with other parent styles; such as Jazz (smooth vs avant-garde), Country, etc.
On the flip-side, if I play "Iron Man" on my sitar with a tabla player it still sounds metal AF!
That's not even wrong though, the term Classical (as someone else pointed out in a different comment on here) is applied broadly but wrongly. The different eras (baroque, renaissance, early romantic) of composers sound far more close to each other - Bach was Baroque, and Tchaikovsky was Romantic, so it stands to reason that they don't sound that alike. Classical isn't music. The different eras are like the metal sub-genres - way more in common with each other than with "classical" as a whole.
And it's not just about whether or not they SOUND that similar - there are musical elements that are unifying and exclusive that place them in the same category.
Outliers like avant-garde jazz don't change the core identity of the rest of the style, we can't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
@@treyxaviermusic I completely agree with most of what you said. In fact I had originally wrote about the eras of classical music being analogous with the metal sub-genres - but didn't want to post a novel, so I deleted it. :)
But there are some core musical elements in metal that links them (agree that we shouldn't allow outliers to discard babies in bathtubs).
One major component, that I'll mention now, is the predominate use of parallel 5ths. As you might know, such was forbidden/avoided in classical music (this was mainly driven by changes in tuning/temperament at the time which made the 5th more dissonant in order to have purer 3rds).
This in tandem with the propensity of the bass to follow the guitar an octave lower (resulting in them outlining the harmonic series which leads to them sounding like more like one instrument) causes a "heavy sound".
We don't call them "power chords" for nothing! :)
@@treyxaviermusic And yes, one can validity argue that Rock has this same attribute.
But I would argue it's much more predominant in Metal.
Also maybe the Rock artist are being influenced by the Metal artists (I know of turning Country musicians who were influenced by Black Sabbath).
At the end of the day, basically all styles of music will have some overlap with each other.
Also one could argue (and this I would agree with) that Metal is a sub-genre of Rock - I don't think anyone would see that as a controversial take..... but we are on the internet.... so..... there's that. lol
So which band is the tofu pizza of music?
cast your votes people
As a Lamb of God fan, Lamb of God.
A NWOAHM band with a skeleton pirate vocalist and some thrash licks; basic, but enjoyable!
Does the same not apply for Rock music?
Love me some pizza
I see Metal as not simply a form of music, but a way of life. Metal is what a person is and reflects in the music that they create and they way they look.
I am Metal..... I just cant fit into my leather pants anymore. 😆
Timbre is a musical characteristic. Almost all forms of Metal share distorted guitar. They also share a similar instrumentation and dynamic range. Also all forms are aggressive sounding, more so than Rock which differentiates the two genres. You can refer to bands XY&Z as outliers but I would say most Metal shares a lot of characteristics.
Would the same arguments you make for Metal being "tofu" not HAVE to apply to Jazz and Western Classical Music? Fats Waller - "Aint Misbehavin" ', Miles Davis - "Rated X" and Chick Corea - "Crystal Silence" are all considered Jazz yet are just as disparate stylistically as your initial examples. As are Johannes Ockeghem - "Deo Gratias", György Ligeti - "Lontano" and Steve Reich - "Electric Counterpoint" for Western Classical Music.
I mean is this argument not completely void with the concept of subgenres? Some early Jazz would still be recognised as a Blues composition but as the genre continued to develop it gained new characteristics identifying it as Jazz. It continued to develop further and different branches from the same roots evolved different sounds just like Metal has. Most Metal compositions still contain loud distorted electric guitars playing short melodic phrases (riffs) in some form of Minor scale in between chord progressions that are played in 5ths with the 3rd often being implied. This is more than often played with a drummer providing a back beat.
Check out Bardcore or 8 Bit versions of Metal songs, Still easily identifiable as Metal composition.
Timbre is a musical characteristic, but as I endeavored to demonstrate here, it may be the ONLY definitive distinction of the whole of metal, and other musical styles retain their distinction when the timbre changes entirely. Metal does not.
@@treyxaviermusic And what Im saying is that each of the other genres you mention also vary their traits to the point of which to which is may be considered merely aesthetic. Metal composition is still recognisable when played in different styles. This can be seen in Radio Disney covers of Death Metal, Maromaro1337's "Retro Poland" versions of Metal and in the aforementioned Chiptune and Bardcore styles.
Consider classic Metal compositions in comparison to more modern/progressive and technical ones. Then do the same for classic Jazz comparing to Fusion. We can both agree that the latter is often much more complex and "evolved" in comparison to latter. What you are arguing is that the development of composition techniques in Metal, that used to be relatively similar up until the birth of extreme metal in the mid 80s which expanded the horizons of the umbrella term "metal" to cover compositions that are more and more disparate as the years go by which just makes it an aesthetic instead of a genre.
If you applied that same thinking to Jazz then Jazz is also just an aesthetic. You can say 251 and Chromatic melodic phrases for Jazz but how many metal songs have similar chord progressions to each other spanning multiple subgenres such VI VII i or i iib. Doesn't matter the subgenre how many Metal bands base their riffs in Harmonic minor or Phrygian Dominant?
While I have no specific gripe with any of the arguments you make, I wonder why it is that I can tell metal and thrash from hardcore, melodic death metal from metalcore etc and death metal from deathcore, despite all their similarities, if there isn't something musical at the bottom?
Telling them apart is easy, it’s telling why they’re similar that’s the point of this - what do they ACTUALLY have in common? Sound design.
The main characteristics lie in the tonality of the band. The sound and style of drums, bass and guitar. Along with lyrics that traditionally are a bit out there, like death, the occult and such
Love the metaphor 🤘 Long live tofu pizza 🤘
Your next thesis. Is metal a phase?
So...would you not think that chugs are the one unifying piece to metal? I feel like all metal songs have some amount of chugs in it. 🤷♂️ I feel like if there are not any chugs in it it's just Rock or Hard rock.
that would be a pretty thin basis for an entire style of music hahaha
@ I tried. 🤣
Agree With You ...Excpet if what i saw on your table is a pineapple Pizza ... if it was Look Your Back from Italians around you 😁😁😁😁😁
If you think it’s pineapple then you missed the entire video
@treyxaviermusic .... don't worry i see the Tofu 😅😅😅😅😅 and as italian i don't know if you deserve more years in Jail... for Pineapple or Tofu 🤟😅🤟😅
That’s OK I think all country western singers sing off key I got something in my mouth and I’m singing out the side of it
Pineapple on pizza ? I thought only us aussies do that.
I would never
Pineapple on pizza is really good, and I'm tired of pretending it's not
Tofu 🥵 but you are right about metal. I think modern worship fits this also. I dislike people saying it’s a style when it’s not.
Three things I’m reminded of is two jokes about it and a third reason why it’s not its own style.
First joke is Southpark. Cartman creates a Christian band that takes love songs and replace boyfriend, girlfriend etc with Jesus or God. Makes fun of how weak the lyrics are and how Cartman is in it for the money and bragging rights. But it does give an example of how easy and corny the songs and lyrics are with some revelations of the Christian music scene. Not all are like that but many are in it for easy money and are just shallow songs.
Second joke the songs are just U2 in a box/inspired. Even Billy Corgan said that. I’ve heard it lots of times and they lack complex chords and voicing. It’s all delay delay delay delay. 😂
Three is its based on 90’s spiritual music like Enya. Again lyrics are lacking and simple long holds and atmospheric sounds on midi instruments.
But the common problems they all have is weak or bad theological lyrics and easy, easy, easy music with no 9, 13 etc chords and complex scales. Almost no melody and catchy hook. Nothing hard because as most music ministers I’ve talked to said it needs to be easy as not to confuse people. 🤦♂️🤷♂️🥵 I was even told not to play on three (I’m a drummer) or use cross stick because the cross stick can’t be heard over click track 🙄🤦♂️.
It needs to change. I’ve actually grown to appreciate old hymnals because they did sometimes have a bounce or swing with deep lyrics. Many people complain about this and the music ministers don’t listen.
I worked doing sound at a church for 5 years and I can confidently say that worship and CCM is the single worst kind of music ever created
But... but.... there is a unifying element for all metal.... the band logo has to be metal AF in order for it to be considered metal!!! 🤪
The boys at metal archives would be very upset at you if they could read!
ARCHIVE THIS 🙅♂️
Dude never listened to The Bezerker
my love for you is like a truck
So, Is pineapple on metal okay?
that's not up to me to decide
Well aren't most categories like this.
Chords, melody, nations, langrage, species, life etc. (don't think about it too hard if you want a simple life cause the real world is complex)
"I know it when I see it" 🤷♂
So, if Metal is pizza, is Pizza Thrash the most Metal of all Metal genres?
I think it might be
I prefer pizza groove and pizza doom/sludge but that's sick too!
Pizza doesn't have cheese. That's an add on, a topping. Pizza is just the dough and the tomato sauce.
Pizza is a state of mind
What makes music metal - it's jazz with distortion! The real question is define Jazz?
So in theory, metalcore is just straight tofu? 😆(i enjoy metalcore, just jokes) Also things really clicked with the "more metal covers of pop songs than the inverse", as well as the Bach demonstration.
Thailand has green curry pizza, just saying.
want
It was a fun and entertaining video for sure but I do think you're fundamentally mixing up genre and form. Musical form absolutely relate to pitch and rhythm but equally production options absolutely do distinguish some genres from others. Also genres are not mutually exclusive. Like in your jazz example. You're right that playing it on heavy guitar absolutely does still sound recognizable as jazz but that doesn't make it not metal too. Each of these being true doesn't make the other less true. You covered some awesome points and I do agree there's virtually no uniformity to the musical form of most metal but that doesn't mean its not a genre.
I didn't say it's not a genre - the production, aesthetic etc are what group it into genre. I said it's not a musical style. Seems like you missed the point on the jazz example - I applied the metal aesthetic to jazz, and it remained jazz, but the opposite is not true, therefore it is mutually exclusive. Doesn't make it bad or anything, it's just a different aspect that gives it its identity.
@@treyxaviermusic it remained jazz but it also became metal so its really not mutually exclusive. Lets not be pedantic, you used the term sub genres quite a bit but kept it to "style" for most of the video. What you're actually referring to for the majority of it is musical form.
Hot take tofu isnt food
Tofu rules, it's a great source of protein
Don't search for Brazilian Pizza or Pizzaria Bate Papo....
My girlfriend is Brazilian and she tells me the pizza there is amazing, I'm looking forward to trying to some day. PORRA
Eye opening video. Or should I say ear opening.
Hm I would say that metal has some characteristics.
High Gain and rather powerful drumms.
Punk shares those characteristics, they're not exclusive to metal, also high gain is not a musical characteristic, it's a sound design choice
Its a different sort of gain. But isn't sound design very much a part of the music? Imagine shoegaze without reverb or atmospheric black metal without a shrieking guitarre tone.
It works in tandem with the music to create the experience, but they're not the same thing. You can have your amp and effects set however you like, but if you don't play any notes through it then it doesn't make music. My only point is that you can write whatever music you like, and then make it metal.
Ok I can understand that but I would say this that it is the same for punk. And even for orchestral music.
Sherlock's aphorism is wrong. It presumes that you can always know all possible explanations. There remains the possibility that there is another explanation you have failed to account for due to some data you lack.
He doesn't say anything about eliminating all the things you know about, he says once you've eliminated the impossible. Sure, you can't know all of those, but that doesn't make it wrong, only impossible to achieve perfectly. That only describes 100% of everything we'll ever do on earth, so it's obviously hypothetical, but the reasoning is sound, as is yours. That possibility is always there, but we're all just squishy idiots doing our best
So, is your thesis that (1) metal isn’t a proper musical genre? Or that (2) metal isn’t music (or perhaps that (3) metal + nothing else isn’t music)?
I think your points go a decent way towards establishing (1), and some of the way towards establishing (3), but don’t really give us a reason to believe (2) (though I don’t think (2) was your thesis, but really just a provocative title).
I’m not sure what it takes for something to be a proper musical genre. I suspect many musical genres are best understood as cluster concepts where a piece of music counts as being in that genre if it exhibits enough of a cluster of features, even if not all members of that genre exhibit all of the features. Some genres have more unity than others-more overlap among the shared properties-and some have less (metal is more disparate than jazz, for example, as you point out).
I’d put things like brutality, heaviness, precision, aggression, etc., in the metal cluster. Maybe the issue is that these aren’t musical concepts (but rather “sound design” concepts), but I think I disagree. I think all of these choices are musical; they imply certain rhythmic choices, certain tone color choices, and even certain harmonic or melodic choices (it’s just that lots of very different melodic and harmonic choices can be dark, aggressive, etc.).
Just my first thoughts. I suspect metal is a genre, but its unifying features are just more abstract or general (though no less musical) than other genres.
I think of "genre" as something that encompasses BOTH the musical style and all the other parts, ie the aesthetic, the culture, the dress code etc. I think metal is a genre, but not a musical style. It's more like a DLC skin in a video game, it's an aesthetic that doesn't determine anything else about the character. Heaviness/aggression etc that you mentioned can limit your musical choices somewhat, but they don't determine the musical content of something. As I demonstrated, you can do more or less anything, musically, within a metal aesthetic context.
@ hmm, I think the features I mentioned do shape the content, just not as specifically or determinately as the features of some other musical styles. You can’t do *literally* anything and it be metal; there are limits, and I do think those limits are musical (even timbre is musical, but I think the limits, while broad, extend to rhythm, harmony, and melody too), not merely aesthetic (that’s probably not the right word to contrast with ‘musical’, as beauty (aesthetics) in music is very much affected by ostensibly musical choices).
Personally, I think you’ve shown that metal is an unusually flexible musical style, not that it doesn’t constitute a musical style.
“None of these songs have anything in common” bruh they’re literally all using abrasive sounds
I said they don't have anything MUSICAL in common. You're describing sound design
It’s better than music 😂
This is why being tribal over a specific style of metal is a very ridiculous stance to have. I'd take it even further and say all music that consists of heavy guitars, heavy drums, and powerful vocals all falls within this tofu analogy. So Punk/Rock/Metal/Hardcore and so on need to stop arguing over the toppings and realize it's still pizza at the end of the day🍕
Tribalism is humanity's greatest fatal flaw.
Bach on electric guitar is not classical music anymore. Classical music is also Tofu.
That’s the opposite of true, and the opposite of my point. The core composition is what’s “classical” (Baroque actually, in this case). If Bach was born in 1997, he’d write for instruments we have now.
Or is it just that the sub genres mentioned were never metal
If that's true then metal actually does not exist
Kebabpizza! \o/
is it wrong that that's the thing I miss the most about sweden
@@treyxaviermusic 🤣🤣🤣
@@treyxaviermusic we got those in germany too
I disagree. Metal tends to be heavier than rock with Chugs on guitars like Djent music, Drop D, Screams/gutteral vocals and more. You can play any instrument with lower tuning, chugging and gutteral vocals and youll see.
Its the same how most Industrial EDM music is confused for Heavy Metal or Industrial Metal.
By your definition, Country music wouldnt be a genre either, because without their acoustic guitars, banjos and country accents, they dont have a genre.
You cannot setup guidelines to fit your argument and then not compare to more than Jazz
Country, as I mentioned in the video, like jazz, has consistent musical characteristics that set it apart from other musical styles. Metallica, Black Sabbath, and Iron Maiden all played in standard tuning with no gutterals. Are they not metal?
is Shy from Sonata Arctica a metal song? I think it is. are all ballads metal? obviously not. is a Sonata made with the harmonic and melodic themes of Autumn Leaves played with heavy drums, guitars and a Shehnai Metal, Jazz, Classical or Indian music? Who fkn cares! I dunno where I'm goin' with this opinion but all I Know is that it only exists three genres: Folk, popular and academic, and neither they are pure. All music is fusion music. None the less I 100% agree with the practical implications of the video. I love pizza but I have to say neither it or tofu are human food! Eat meat! Cheers! 🙃🙃🙃
Judas Priest is metal, everything else is a Temu knockoff
Correct, what you're describing is a symptom of the shift from musical content towards sound design. It's a general thing and not just a phenomenon in Metal. Metal can, and should be music. And there's enough good examples out there. But what we're dealing with is bad musicianship and low audience expectations. You have people who never learned to play or write music and never wanted to, and were just attracted to the aesthetics and the wall of sound of Metal - or what they understood it to be. What comes out is music with literally almost no substance, it's just exciting noise. That explains why nearly all contemporary "modern" as well as extreme Metal is complete garbage.
It seams rock is also not a musical style
Seems like it
TLDR: some music sucks
Nope! You are wrong! Metal is Intent! Can't be "cute", can't be "romantic". It HAS to repel the "parents', "normies", "squares"....
And it CAN"T (ffs) be multimillion dollar selling industry darlings.
But hey, Good times create Soft Men and soy(tofu)boys.
None of those things are musical concepts. Important aspects of the aesthetic, for sure, but not concrete musical ideas. You can apply any of that to any composition.
Distortion
Punk has distortion, is punk metal?