Primal Fear

Meshuggah

Jorn

Firebrands

Eluveitie

A.O.T.W.

more interviews?

So here it is on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. I just watched the big long VH1Classics documentary “Heavy: The Story of Metal”. It has inspired a thought I wanted to share with you all. It got me thinking, and so I wanted to see if I could get you all thinking. You know that Propel shit that Gatorade sells? It always pissed me off when the narrator says “It’s how Gatorade does water”. If you take water and put lemon in it, doesn’t it make lemonade? Ok, so it’s really weak lemonade, but it sure as fuck ain’t water and if you think it is water you are dumber than dogshit! “Look I’m drinking good healthy water!” No you’re not, you weak minded fuck! It’s called marketing. Now try and think for yourself for once. Fuck Gatorade and fuck Propel.

Now with that said, if we don’t call it water, what do we call it? Well, I guess those douche bags at Gatorade win after all because we will call it water for lack of a better term. Now anyone with half a braincell will know that it is not really truly water, but we will use that term because there is nothing else to call it. Sure, we could say “extremely weak lemonade” or “Lemon Flavored water”, but that is too many words. So we will just say water and hope everyone is smart enough to understand that it is not really water.

It’s all about percentages. For the most part Propel is water. It is more water than anything else, so we will call it water. This is the same for the never ending debate on what is Rock, what is Metal, what is punk, what is pop, what is rap, and what is zydeco. At what point do we call something one thing and not the other? Well, you have to know enough to understand where it came from. What is 100% pure water? Well, that would be pretty fucking obvious. What is 100% pure lemonade? Well, since lemonade is a mixture of mostly lemon juice and water there could be a debate.

Side Bar:
With metal we have a much more clear history and definition. We have the founders of the genre. We have what most consider the (un) holy trinity of metals beginnings. That always was, is, and will be Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, & Iron Maiden. Yes, Black Sabbath & Judas Priest were started in 1969 and Iron Maiden did not start until seven years later, but hear me out. 1969 was when Metal was in its infancy stage. It wasn’t truly born until bands like Iron Maiden came out. Don’t believe me? Listen to the first Judas Priest release, Rocka Rolla. How metal is that? Now think about this. What do we call the bands that are the closest to the Black Sabbath sound today? We call them stoner rock. Black Sabbath may be considered one of the founders of the style, but the bands that truly sound like them are not even considered metal. Now what do we call bands that sound the closest to Iron Maiden? We call them traditional metal! My point is proven. The trilogy is complete.

So from here we can talk about what makes a band metal. Just like with that really weak lemonade that those idiots at Gatorade call water, we have some bands that are using the term metal that do not deserve to do so. On the VH1 special that used tampon Fred Durst said even though he uses rap, he always considered Limp Bizkit to be a metal band. What crack is he smoking? What elements of the metal trinity does Limp Bizkit have? Heavy guitar? Yes. Anything else? Nope! Does a distortion pedal make you metal? Now let’s look at Korn. They are called metal more than Limp Bizkit. You know why? More elements shared with the metal trinity. They have the guitar sound and the riffs, they have the attitude down (more so than Freddy and the cum stains). But they have a rhythm that is more rap and have been known to add a few rap vocals from time to time. I would say they are 49% metal, 49% rap, and 2% Celtic music (the use of bagpipes is pretty small so it only gets 2%). So are they metal? Partially. Now let’s look at an even closer example. Slipknot. They have almost everything. They are only missing the lead guitar and they have to cut out all rap vocals. See, now it gets into touchy territory because Anthrax had two songs that were rap. One was pretty tongue in cheek, so let’s cut that one out. M.O.D. has used rap vocals before too, but it was done in parody and I for one won’t try and tell Billy he is a rapper. The guy is way bigger than me! So maybe we can say that Slipknot is about 75% metal. Anthrax uses tons of great lead work and has only done one real rap song ever. So they maybe are only 99.9% Metal. So at what point do we stop saying the band is pseudo-metal or partially metal and just give them the honor? I would say somewhere after 75%.

Now I know what you are all saying. What about thrash and death metal? Well, how many elements do they share with the Metal trinity? Thrash for the most part is all those elements tossed in and just sped up. Same can be said for the majority of death, black, and other extreme styles of metal. Of course there are the ones that start to water things down so they can play faster, but again we will call them metal as well but only for lack of a better term. Just as we really have nothing to call that crap Propel other than water, we have nothing to call the extreme form of music. So we will call Propel water and we will call extreme Metal metal. Just understand that we assume that everyone is smart enough to know that it is not 100% pure. Or we can just call them shitty metal. Either way. EDIT: To clarify, I am not saying that all extreme metal have questionable metal credentials. Only the ones that water down those elements of the un-holy metal trinity mentioned at the beginning of this part of the article.

So when will the debate end? You fans of Korn always wonder when Korn will get the respect and people will just let them be called metal. When will people stop bashing the metalcore bands for that matter? Well, we still call into question why bands like Pretty Boy Floyd, Poison, and Cinderella are called metal. So don’t hold your breath. To my fellow aging metal purists I say the same thing sadly applies. When will those stupid weak ass Mallcore and metalcore bands stop trying to say they are metal? Probably about two decades after the fans of the glam bands stop trying to claim this most honorable tag. So again, don’t hold your breath. My point? This tired and boring debate will never end. However, I would like to point out that if there is a debate there is probably a reason why. In closing, if it is not clearly metal, it is clearly not metal!

PS-Ground Zero have been very cool to this place. So everyone vote for them this week. Can we get them to number one? Click here because underdogs RULE!