First metal band?
- Thread starter wolfsblood
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Soot and Stars
I AM SOOT!
I don't care who's right in this debate but the debate itself is becoming a very cool read! 
AboutAGirl
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That's all well and good. But that has nothing to do with our comprehension of music's objective evolution. We're talking about how metal has evolved and Beethoven isn't the guy who invented "cookie monster" vocals. Someone else had to step in and invent those techniques. Whether or not that's a good thing in your view, it's still an aspect of metal that classical music lacks.
This is what I was talking about in regards to Disgorge. Classical music might possess some heady metaphysical relation to every aspect of metal, but it most certainly does not include any specific, literal relation to every aspect of metal, such as distorted guitars, harsh vocals, and the lyrics.
That's all well and good, kind sir. But Bill Gates couldn't pay me to care about the comsos's view of music. I listen to music down here in the real world... I ain't talkin' about whose music is the best or the most universally important. I'm just talking about the simple fact that classical music is not metal. Do you disagree with that? You didn't specify.
I'm not talking about the cosmos. I'm not talking about some LSD-reminiscent notion of music's place in the aethereal eternity and its weight in the history of humankind. I'm talking about specific, straight-forward influence and the evolution of music as is able to be comprehended by the naked ear.
I understand and respect your high opinion of classical music. Make no mistake that I am not disputing any portion of that. But when people like Music Mistress go around claiming that metal and classical are essentially synonymous (assuming I interpreted the post correctly) you absolutely are taking pretty much everything away from more recent musicians.
Why? Because those are the people who invented metal as we know it. They are the people who invented the techniques and put together the sound and forged all of the standards. Most important of all: these are the people who influenced metal musicians the most, in a literal sense. Classical music is a major influence but guess what, metal artists listen to metal bands. Metal artists are inspired to play metal by other metal bands, and even the most classical-oriented metal artists are inevitably employing techniques that were invented by metal artists, for metal music.
I'm not saying that metal artists are in any way, shape, or form, equal to or as innovative as or as good in any way as classical musicians. What I am saying is classical music is an influence... but it's not the force that has spurred metal on. Maybe metaphysically in the annals of history through psychokinetic symbiosis, and maybe they were already doing "it" before metal ever picked it up. But the fact is that metal bands listen to metal, and are generally inspired by metal. That's how you guys take everything away from these people. I'm not talking on a historical level, I'm talking about who specifically influences the bands who make the changes which you can see in metal every single generation as it grows. Who started harsh vocals, who popularized tremolo picking, who started playing faster, who wrote a certain kind of lyrics, things of that nature. Even if Mozart already played all the riffs and invented the scales, Mozart's music isn't what inspired metal to be what it is. Metallica didn't start playing thrash metal because of Beethoven. I'm talking about the real interpersonal growth of the style. When you give the credit to Beethoven, all these people who did the leg work for metal get cut out of the mix and these were the people who actually knew that metal existed and believed in metal and they crafted the genre.
Classical music may be the most supreme and universal and important style of music in the aether and everything emanates solely from it, but nothing can change the fact that Beethoven never uses distorted guitars or harsh vocals or grim lyrics and Beethoven never played thrash metal or black metal or power metal or etc. etc. etc. There's more to these forms of music than just an angry emotion or whatever it is you guys tie between it and classical.
In regards to what Magic said... We can only agree to disagree. In my view classical music is not heavy metal and in my view this is the single most obvious statement anyone has ever spoken. The fact that anyone disagrees with this is going to send me to the insane asylum. You guys almost seem to take it as an insult against classical music to admit that classical music is classical music, and metal is metal. None of the clips you guys have posted sound like metal to me.... Call me a lunatic but golly, that stuff ALMOST sounds like classical music! It's almost like you want to eradicate every tiny bit of history and heritage from metal and take it strictly at face value, which in my view completely destroys the things that make the music mean anything what-so-ever.
I'm sorry if I'm being an ass but honestly you guys are taking a toll on my mental health here. Classical music and metal are not the same thing. There is no piece of classical music in existence that sounds like metal. Maybe all the notes are the same, I'm fine with that. Maybe all the emotions are the same, I'm fine with that, too. But there's more to metal than notes and emotions. There's no symphony that can play a metal song all by itself, not a real metal song, just a quaint permutation (in the case of symphonies that play metal, not in the case of original classical music which is not quaint but staggering and aethereal). I understand that "everything's the same maaaaan, it's all one song duuuuude" but different genres of music performed with completely different instruments and based on entirely different histories sound different.
To reiterate: Classical music may have done it first in a technical sense, but they did not do exactly what metal bands do. We're talking more than just music theory here. There were people down there in the trenches who really made the music what it is in a literal sense and those people deserve SOME recognition.
I can't live in a world where something as adamant as the difference between metal and classical is refuted. What's next, rap and folk are the same thing? Bob Dylan and Miley Cyrus are the same person? *shoots self*
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To reiterate: Classical music may have done it first in a technical sense, but they did not do exactly what metal bands do. We're talking more than just music theory here. There were people down there in the trenches who really made the music what it is in a literal sense and those people deserve SOME recognition.
I can't live in a world where something as adamant as the difference between metal and classical is refuted. What's next, rap and folk are the same thing? Bob Dylan and Miley Cyrus are the same person? *shoots self*
I agree to a point, AAG. Then lets give some credit to the guys in the trench who discovered distorted guitars, Les Paul, for example. (it was an accident that distortion even became a way of playing, ya know)
I am going to point out one thing in your opus post...
That is an unfair summation, and I think you would be surprised at how many metal composers actually do listen to classical music!
No matter how much debate goes back and forth in this thread, the FACT remains that metal has its roots in classical music.
All the terminology and the use of distorted electric guitars is modern, the rest of metal history came from the past.
FretBuzz
Monkey Man
Personally I don't think that metal has to have a classical influence to be considered metal, but it was a big evolutionary step in metal's sound.
But you raise some good points- and this gives more credence to Magic's earlier mention of Deep Purple possibly being the first metal band - since (as far as I know), Blackmore was the first guitarist to blend classical and rock.
Nobody else did this until Randy Rhoads, I think?
Blackmore played with Screaming Lord Sutch when he was a teenager. Sutch was a horrible singer, but had a cool horror schtick that predated Alice Cooper and Black Sabbath by almost a decade. I'm sure that Ozzy's stage persona, and maybe his lyrics, were influenced by Screaming Lord Sutch, so I think he can be considered an influence in metal's image and theatrics (not musically, though).
Eric Clapton was the first guy to play the Les Paul with Marshall amps.
I just read an interview yesterday with Steve Miller, in the latest issue of Guitar Player, where he was talking about seeing Cream, and it was the first time he heard the Les Paul/Marshall combination, and how differently it sounded at the time...quite different from Strats, Teles, or Rickenbackers through Vox or Fenders. The Les Paul / Marshall sound quickly spread, and it still used a lot in metal today, by guys such as Zakk Wylde.
Gibson only made Les Pauls for a few years, because at first they sold poorly. When British players like Keith Richards and Eric C. started playing them and made them popular, Gibson started producing them again (Keef was the first British guitarist to start playing a Les Paul...I think he bought one on an early US tour). SGs of course have humbucker pickups too (they sound much gnarlier than Fenders), but the heavier body weight of a Les Paul gives it a thicker sound...of course the amp is a HUGE factor too.
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AboutAGirl
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Ugh, I had a nice long post but I lost it when my computer burped.
I've stated categorically the massive influence that classical had on metal. But you guys seem to delight in ignoring every bit of metal history past the point where metal actually came into existence. I dig the aetheral hippie stuff but you can't play a genre of music that does not exist. You can't retcon reality. Does Beethoven play dubstep, and breakcore, and gangsta rap, too? Influence and the end result are not synonymous. Robert Johnson is not The Rolling Stones. Metal has a rich heritage of its own, and no amount of classical music would ever have been able to circumvent that. Nobody would ever have listened to Beethoven in the 1700s and formed Leviathan, you need Sabbath and Hellhammer and Mayhem. No matter how huge of an influence classical is, there are a whole LOT of pieces in the puzzle before metal could become what it is.
Think of it this way... The slaves were freed in the 1800s. But we had to pass desegregation and voting rights laws in the mid-1960s. No matter the definitive role classical played in metal, there were further steps necessary. Classical music is not heavy metal. A bird is not an airplane. The Planet Mars is not The Universe. Crack cocaine is not a fruit salad.
*kills self again*
I've stated categorically the massive influence that classical had on metal. But you guys seem to delight in ignoring every bit of metal history past the point where metal actually came into existence. I dig the aetheral hippie stuff but you can't play a genre of music that does not exist. You can't retcon reality. Does Beethoven play dubstep, and breakcore, and gangsta rap, too? Influence and the end result are not synonymous. Robert Johnson is not The Rolling Stones. Metal has a rich heritage of its own, and no amount of classical music would ever have been able to circumvent that. Nobody would ever have listened to Beethoven in the 1700s and formed Leviathan, you need Sabbath and Hellhammer and Mayhem. No matter how huge of an influence classical is, there are a whole LOT of pieces in the puzzle before metal could become what it is.
Think of it this way... The slaves were freed in the 1800s. But we had to pass desegregation and voting rights laws in the mid-1960s. No matter the definitive role classical played in metal, there were further steps necessary. Classical music is not heavy metal. A bird is not an airplane. The Planet Mars is not The Universe. Crack cocaine is not a fruit salad.
*kills self again*
Hepcat
retired
And Magneto is not Iron Man.
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