stuff i wrote about class in an old metal thread that never got answered

anyway geir's answer was better the first time (which WAS sort of a comment on the "perceived differences" part of your question, chuck, or at least a dimwitted affirmation of it)

The original class thread touched on country a fair bit but none of them really got into metal, even (surprisingly?) once the race card came up, unless i missed it. How/whether to make the brow/collar/income distinction is the underlying question on all four threads, obv

Look at the people who like that kind of music. Not quite the most intelligent people there are, or....?

-- Geir Hongro (geirhon...), March 6th, 2003.

Good lord!

Given that we accept these two statements as fact, we are left to draw some kind of relationship between them. Is it a causal relationship? Do critics dislike country and metal BECAUSE it is lower-class? Or do we perceive country and metal as lower-class BECAUSE critics dislike it? Or is it a more subtle kind of correlation? Perhaps we correlate values such as intellectualism with the higher classes, and similarly, critics correlate these values with higher artistic quality. So we have two separate phenomena which are both correlated to the same underlying value: intellectualism. Maybe the best explanation would be some combination of all of these dynamics.

How cerebral is silly triad-based harmonic pop anyway?

Well, that's a good point, because it's true that some metal is more proggy and generally more complex than a lot of pop stuff. On the other hand, a good deal of metal is very repetitive and there's nothing particularly complex about playing the same power chord 500 times really really fast. But I think it's more the imagery and lyrics that give metal an anti-intellectual image with critics. The fascination with satan, sorcery, magic, etc., probably strikes many critics as being puerile.

Dying Fetus (yea I know, shut up about the name) on their Destroy the Opposition album tackled lots of socio-political issues...Anathema write very emotional, personal lyrics, Pain of Salvation (arguably not 'metal' anymore but stick with me) write psychological/political/personal lyrics about life...Metal's lyrical scope is pretty broad. There's a lot of bottom of the barrel stuff but the music can be very cerebral. And some of it can be ear candy just like pop. I'm not a 'metalhead' per se, although I listen to lots of metal.

But what about the lyrical scope of pop? Isn't that pretty limited? And why would satanism generate an 'anti-intellectual' image, anyway? It's not like being a satanist makes you any less intelligent than being a Christian, Buddhist, Moslem, or having no religion at all.

My main problem with Geir's point is he's letting his personal bias against music fare into how he categorizes the people who listen to it, and it's pretty insulting coming from a guy who writes off any kind of experimentation or breaking the mold in music as "noise".

Is there a link between education and musical tastes? Well, I don't think anybody here can say for sure without letting personal bias get in the way. to truly establish it one would have to collect a lot of empirical data. But truly, one would probably be incapable of separating the effects of education from class, which many times go hand in hand.

I listen to a lot of metal and I'm far from uneducated and probably am more intelligent than Geir.

Perhaps he could explain why some metalheads I know are pursuing or already have masters degrees. I'm going for mine in a few years.

The education conundrum is easily solved: it doesn't matter HOW educated you are or where you're from, what matters is whether you like something or not. Everything else that comes with it -- justification, analysis, explanation -- extends or explains the impulse. Where it all comes wrong is the whole 'guilty pleasure' thing (and is there a reverse? a sense of 'this is too artsy so there's no reason for us to listen to it'?). Fuck guilty pleasures when it comes to music or movies or books or art, ENJOY!

Side q: why do i hear country but not metal on the radio if the listening-base is similar?

And it's more than just perception. Metal thrives in less affluent and mostly white communities. It has its crossover moments, but it also has its core audience to fall back on. I was kind of amazed when I first read about the whole Florida metal scene, this entire little universe of people -- mostly working-class, mostly not college-educated -- who are as fanatically into the minutiae of the music and the performers as any scenesters anywhere, but it was all stuff that registers zero on the cultural radars of either the pop masses or the cognoscenti. So yeah, there are clearly class issues at work. And there's plenty of play around the margins -- QOTSA covers a lot of demographic bases, for example. As, of course, did Nirvana. (Renaming it "grunge" turned out to be a pretty class-savvy move, didn't it? Having "metal" in its name would have made it harder sell.)

As a generalization, I think metal and country are both reactionary, in the broad sense of the word; I'd throw blues in there too, although obviously racial issues (ahem) color things a little differently. But they're all about reacting to the world, and being acted upon by the world, usually in direct and difficult ways. They're not so much about fighting back, at least not with any hope of success; and they're definitely not about standing apart in bemused abstraction (the post-punk/indie stance). Generally, there's no comfortable place to stand apart in metal and country, because there's no such thing as apart. (There is escapism, but again, not with a sense of the possibility of REAL escape i.e. transcendence of the current state.) I think all of that reflects class perceptions.

Which isn't to say that people of any class can't "relate to" country or metal or blues, because after all they're talking about human experience and emotion, and most of us have a broad enough range of both that any honest evocation of one or the other will ring at least a few bells. But people tend to be drawn most often to the music that rings the most bells for them, and the demographic clusters around one music or another tell you a lot about what those musics traffic in.

Hip hop is a different story, and I think a really different one from the blues. Hip hop does envision transcendence, of one kind or another. But that's a different thread...

The most anti-intellectual thing about metal is not the music itself (which is actually quite complex sometimes), but the image associated with metal bands. This kind of image was more usual during the 80s, though.

However, the lyrics of bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit (both of which do sometimes produce rather musically complex stuff) clearly have elements that will appeal to listeners that aren't particularly intellectual.

Sure you do. You hear Staind and Linkin Park and Evanescence and Audioslave and Trapt and AFI and Godsmack and Queens of the Stone Age and Three Doors Down and Cold and Saliva and Hed(PE) and System of the Down and Mudvayne and LOTS of other metal bands. Assuming you LISTEN to the radio that is. Or at least to rock stations. And I'm not saying you can tell all those bands apart (neither can I). But they're there, trust me. (And they're METAL, trust me. Even if lotsa metal fans don't think so. I mean, underground country fans don't think the country you hear on the radio is country either, right?) (And if you listen to CLASSIC rock stations, you hear Led Zep and Hendrix and Deep Purple and Black Sabbath and Alice Cooper and stuff.)

>>and I don't know anyone who's into metal IRL<<

I don't even know what "metal IRL" is!!!

Dude, I listened to I Against I last weekend and it totally rocks and kicks ass and I'd rather be forced to EAT that fucking record than see any more Geir posts.

I think they're mainly accused of appealing to suburban middle-class kids (which is a problem why, anyway?).

also "metal IRL" = "metal in real life (aka off the internet") = i don't know anyone who likes metal except people I know thru ILM etc.

How is that different than who listens to the other kind of metal? I don't follow you. (The answer to your first question would be "yes." I mean, they're part of what I was talking about in the posts at the beginning of this thread, anyway. You know, back before the part where I wrote "Steve Earlie" but obviously meant "Steve IRL.")

(Or at least when it has non-mainstream trappings, like System of a Down and Tool and AFI do.) (And by "county" I meant "country," natch.)

Do critics dislike country and metal BECAUSE it is lower-class?

No, they dislike because by and large, fans of new country, and to a lesser extent metal, do not become critics, and when they do, they tend to write for specialist genre-based publications. It's cute though how some folks like to think that critics who like Wilco and Aimee Mann and the Roots are on some sort of mission to keep more blue-collar genres/performers down.

Actually, very relevant question here: why don't fans of Creed/Master P/Kenny Chesney/Michael Bolton become music writers - or participate in boards like this one? (this might deserve its own thread). I'd actually LOVE to read an informed defense of Bolton or Creed.

rockers
metalers (pronounced "mett-lerz". and only my friend andy called them that)
heshers (orig. hessians?)

(names i remember for country fans: zero - there were none)

(sidenote: i heard the new celine dion single [i think - a c.lauper cover?] in the laundromat the other night and didn't mind it - I like the way the line "is that all right?" is stripped of all its vulnerability and comes off kind of condescending, and how that detail informs the bland/epic sweep of the arrangement. Anyway, I started wondering whether my enjoyment [ok i'm using the term a bit loosely] had anything to do with the fact that i do my laundry in a laundromat, but i stopped myself for fear of proving the wrong people right)

Well, your theory definitely doesn't explain why the equally boring Aimee Mann and Wilco AREN'T maligned, does it?

(Actually, Creed and Chesney have both received a COUPLE Pazz and Jop votes in the past couple years. And is Bolton even still recording?)

This still doesn't explain why so few critics feel the need to expand their listening to take in these styles, in the same way that they do feel obligated to listen to some hip-hop, IDM, indie, etc. Most critics make some attempt to be well-rounded in their listening - or at least to throw in a token album from outside their main preferred style on their end-of-year list - but few seem to feel obligated to extend this well-roundedness to country or metal.

Three Doors Down are not a metal band. They are a pop/rock group, nothing more, more akin to alternative rock. Staind are merely a loud alternative rock act. QOTSA are rock 'n roll, plain and simple, garage rock. AFI are a fucking PUNK band. Godsmack are definitely NOt metal.

All of these groups you've listed, other than maybe one, aren't metal. They're either nu-metal, alternative rock, or something else.

You inferring that they're metal and saying that just cuz they don't sound like underground metal doesn't mean they're not metal is stupid. These groups have nothing to do with metal at all. Most of them aren't even nu-metal.

Besides, even if one were to consider them "metal"...they would be bottom of the barrel metal. Akin to Toto's relation to "progressive rock" (NO I DIDN'T CALL TOTO PROG ROCK YOU IDIOT, just saying they're about as close to real metal as Toto, the pop band, are to prog rock).

Their loss, I guess. That's where Chuck comes in. But you're correct, people hardly ever feel bad for being too unfamiliar w/mainstream country. Even the pop-fetishist contingent of ILM kinda ignores it, even though it's huge, probably 'cause twangy guitars kinda get in the way of theories about how 2003-pop = allspaceagerobotTimbalandcrossbreedingallthetime(sofuckyou).

(And see, I told you "real" metal fans don't think those bands are metal. Just like "real" c&w fans say Shania and Garth aren't c&w.)

>>These groups have nothing to do with metal at all.<<

Except for how their vocals, guitars, drums, and basslines sound, at least.

And if I were you, I wouldn't worry too much about what Geir thinks of metal fans' intelligence. His musical views are pretty much universally dismissed on here (that's pretty much the only thing you can get all ILMers to agree on, in fact).

*ducks*

Sincerely, I'm in awe. I'm trying to figure out what kind of scenario could possibly have led to a purchase of Toto's Hydra (what does it sound like? I like "Africa", but that's on a different album).

Sorta like Electric Six, but more intricate, and minus the sax solos. (You know: new wave prog-disco mustache-metal, pretty much.) (WITH the sax solos, Electric Six sound more like "Urgent" by Foreigner.)

I bought the album because when I first heard "All Us Boys" on the radio, I thought it was an even better hard-rock-band new wave imitation than "Where the Boys Go" off the Stones' *Emotional Rescue* (which it otherwise reminded me of. It also reminds me of "Me and the Boys" by NRBQ, but the Toto song is the best of the three, by far.) And the big hit, "99," was about the hot secret agent on *Get Smart,* obviously. But people who think the album has nothing to do with prog rock should look at the cover (see below), and note that the first two songs are called "Hydra" and "St. George and the Dragon."

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=3:54:13|PM&sql=Ag4120r3ac489

I now have a mental picture of the fat bearded dude from Toto shaking his ass and yelling "fire in the Taco Bell!!!" and YOU ARE TO BLAME!!!

But I actually heard Toto's "All Us Boys" on Detroit AOR (i.e. -- either WWWW or WRIF or WABX), circa 1980. Seeing how I'm old and all.

*drools* Oh my goodness... I hope I can get it to work. I tried Voice radio once and my good-for-nothing dial-up connection kept shutting it down.

P.S. Good Charlotte look like a bunch of emo goth dorks on the cover of the Rolling Stone.

p.s. why do you think I haven't bought it? And why do you people not understand how someone could like an album without wanting to cover their walls with pictures of the band who made it? In fact, that's the fuckin' problem with critics...they're still fetishizing the attractiveness of the artist (And what the artists represents) long after they should be secure enough in their own identity to appreciate a band even if they look like dorks.

Robert Christgau on Good Charlotte, in the *Voice* show-preview listings section this week: "Quite possibly the most hated pop punk band in history, and for what? Some authenticity standard that's a lot dumber than they are. They tailor their big sound to the ordinary kids who need it. Their tunes are accessible, their lyrics direct, their expressions of anger and alienation apt and experienced. Give them a fucking chance."

I just wanted to make Anthony Miccio's day, and stuff.

hstencil, I still don't see why Klosterman's point about how different types of music (who were supposedly at war, a war the REM-side won) made their teen audience feel is not valid.

I'm kinda curious where feminism fits into this too. Sexuality was pretty much verboten in rock around the Pearl Jam years as a severe reaction to the monotonous gender roles of the hair-metal years (the only references to women were as an untainable glorious thing - Pearl Jam's "Black," for instance, and could only be referred to cryptically). Now we're at a place where women are getting thrown around like a cheap commodity again, except all the guys are shrieking about their low self-esteem. Aside from a few rap-rockers who add a bit of fun, it's like the worst of both worlds. I'm hoping the success of Queens Of The Stone Age and the White Stripes is a sign for a better common ground.

Actually, this phrase is the most dubious thing I've read in a while, from Xgau or anyone else. How does he know they need it, and how do we know what anybody else needs anyway?

I need it, Ned! *sniffles like a little teen*

Except for how their vocals, guitars, drums, and basslines sound, at least.

Which recalls the question whether to define metal as an aesthetic or metal as a process (an ever returning question - "do you classify 2 Unlimited or Whigfield as techno or pop"?). I stick to the latter definition, in which case nu-metal (playing riffs, lyrics, vocals, structures in the rock/hardcore tradition with the guitar distortion and drum sound of metal) is indeed not metal. Neither is, say, The Prodigy for using distorted guitars in dance tracks. In the same way, I consider bands like Graveland, Summoning, Winter or Burzum that incorporate classical, folk or ambient techniques and melodies in metal structures still very much metal.

chaki, you don't even like pop/rock in the first place.

DEATH TO FALSE METAL!

You certainly can't accuse me of delivering the TV/not punk line, at the least. Save it for Alex in NYC. ;-)

then why am i listening to cheap trick right now, smart guy?

And Ned, I definitely don't think you're as bad as Alex In NYC about it, I'm just getting kinda testy about the subject (note I try not to bring it up these days).

jess, if that's directed towards me, you're half right. The GC guys are really more of a duo deal like the Everly Brothers, though the harmonies get to me like the best early Beatles too.

Hmm...maybe not so overtly, but I dunno what's not empathatic about that album, for instance "The House Was Rockin' (With Domestic Problems)." Or were you talking about the song?