Music-based genres and their art movement equivalents

Metal = Romanticism?

hell yeah!

"Metal = Romanticism?"

hah! what a crock of shit. i remember interviews with lita ford (during her metal years) and other metal people saying stuff like, 'yeah if beethoven were alive today he'd definitely be writing/performing metal'

i never understood how they were able to say that kind of thing with a straight face...even spinal tap never made such absurd claims, did they?

It's kind of a Mach piece, really...

wild billy childish = stuckism

but Dallas, a lot of real metal is hugely influenced by classical - even Iron Maiden as an obvious example, i get the impression Bruce Dickinson spent more time listening to Beethoven than Black Sabbath really - the sonic pomp and grandeur of metal is the obvious connection, the obsession with gothic and general mythic imagery is another (valkyries, Greek myths, horned Gods etc.) - siegbran made a good call although i was hoping he could expand on it more

basically i now cannot stop thinking about music artists in comparison with painters and craft-artists. it makes absolute sense that you could have the aural equivalent of a Jackson Pollock piece (where perhaps the medium is the message) and this be great art (tho maybe not great music) for example. but musicians and sound artists tend to attract all kinds of criticism that perhaps visual artists find it easier to get away and the bigger idea behind this thread is about exploring the reasoning behind that and challenging it possibly.

Kraftwerk as Constructivism then perhaps...

additonally, in attempting to review '100th Window' i likened it to last year's Turner Prize winner 'The Thinker' which comprised a bunch of computers contained with a faceless black obelisk

Experimental Hip-Hop = Post-Everything 21th century art

Autechre = Frank Gehry

"but Dallas, a lot of real metal is hugely influenced by classical - even Iron Maiden as an obvious example, i get the impression Bruce Dickinson spent more time listening to Beethoven than Black Sabbath really - the sonic pomp and grandeur of metal is the obvious connection, the obsession with gothic and general mythic imagery is another (valkyries, Greek myths, horned Gods etc.) - siegbran made a good call although i was hoping he could expand on it more"

yeah, i can see the truth in what you're saying, but when the metal people said stuff like that in interviews i really think they just wound up sounding grandiose in their attempts to defend metal from its critics...they were trying to equate their stuff with music that is generally considered to be among the greatest achievements of western culture. call me crazy, but i don't see, say, ronnie james dio's 'holy diver' fitting into that same category. no matter how hard i try, i can't imagine beethoven living in the '80's and fronting a metal band. it all sounds like the premise for a terrible movie, with Yahoo Serious cast in the lead role. metal may share an enthusiasm for mythic imagery/pomp and grandeur w/romantic composers, but harmonic sophistication is just one obvious area where they may be seen to part company...

"but musicians and sound artists tend to attract all kinds of criticism that perhaps visual artists find it easier to get away [with] and the bigger idea behind this thread is about exploring the reasoning behind that and challenging it possibly."

oh lord, you're hurting my head now. too complex for me to try to discuss here...seriously...

smarter people to thread, please... (single-file please, so as to avoid a stampede)

Just writing some thoughts on this in a rather unstructured way:

The thing with metal and romanticism is that the IDEA of "hey that whole wagner concept is pretty cool" came first but it only had 70s rock 'n roll to start with (like, indeed, Dio, Lita Ford et al, the classic heavy metal stuff of the late 70s/early 80s), and along the years it more and more found out how to make the music fit the image better. Metal had no genious like Beethoven or Wagner so it all had to be done step by step as a collective effort, but I feel it pretty much got where it wanted to be in the end. < realitycheck >And now we're stuck with hordes of metal bands today with dorky synth players and/or band members girlfriends attempting soprano vocals. < /realitycheck >

And subject/imagery-wise it's pretty obvious. The rejection of modern times/society/technology and all the vikings/ancient gods/occultism/honour escapism is just 1870 all over again. Right down to the fascination with folk - it's not the whole picture though, Metal as a concept/paradigm is a bizarre combination of nihisism and romanticism. Bakunin's old quote "Let us put our trust in the eternal spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unsearchable and eternally creative source of all life - the passion for destruction is also a creative passion!" was as inspirational 150 years ago as it is now, it seems. And not to mention all the Nietzschean undertones...

And I just Googled this text on romanticism:
Among the characteristic attitudes of Romanticism were the following: a deepened appreciation of the beauties of nature; a general exaltation of emotion over reason and of the senses over intellect; a turning in upon the self and a heightened examination of human personality and its moods and mental potentialities; a preoccupation with the genius, the hero, and the exceptional figure in general, and a focus on his passions and inner struggles; a new view of the artist as a supremely individual creator, whose creative spirit is more important than strict adherence to formal rules and traditional procedures; an emphasis upon imagination as a gateway to transcendent experience and spiritual truth; an obsessive interest in folk culture, national and ethnic cultural origins, and the medieval era; and a predilection for the exotic, the remote, the mysterious, the weird, the occult, the monstrous, the diseased, and even the satanic.

I rest my case. :)