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If this blog were an album then this post would be as close to a title track as there can be. I’m a Metallica fan; and if there is a classical or pop fan reading this (thank your for reading btw) cringing right now please wait and read on. And if you’re reading this and you’re a Metallica fan then read on and feel better about yourself. To me that band is a band that understood its genre better than anybody else in it, may be they accidentally do or may be they actually do.
Let me start by explaining my theory on music. I think everybody knows this on some subconscious level but let me re-iterate. Music, all forms of it, according to me is about emotion, some emotion or the other. And I don’t mean with respect to lyrics or anything like that I mean in general, music and the lyrics and the whole package together reflects and many a times instills, an emotion. Like pop and RnB are about happiness or sadness in most cases coupled with love. Rock is about a varied range of emotion which is one of the main reasons I like the genre so much. Rock ranges and seems to have the freedom to speak about and instill a wide variety of emotions be it anger, sadness, love or rebellion. It’s the same case with Jazz I feel, though in a more hardcore raw way rather than mainstream like rock, its like pure hard liquor in that sense, its hard to take but if you like it then you love it period. Hip hop on the other hand is about no emotion, none it is purely about a hypnotic rhythm that’s it. And any hip hop fan reading this (thanks again) saying “No your wrong hip hop is about lust or physical act of love” or something like that then feel free to comment and I shall be more than happy to reply with a fresh post. But that’s a fight for another day, getting back to the point.
The genre of Metal in music is primarily about rage and anger, sometimes about sadness and sometimes about happiness, though in more of a chaotic sense. And if you’re reading this and going, “My that’s so negative!!” then you’re right. Metal does reflect primarily on negative emotion, and what’s wrong with that, those emotions exist don’t they? Haven’t you ever felt so angry you felt like punching something, haven’t you felt so sad that you wanted to just scream your lungs out. These are very powerful emotions but at the same time there is also a sense of sanctity to these emotions. There is an inner sense of method to the madness, it’s hard to see but it exists.
And that’s this reason why I’m a Metallica fan because when I hear their music I can hear that inner melody in those harsh ear breaking heavy riffs. At the same time they are loud and in your face and you get that supreme sense of power in everything. There’s another thing Metallica are good at and that’s slowing things down in a middle of a song sometimes, which is necessary many a time to kind of catch your breath from all the air drumming and air guitaring you've been doing. Yet slow or fast there I always that sense of power and chaos (those random tempo changes are a prime example of the chaos) while still maintaining that inner melody that sense of purpose in the song. And that to me is about as close as any band can get to understanding their genre according to me. Don’t get me wrong though I don’t think they’re perfect or anything they don’t get that same thing in every song (or every album as I’ll soon get to) but some songs you hear and you go “Yeah that’s what I'm talking bout”. I know some hardcore metal fans and musicians might say they’re not good technically, that they’re songs seem to use the same kind of riffs or they’re lyrics aren’t, in most cases, that good. But why can’t something that is simple be great, that’s where the genius of another sometimes misunderstood band lies, Nirvana.
In their last album Metallica fell of their pedestal, they sucked; they completely seemed to forget what their music was about. They did what every other metal band did; it was just loud worthless noise. At no point could you feel the music in the same way as before. I mean the band HAD to be in some turmoil or smoking something funny when they decided to cage one of their main assets, Kirk Hammet. I hated St. Anger from the bottom of my heart. More so because I knew what this band was capable of. I knew they could easily make a good album. But no matter how much I hated that album in the back of my mind I had faith, a blind faith that they would come back with something good.
And I’m glad to say my faith has proved right, their new album Death Magnetic, despite the corny name, is a Metallica album like the old times. It’s not a revolutionary album it’s not fantastic, it’s good, it could have been great but for a couple of songs in the album. But the important thing is they’re back to their old ways of song writing full of power and chaos intermingling almost poetically with a unique sense of harmony.
Let me start by explaining my theory on music. I think everybody knows this on some subconscious level but let me re-iterate. Music, all forms of it, according to me is about emotion, some emotion or the other. And I don’t mean with respect to lyrics or anything like that I mean in general, music and the lyrics and the whole package together reflects and many a times instills, an emotion. Like pop and RnB are about happiness or sadness in most cases coupled with love. Rock is about a varied range of emotion which is one of the main reasons I like the genre so much. Rock ranges and seems to have the freedom to speak about and instill a wide variety of emotions be it anger, sadness, love or rebellion. It’s the same case with Jazz I feel, though in a more hardcore raw way rather than mainstream like rock, its like pure hard liquor in that sense, its hard to take but if you like it then you love it period. Hip hop on the other hand is about no emotion, none it is purely about a hypnotic rhythm that’s it. And any hip hop fan reading this (thanks again) saying “No your wrong hip hop is about lust or physical act of love” or something like that then feel free to comment and I shall be more than happy to reply with a fresh post. But that’s a fight for another day, getting back to the point.
The genre of Metal in music is primarily about rage and anger, sometimes about sadness and sometimes about happiness, though in more of a chaotic sense. And if you’re reading this and going, “My that’s so negative!!” then you’re right. Metal does reflect primarily on negative emotion, and what’s wrong with that, those emotions exist don’t they? Haven’t you ever felt so angry you felt like punching something, haven’t you felt so sad that you wanted to just scream your lungs out. These are very powerful emotions but at the same time there is also a sense of sanctity to these emotions. There is an inner sense of method to the madness, it’s hard to see but it exists.
And that’s this reason why I’m a Metallica fan because when I hear their music I can hear that inner melody in those harsh ear breaking heavy riffs. At the same time they are loud and in your face and you get that supreme sense of power in everything. There’s another thing Metallica are good at and that’s slowing things down in a middle of a song sometimes, which is necessary many a time to kind of catch your breath from all the air drumming and air guitaring you've been doing. Yet slow or fast there I always that sense of power and chaos (those random tempo changes are a prime example of the chaos) while still maintaining that inner melody that sense of purpose in the song. And that to me is about as close as any band can get to understanding their genre according to me. Don’t get me wrong though I don’t think they’re perfect or anything they don’t get that same thing in every song (or every album as I’ll soon get to) but some songs you hear and you go “Yeah that’s what I'm talking bout”. I know some hardcore metal fans and musicians might say they’re not good technically, that they’re songs seem to use the same kind of riffs or they’re lyrics aren’t, in most cases, that good. But why can’t something that is simple be great, that’s where the genius of another sometimes misunderstood band lies, Nirvana.
In their last album Metallica fell of their pedestal, they sucked; they completely seemed to forget what their music was about. They did what every other metal band did; it was just loud worthless noise. At no point could you feel the music in the same way as before. I mean the band HAD to be in some turmoil or smoking something funny when they decided to cage one of their main assets, Kirk Hammet. I hated St. Anger from the bottom of my heart. More so because I knew what this band was capable of. I knew they could easily make a good album. But no matter how much I hated that album in the back of my mind I had faith, a blind faith that they would come back with something good.
And I’m glad to say my faith has proved right, their new album Death Magnetic, despite the corny name, is a Metallica album like the old times. It’s not a revolutionary album it’s not fantastic, it’s good, it could have been great but for a couple of songs in the album. But the important thing is they’re back to their old ways of song writing full of power and chaos intermingling almost poetically with a unique sense of harmony.
