My List of Bands Who Have Sold Out

1.      Bullet For My Valentine: With the help of my wife, I’ve been more exposed to this band than ever before. Beforehand I’d only really heard a few tracks off of “Fever”, and the title track of their second record “Scream.Aim.Fire.”. It was actually the video for the latter that I was ever really willing to take a chance with this band. At the time it came as a promise of a coming storm of another Thrash Metal resurgence (at the time, I wasn’t aware there had been one in the nineties). Along with Trivium’s “To the Rats”, “Scream.Aim.Fire” was something that really got me excited. Something new in a field I thought had died out long ago. To my recent surprise (as in earlier this week) I found out “Fever” actually came out AFTER “S.A.F.”. To know this actually pissed me off pretty bad. To put out such a heavy album and then to produce such a whiney piece of yak phlegm in a matter of a couple years. And after streaming their newest album, “Temper Temper”, I can only say they are following suite to a stardom of heresy. Nothing short of audio vomit is this heinous atrocity. Why? Why turn a marvelous world upside down? 

2.      Metallica: As an avid Metallica fan and strong supporter for the album “St. Anger” (fuck off!), it pains me to say that the nineties Metallica did bitched out…bad! I was actually introduced to hard music by my step father with the black album, and “Load”. It wasn’t until 2003/2004 when I started collecting their albums back in high school. Mind you, by this time I was already getting passed the initial Norwegian Black Metal bands and beyond the Florida and Swedish Death Metal scenes. The first two Metallica albums I had were “St. Anger” and “Kill’Em All” (before leaving Alaska), and then “Ride the Lightning”, “Master of Puppets”, and “…And Justice For All” after seeing them with Godsmack in Boise in 2004. So I had been moderately exposed to extreme metal by then, and could judge good qualities. For whatever reason they decided making progressive and intense metal just wasn’t their thing anymore, and making hard rock and heavy blues were better for them. Whatever psychotic reason that may be, was obviously a mistake. The few songs I can actually imagine being played live from this era are “Fuel”, “King Nothing” and “Ain’t My Bitch”. There is a dire place in my heart for the black album, so I don’t have too much negativity to say about the album, as it was the first one I ever heard; and helps me get through losing my step dad in 2007. But beyond that, it is totally a turn for the worst for the band. As I do love this album, the only negative song I can speak of is “Enter Sandman”; I would very much like to never, ever, ever listen to that fucking song again. I do think after some family bonding, battling alcoholism, losing another bassist, and Lars growing a pair (ha, yeah okay, right!) and trying to relearn the drums, St. Anger was the start of a newer, better Metallica not seen since the eighties. In no way, shape, or form is it the same band or same awesome quality, but it is a lot better than the nineties Metallica. And no, I have not listen to Lulu, nor do I want to. I don’t see it as an official release. But whatever!

3.      Dimmu Borgir/Cradle of Filth: Both of these bands are almost identical in their realms of music. Both started with roots laid in Black Metal. Both later on took keen influence from comical dark ambiance heard in horror movies, both have used orchestras, both have concept albums that tell a tale of a heretic (within a year of each other), and both claim they are not Black Metal. THEY’RE THE SAME GOD FORSAKEN BAND! Dimmu Borgir even took Cradle of Filth’s drummer Nicholas Barker. Along with this, they both still drive me to buy new albums, knowing I’m going to hate them. But eventually, I end up liking key notes in several songs and they become some dirty guilty pleasure. Listening to them is kind of like that video where the Metalhead ballerina listening to Brittany Spears right before his friend walk in on him; I wouldn’t listen to it in front of them. I’d rather sit in a corner by myself in self-hatred. Both are too black metal for goths, and too goth for black metal! Yet somehow they both have some utter bizarre cult following feeding them with endless funds to continue to hire orchestras. 

4.      Atreyu: I’ve never really been this bands biggest advocate to begin with, but I was involved with a regional scene that was highly influenced by this band. Some bands that had a lot of potential, but nothing really came out of the scene. Reno had the closest success with one band almost signing to Relapse and another who garnered regional headlines when an audience member was fatally stabbed in their most pit. Awe! That somber early 2000’s post-hardcore scene when everything was “Tough Guy Metal”, breakdowns, and yelling “RWA RWA, WAAAW, YAAAAW!!! BLEED BITCH, OR LOVE ME AGAIN” (sic)! So not only were they not really good to begin with, their first major release was somewhat noteworthy to actually cheer about (I guess). So when they opted out of their hardcore roots and somehow into a hard rock band, they chose to really embrace that “everybody friendly” zone. They obviously still hold some kind of success to continue making these albums, but I don’t know why. I very much remember the hardcore kids giving the hard rock kids much grief, much in the same way metal elitist do to EVERYONE. So why has this became a thing? I do not know (and it happened with more than just Atreyu). I only envision either the hardcore kids saying “This is some nice and mellow music, I can’t believe no one has ever done this before”. I don’t feel there was any friendly alliance between the expected scenes, yet eventually drew both in. 

5.      Korn: Another one of those bands that just keep on screwing up. It really seems they’ve got a formula of one album as their original aggressive selves, and then one album that is an abomination of experimental rubbish. But like Dimmu and Cradle, amidst the hail storm there always seems to be that one addictive song that is meant to suck in everyone. And I think they are these tracks that piss me off the most. An artist can come up with one song that is blazingly amazing, but the rest of the album sucks. It’s like you’re saying “Look, here’s this awesome song! Buy the whole album so you can see how big a fraud I am”. And I know how arrogant Jonathan Davis is. He’s the 90’s version of Axel Rose, but continues to put out atrocious release after atrocious release. And a Dub-step album? Really? I was almost tempted to buy it, but had already wasted my annual allowance of “chance of an appalling album” and ended up getting a killer Warbringer album instead. Their “Korn III” album was the last thing I took a gamble with. It sounds like a bunch of old dudes trying to play their earlier music but forgot how to do that after repulsive record after repulsive record. “Take a Look Through the Mirror” was the last album from them that I had much respect for, as it was truly their last awesome aggressive album. Thanks Davis for fraudulently destroying generations of youths and their taste in good music. Why not take a look through the mirror and I’ll see you on the other side when you remember who you are. Until then get a life, one that is a little peachy, because I’m not being a clown. Your composures reek of stagnant death like your overrated nu-metal band.  

6.      AFI: I really don’t even know why I included them on this list. Not that I have a problem with punk, but they’re not really punk. Well they use to be by my understanding. Maybe they were forefathers to the modern emo scene due to their change of form on “Sing the Sorrow”. I’d heard a little from “The Art of Drowning” and I can say they use to be somewhat digestible. Though not really my cup of tea. I mean, at the time “Sing the Sorrow” came out I wasn’t really fond of any punk. That changed after a friend of mine in Nevada and my wife indulged me. I started venturing into the realms of punk. When I think of punk now, I think Discharge and Dead Kennedy’s. I’ve grown a fondness to Hardcore and Crust Punk. So when I see these pop-punk motif bands, I cringe. Sum-41, Green Day, The Offspring, all of them I detest. Maybe it’s that equivalent of some of today’s metal bands that elitist have a problem with, but whatever! Things like Black Veil Brides, The Darkness, I can see that as a…pop-metal? I can’t say there isn’t reason for Avenge Sevenfold to be on here, but I think they clarified their true allegiance on “Nightmare”. That will surely piss a lot of people off but that’s my opinion. We’ll see what their next release will produce.    

7.      Slipknot: Again, like Metallica, it truly pains me to place Slipknot here but one has to face the facts. Were they aggressive on their first album? Yes! Did they become overly successful on their second album? Yes! Did they change form on their third album that was to draw in the masses, adding “diversity” to their music for that appeal? YES! Did they eventually attend and accept a Grammy after years of success, only after they claimed at the beginning they would never attend nor accept a Grammy? You bet their asses they did. And for what song? “Before I Forget”, their first real hard rock hit, where their masks were absent in the video (yet their faces always just obscured from the camera). This not being the only video to do this as they did the same on “Vermillion Pt.1”. In this one, they presented their faces…as masks. And it’s not that big of a deal anyways as more than half of this nonet has gone maskless in side projects. They now even go maskless for publicity. Understand kindly, it was Slipknot that got me into aggressive metal. My first real taste of anything remotely thrashy, death-ish, any form of blast beats. It was seeing them on the cover of Metal Edge magazine that led me to seeing advertisements for Six Feet Under, Children of Bodom, Cradle of Filth, Static-X, Slayer, Meshuggah, and Symphony-X. With the power of Napster and eventually KaZaA, I tapped deep into a world of malevolence, darkness, occultic music. To really come to the realization that the band that really started it all, sold my kind out. There still is a love-hate relationship for them, and the bands of that time. You cannot purge nostalgia. Even their newest release “All Hope is Gone” hits a certain nerve that flows adrenaline through my inner 14 year old. “Snuff” on the other hand does strike another nerve entirely, one that truly pisses me off. It’s truly the label of it, a Slipknot song. If it was labeled as a Stone Sour song, that would be totally different. It would mean something more. But I can’t let that down. Just like the “Load” and “ReLoad” album of Metallica. Not all of it is garbage, and would be more tolerable if they had released them under a different band…something, anything! Smokey Roadhouse would been way more acceptable to release “Load” and “ReLoad” as, as opposed to Metallica. With the power of a band name, comes great responsibility to steer forward.

8.      Black Tide: This is the band that elitist should totally slaughter, liberally! How can you go from total skater-punk thrash metalers on your debut album, climbing to instant success, and then you flip to fad driven Metalcore that sounds more like post hardcore. They literally did Bullet For My Valentine in reverse (in regards to their second and first albums). Gabriel Garcia (vocalist, guitarist) went from a grungy 80’s child to a 2000’s over-gaged-ear-hockey-puck hipster wannabe. I mean how does someone literally flip so quickly other than to ride the last wagon of the final phase of Metalcore? To me he is the Justin Bieber of the Metalcore scene. I scoff at this abomination.  

What is a (non)Elitist

The 6 Keys to (non)Elitism

1.      Accept genres

2.      Know how to use them

3.      Encourage Research

4.      Share your Knowledge

5.      All genres of metal ARE metal.

6.      Be open-minded and accept change… if it’s for the right reasons.

           

            I guess at the core of it, a (non)Elitist is someone that is elite on the realms of what metal is and is not, but is not limited to one or two types of genres. To the old-guard, they will hate the terms like genre, but they are placed there for particular reasons. Even then I have certain limits, yet I realize that there is a difference between First Wave of Black Metal, and Second Wave of Black Metal. There are certain characteristics that are prone to both, and some that shifted as it progressed. In the eighties, some would classify Venom and Hellhammer nothing more that poor quality, overly distorted metal; a “bad attempt of Motorhead”. However as it progressed in the mid-eighties, bands such as Sodom and Kreator actually put a more polished sound to this sound. So first and foremost, we recognize there is a need for labels because someone that listens to Blind Guardian (Power Metal) may not listen to Master (Death Metal). Even today, there is the divide amongst what is metal and what is not, such as the latest hot topic that is dubbed “Deathcore”.   

            And trust me I’ve been DYING to take my two cents to town on this hot debate. But that’s for another time. To the next clarification of what a (non)Elitist is, would be using these classifications in the most appropriate ways. I recently ran into a fellow metal head (which seems like a labor of love to discover in the Great North) and we got onto the topic of Deathcore. Howe the topic actually started was me asking who he listened to and he brought up Winds of Plagues. I went over and asked him who he liked and told him I was fond of Whitechapel but not of Suicide Silence. He continued to tell me two others he liked (on topic of Deathcore) were Lamb of God and Ministry. Sensing some genre misunderstanding, I led it away from Deathcore and asked him a tried and true test of understanding. I asked him “what about Black/Death”, and he obviously mistaken the terms for “Black Death”. I didn’t bother to tell him there was in fact a metal band from the eighties called Black Death consisting of an all-black line-up. Getting discouraged, I clarified Black Metal and Death Metal. He said he was into Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir. I told him I was into their earlier stuff. “Oh yeah, Nymphetamine is a great album”. By this point I’m utterly lost and I told him I was into old school Norwegian Black Metal like Satyricon. “Oh like Volcano?” Stunned I told him “Dark Medieval Times” and for once he got the same look I did.

            So this leads to the third ring. Though we accept ignorance, we still preach that you should still do your studies. Even if you’ve never listened to a particular album from a band, try to come to a level of knowledge that if a band is over twenty years running, an album ten years ago is not “old school”. Going into a conversation as an armature metal head with a novice or expert metal head won’t be as awkward if you know a little bit of knowledge. Slayer’s “Reign in Blood” may be the best Slayer album, but don’t neglect the fact that “Haunting the Chapel” and “Show No Mercy” came before it. If you’re new and exploring, you don’t need to understand Cradle of Filth is no longer Black Metal, but knowing “Midian” is five years older than “Nymphetamine”, already years into their early career, and held more Black Metal traits would be a viable weapon in your conversations. A non-educated metal head is only using simple punches and kicks while a novice is a grapple wrestler and an expert is a Muay Thai boxer.

            And probably the biggest most important difference between an Elitist and a (non)Elitist is the willingness to share their knowledge and the vast world of metal. I’ve done this on several occasions. My first protégé actually has his own musical projects and releases on a couple underground labels while I still lack any real music playing skills. He’s playing the manner of Ildjarn in a few, and he’s working on a newer one he’s dubbed Apocalyptic Instrumental Drone. My wife is even one of my biggest and on-going protégés. She’s not heavy into the extremes, but she has gotten into quite a bit of metal in the last 6 years, and more so in the last 2. She’s mostly into heavy rock, and some of the more popular Metalcore like Avenge Sevenfold, Bullet For My Valentine and whatnot, but its heavier than it was before. And there is nothing wrong liking a particular genre or a particular band.

            Doom Metal is no less metal than Gore-core. It’s definitely different, but neither is any less metal. There is still distorted guitars, a focus on the actual music compilation, and some kick ass drumming. Why is it any less metal to listen to Avenge Sevenfold than Iced Earth? Aren’t they both guitar oriented with an emphasis on classical music? Don’t they both have double bass drumming and hit up to 180BPM?  Don’t they both have slow melodic songs that are sorrowful in the vein of relationships? I honestly think it’s cowardly to attack a band like Avenge Sevenfold. They aren’t the same band as they were on “Awaken the Fallen”, but they’ve gotten more complex in their composure, and have not let up off their intensity. If anything they’re more metal now, than they were on “Awaken the Fallen”, they’re just not as raw and aggressive. And yes they are popular. The last band I can think of that got really huge in the metal world for changing sound was Metallica; and they did slow down and were less complex. Wouldn’t it be more favorable in the metal world for a band to become popular for fast complexity than dumbed down slow tempo? I honestly think it’s ludicrous.

            Though I will agree that I’m not fond of the nineties Metallica, I think its childish to say that just because a band goes in a different direction they’ve sold out. If they have changed for commercial success to sell more records, then that’s understandable. They’ve sold out to corporate music! But if a band simply wants to change their sound because they feel it’s how they want to express themselves regardless if it flops their record sells… well then I can’t say they’ve sold out, because they are an artist. Avenge Sevenfold changed more into metal, and sold more records and concerts for it and the Elitist say “BOO!”  Metallica goes from a mediocre blues-rock band back into an aggressive monster and the Elitist say “BOO” again for the second time. So to me it seems the Elitist are actually closed minded and don’t want anything new. They just want the same thing over, and over, and over! However if the same band does the same thing over and over, they’ve became stale. If another band does the same thing, they’re posers. If another band tries the same thing while trying to improve it slightly, they’re trying too hard. And Elitist just doesn’t seem to know what they really want. They want something new, but when they have new, it’s too different for them. If they have the exact same thing, it’s too simple. As a (non)Elitist, it’s better to be open minded to different things because variety is the spice of life. Just because a band is more in the lime light doesn’t mean they are a sellout. If they totally change their sound into something not recognizable from their original self (and not for the better), they have sold out. Metallica did sell out in the nineties, just as Aerosmith did in the seventies and eighties.

            This has been quite a lengthy rant, yet I feel it necessary. I know there is not a whole lot of people out there that feel this same way, but I know there are some that are opposed to the fascist conservative Elitist putting a bad wrap on the culture, yet want to set a higher standard to those “Friday Metalhead” (haha, get it “Sunday Christian”/ “Friday Metalhead”) . One dude I know that has talked out against Elitist is CoverkillerNation on YouTube. He has some amazing reviews and talking points. One in particular I can agree with about 85% is his speech on a band review of Slayer. I’ll try to link his page on here.

CoverkillerNation YouTube