Since watching Get Thrashed last month, I've been really pissed recalling stupid grunge music from the 90s. It really sticks in my craw that real Metal -- and solid rock bands like Dangerous Toys, Junkyard, BulletBoys (ok BulletBoys were tempting fate) -- went down with the hair rock ship. It suddenly was fashionable to slag oh-faced crotch rockers and declare mirthless alternative rock the savior of music and the world as a whole. Pfft.
Now those same face-mulleteers stand in awe of bands like Mastodon (rightly) as though engaging, ambitious, intensely musical metal had hitherto not existed (wrong). Like Thrash Metal had never evolved beyond the Baloffian mosh anthem or Kill 'Em All-style paens to the unyielding glory of metal. It makes me want to slap that bottle of Stella to the floor, grab dudes by the beard and screech 'Ever hear Voivod's Nothingface, Mr. Tightpants? Oh you like the schizophrenic despair of Nirvana's In Utero? Yeah, um Suicidal Tendencies did that on How Will I Laugh Tomorrow.'
These are the same dingleberries who used to hurriedly defend their overtly racist taste in good rap (not that silly gangster shit), when anyone with at least one testicle (symbolic or otherwise) knows that 'conscious' hip hop is insufferably smug, generally unlistenable, and strictly for pussies. And that irresponsible gun-toting druggies like Ghostface and Geto Boys rule. Now they do the same for Metal, as in 'Yeah but Mastodon is good metal. Not that silly shit like Slipknot mwhaw.'
Whew. Sorry what I meant to say is Check out the new Mastodon Crack The Skye artwork (above). The album's second song "Diviniations" streams here (at the 21:30 mark); the sure-to-be historic album out late March! Probably.
1 comment:
God this post mirrors my exact thoughts! I went through college keeping myself from strangling wussy doofuses who put Nirvana next to the Beatles. That band was an insufferable cancer on music, not because they were bad but the effect they had. Commercializing something already full in flesh and tone was brilliant, but fuck me Kurt Cobain was not a god. Silly, funny, messed up rocker who could write a great song and catchy melodies. Cementing much noisier, powerful, catchier, BETTER rock and metal in the underground was what they did.
The underground is so hallowed nowadays but I always felt that, pre-internet, reasonable fans were PISSED that they had to scurry about shitty record shops and mail-in catalogs to get a hold of some ubscure stuff. Now you just download it on the internet and people start defending bands for keeping it legit, putting out hard-to-find vinyls and splits every which way. Call it my inner punk going on vacation, but it's time bands stop fucking around with billions of releases and make some records that stand the test of time. I mean, just how underground can you be these days? You can be unheard throughout the country but you still have an internet page where people can check you out. Even if you don't and your band of hermits is putting out great music. Small label starts putting out some copies of your shit, it gets to the internet, obscure music seekers (most people these days) start downloading your stuff. I suppose it's necessary since bands have to be discovered in the first place, but I see no reason you can't be a band on a huge label while doing your own things; there are already tons of them out there. I don't care if bands want to stay out of the spotlight but bigtime exposure doesn't have to turn you into a rock star.
Anyway, great blog, you're the realest of the metal blog-o-verse.
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