Stoney

Anyway, I remember a track that appeared on a compilation back in 1999 or 2000, I believe, called "The Killer Of Trolls" or something like that. Well, it started with a very sweet lullaby sung in what might have been a child's voice, then suddenly another very nasty voice would overlap, ranting something presumably not very nice in tight Finnish, and then you’d hear a burst of machine-gun fire. And then the track would kick in, obviously at 2000 miles an hour. I had never laughed so hard in my life.

Ah, well, if it isn't the acrobatic Steve Vai... And not because he's fast, that’s the least of it, but because he’s excessively theatrical; it always seems like "more is better," often at the expense of the final sense of the product. I’m not saying he isn’t a good musician; he’s someone who has studied a lot, has indescribable experience, and an experience that makes others pale in comparison. It’s just that a record like this (as well as many others, really) should be titled "101 Alternative Ways to Use the Guitar," because what Vai does isn't exactly playing; it's demonstrating how his instrument can produce the entire range of sounds audible to the human ear, often with no reason other than just for the sake of it. At first, it’s fine, but after a while, it becomes grating, because one can't continuously just be "astonished"; occasionally, one wants to "understand" something too.

A great tightrope walker who unfortunately adds nothing to what much more authoritative people said long before him.

@Hypnosphere Boy: I know what you’re saying is true, but the serious issue is that, unfortunately, it can't be proven concretely like a mathematical theorem or any solid fact, other than "evidence." They can always tell you it’s "just your opinion," biased, ideologically filtered, and therefore partisan, inconsistent (PD votes, huh!). If you were a politician advocating such a thesis, the first thing they would do is latch onto some minor detail, for instance, citing a time when for some mysterious reason you retracted half of your thesis, highlighting the contradictions that every human has within themselves and in their thinking but which in your case would be exaggerated to the point of becoming criminal acts, or digging up some controversial aspect of your personal life, all just to publicly shame you, discredit you as a thinking individual and as a person. All this without ever actually opposing your ideas, without even presenting half an argument; they would cut you off at the knees right from the start. They can do this now because they would use exactly that mechanism you described. So, tell me, how do you think one can get out of this?

"Because we have become accustomed to photos of corpses; and so, [...] we need to restore the ignorance of cruelty and death displayed in the modern world." This sentence struck me deeply.

Fallen, I'm glad that for you life is a constant motivation and that you have the opportunity to express what you feel, disregarding "conventions." Unfortunately, it can't be like that for everyone; you also have to consider how much you can afford to disregard them. Sometimes there are things that objectively prevent you from doing so, especially since "conventions" are what they are because they are imposed from above. If everyone were able to sidestep them, they wouldn't be called that anymore. Consider yourself lucky.

The problem, you know what it is, Fallen? That venting strong feelings through music, no matter how violent, is always a socially accepted scheme, let alone a priest getting slaughtered in the confessional. Whether it's disco music or black metal makes little difference; at most, it might scandalize the old lady next door, but nothing more. You put on the tunes and play the bad guy so you don't disturb anyone. After all, when you hit "stop," the world hasn't shifted an inch, and those annoying social conventions are precisely where they were before. The child will still be taught to behave according to convenience and to suppress their primal passions, and once again, music will have fulfilled its role as a controller of the masses and the collective conscience. And today, just like yesterday, we will all cheerfully continue to take it right up the ass. To put it in a French way.

I don't know, in classical music people compare various composers to determine who is "better"; in metal, it's a common practice. Years ago, Opeth released a completely acoustic album, and fans turned up their noses because "they’ve always been a gothic band; this isn’t gothic, there’s no growl." I ask, is this a joke? A genre where definitions matter more than ideas (after all, which ideas?), where the label dictates what to play and how to play it, otherwise the fan gets angry, so much so that in 50 years of history, the innovations (the sensible ones, don’t reply that some unknown band tried fusing metal with tarantella and similar obscenities) have been counted on the fingers of one hand. Then there's the commerciality argument, the favorite points of every self-respecting metalhead when someone attacks their favorite band. They think that just because it doesn’t play on MTV, it’s automatically a sincere, "real" band that plays for the love of metal and not for money. Poor thing, they don’t know that the metal market is almost as huge as the pop market, and we might not realize it because we live in Italy and believe that metal is somehow "ghettoized." It’s not like that in the USA, or in Germany, Spain, England, and let's not even talk about Northern Europe where bands like Dimmu Borgir top the charts of entertainment music programs. Everywhere I turn, I see people who know metal and play it (a separate chapter on who plays metal would be almost necessary, but I realize I’ve already gone on long enough...). You only mentioned Metallica and Dream Theater, who are the ones that sell out here, but I hope you realize that the list is infinitely longer (Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Megadeth, Nevermore, Testament, Slayer, Anthrax, Sepultura just to name a few... Dream Theater, Pain of Salvation, SymphonyX, plus all their side projects... not to mention the extreme metal market that churns out dozens of bands per second, all strictly the same, and if it does, it’s certainly because they sell). Uff... okay, I’ll stop here because I’ve already said a lot, and I don’t even know if you’ll read all of this, but this is basically what I think, and I hope I’ve been clear. Until next time.

So Pixies77, here I am. I’ll respond right away. Discussion is pointless: have you seen the reviews of metal albums on this site? I mean, have you read them? If so, do they seem remotely comparable to those covering jazz or other genres? And do you think there’s a reason for that or not? Well, I think there is: the average metal fan has absolutely no musical sensitivity; at most, they have a keen attention for technical details (often the most banal ones), but that’s enough for them to have the audacity to say that YOU don’t understand. In metal, everyone thinks they’re a music connoisseur (and of course, when the criteria are how fast a guitarist is or how heavy a song is, it’s easy for anyone to feel like an expert on some kind of refinement), but we know that music is much more than that, fortunately. And to avoid misunderstandings, I want to clarify that I’m not saying this to elevate myself as a great connoisseur, nor am I here to demand that others are: if I were a luminary of music, or if I wanted to read reviews written by music luminaries, I wouldn’t waste my time on Debaser. I would just like to read a review in which the writer expresses something that is THEIR own idea, and not an idea OF EVERYONE. I want to know what led YOU to appreciate one album over another, and I want you to guide me to that as well; otherwise, why do you think I should read you? I want to know what YOU see as truly important in an album, I want to know how YOU contextualize it, not read the usual nonsense about technique, the musicians being "technical BUT also good at melodies," and similar nonsense, because, thank God, it’s time to understand that these aren’t the things that make an album valid. You want to convince me that Images and Words is a beautiful and extremely important album? Great, then tell me what you think makes it valid, argue your impressions, what reflections it stimulates in you, and above all, tell me WHY, why a song should move me, what it should communicate to me, why you think that song can convey one emotion rather than another, prove to me that you’ve taken the initiative to be interested yourself, show me that you have a brain capable of doing an analysis that isn’t just "Portnoy is God." GIVE ME A KEY TO UNDERSTAND so that I can also listen to that album and see if I can grasp it, and maybe even feel the same things. Do you have the tools (cultural, linguistic, etc.) or are you just chatting based on hearsay? If you do, do it; otherwise, don’t backpedal, don’t annoy me with the usual claims about musicians being "alien, superhuman, of superior technique," because if you resort to these arguments it’s because there aren’t any others; probably, deep down, that album doesn’t even truly move you; you just get excited when you hear the virtuosity (because you’re ignorant and don’t know that truly virtuous musicians give their best not in speed and odd timings, but in touch, class, and interpretation), and that’s it. It’s disappointing to realize that no one is curious anymore to hear what a musician has to say, but just wants to judge how much the album in front of them aligns with what they expect, i.e., the usual clichés of speed, heavy sound, voice in a certain way, etc... The personality of the interpretation is lost, and only a community of people forms that listens to more or less the same stuff and always says the same things, and not only that: the more they say it the same way, the smarter they feel. Let’s realize that one of the most renowned bands in metal is Iron Maiden (30 years of completely identical albums, but that’s fine because "they are consistent," does that make sense?). When Metallica released the much-debated Load and Reload, there was talk of "betrayal"; oh, is this a mafia? Comparisons between drummers, guitarists, who’s stronger, who’s less technical, who plays more notes per second, but is this music? I don’t see classical music enthusiasts comparing composers to determine who is "better";

Pixies77, I just read it. I will reply as soon as possible, bye.