In the Defense of Criticism Towards Metal

Trademark wrote: My feelings about metal in general can be summed up by the following: "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." (1Cor. 13:11) One of the most negative aspects of the dominance of US culture in the world is the concept of "Perpetual Youth".  It really is OK to grow up.  When I was 15 I enjoyed a lot of the metal of the time.  Now I see it for the juvenile genre it really is.  I understand fully why my Dad laughed his ass off at Black Sabbath when they were on TV.  It really IS funny.  Metal is not dark, evil, sinister, mean or angry; it is not intellectually or emotionally deep, intriguing, or even very interesting.  What it is, is COMEDY to anyone who has managed to achieve a bit of emotional maturity.

Trademark wrote: My feelings about metal in general can be summed up by the following: "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." (1Cor. 13:11) One of the most negative aspects of the dominance of US culture in the world is the concept of "Perpetual Youth".  It really is OK to grow up.  When I was 15 I enjoyed a lot of the metal of the time.  Now I see it for the juvenile genre it really is.  I understand fully why my Dad laughed his ass off at Black Sabbath when they were on TV.  It really IS funny.  Metal is not dark, evil, sinister, mean or angry; it is not intellectually or emotionally deep, intriguing, or even very interesting.  What it is, is COMEDY to anyone who has managed to achieve a bit of emotional maturity.

It's a shame that you, with all your (theoretical) knowledge of music, are being deliberately ignorant of what metal has to offer. Well, if it's all just like Black Sabbath to you ... go on and listen to whatever it is you prefer. I shall do the same ... Audio-Surf is already launching, for the next half hour I'll have some fun with Sleepytime Gorilla Museum. Who aren't metal BTW ... not that it matters *to me*.

Trademark wrote: My feelings about metal in general can be summed up by the following: "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." (1Cor. 13:11) One of the most negative aspects of the dominance of US culture in the world is the concept of "Perpetual Youth".  It really is OK to grow up.  When I was 15 I enjoyed a lot of the metal of the time.  Now I see it for the juvenile genre it really is.  I understand fully why my Dad laughed his ass off at Black Sabbath when they were on TV.  It really IS funny.  Metal is not dark, evil, sinister, mean or angry; it is not intellectually or emotionally deep, intriguing, or even very interesting.  What it is, is COMEDY to anyone who has managed to achieve a bit of emotional maturity.

Well, its an interesting post, I'll give you that.  What is also juvenile is being so blatantly offensive to so many fellow forums users, and trying to use biblical script to back yourself up. 

My feelings about metal in general can be summed up by the following:

Edited by Trademark - March 02 2009 at 11:50

BaldFriede wrote: Dean wrote: BaldFriede wrote: angelmk wrote: many people dislikes metal because of grawls ,screams they cannot see the beauty behind the curtain, although it is very enjoyable curtain , but for some it is barrier , i feel sorry for them  canot see the beauty of Opeth, Meshuggah , Death,  Borknagar,Quo Vadis, .. Other people consider it is too agressive , distortion boders them, but most of them do not know what great music is .  Ha, distortion does not bother me in the least; nothing like a good ol' distorted guitar to get rocking. And I would have expected distorted guitars to be a main feature of prog metal. Yet sadly I find it ain't so. The growling is not specific of prog metal, it can be found in other genres of metal too. I personally find it childish and annoying; if that is supposed to be aggressive then the grandmother on my mother's side was a kangaroo. It is a gimmick from a cheap monster movie, in my opinion. Growling is just a textural technique, Dave Gilmour, Roger Waters and Nick Mason on several Floyd albums, Greg Lake on ITCOTCK is far from being clean vocally and using distortion effects like Captain Bob on Die Lösung, Wendy Carlos on Timesteps and the Beatles on several of their 'psychedelic' songs are just some non-metal examples of distorted/effected vocals that are akin to growling in some metal styles. To me, random plinking on a Xylophone or treated piano is a childish way of making something sound Avant Garde, but misses the point of Avant Garde and to dismiss an entire genre because of it would be in error - used properly, with regard to texture, tonal quality, structure and compositing it is valid and far from being a cheap gimmick and the same is true for distorted vocals in metal. Distorted vocals are the equivalent of distorted guitars, it's just an instrumental technique (and the voice is just as much a musical instrument as a guitar, violin or a piano) and while it may appear prevalent in all metal, it is not, nor is it a defining trait, with many bands in most metal subgenres using clean vocals, or mixing clean and distorted when it fits the music. As with distorted guitar, there are degrees of distortion and tone, some subtle, some aggressive, some dirty and raw - a loud distortion sounds different to a quiet one, a soft distorted voice can sound more menacing and aggressive than a shouty one.   The main point of Jake's initial argument is that the spectrum of Metal is broad, encompassing a wide variety of styles and techniques and no single element can be used as an argument or criticism against it in general terms when there are so many examples that can be cited to counter it. If distorted vocals are not to your liking, that is fine and acceptable, but it would be unwise to tar all metal vocalists with the same brush. What I object to is not the growling itself, it is the being stuck in it. Vocals should fit the lyrics. Maybe the vocals of growlers do fit the lyrics (sorry, I can't understand them), but the only lyrics those growls would be fitting for are in my opinion pretty macabre ones.

Which is exactly the point. The lyrics are in 90% of the cases macabre, which is why the growls are used in the first place. What I think you should complain about is the one sided content of lyrics many bands have, not what vocals they decide to employ to transport them.

BaldFriede wrote: To sum it up: If you growl on a few songs: Nothing wrong with it. If you do it all the time: Ridiculous.

Generally I'd say that whenever an artist uses a highly distinctive technique too much, there's a chance that people will grow tired of it. *Contrast* is something that I always look for in music ... but then again that doesn't mean that artists should change style all the time, does it? Every artist is (or should be) unique. If some use growling all the time (or double bass, another technique you don't like), contrast might be achieved by changing other elements of the music.

To sum up my response: If the growling fits the music: nothing wrong with it. If it doesn't: I'm not comfortable with using words like "ridiculous" because I think they're disrespectful to the artist, but I certainly will give lower ratings to such albums.

Dean wrote: BaldFriede wrote: angelmk wrote: many people dislikes metal because of grawls ,screams they cannot see the beauty behind the curtain, although it is very enjoyable curtain , but for some it is barrier , i feel sorry for them  canot see the beauty of Opeth, Meshuggah , Death,  Borknagar,Quo Vadis, .. Other people consider it is too agressive , distortion boders them, but most of them do not know what great music is .  Ha, distortion does not bother me in the least; nothing like a good ol' distorted guitar to get rocking. And I would have expected distorted guitars to be a main feature of prog metal. Yet sadly I find it ain't so. The growling is not specific of prog metal, it can be found in other genres of metal too. I personally find it childish and annoying; if that is supposed to be aggressive then the grandmother on my mother's side was a kangaroo. It is a gimmick from a cheap monster movie, in my opinion. Growling is just a textural technique, Dave Gilmour, Roger Waters and Nick Mason on several Floyd albums, Greg Lake on ITCOTCK is far from being clean vocally and using distortion effects like Captain Bob on Die Lösung, Wendy Carlos on Timesteps and the Beatles on several of their 'psychedelic' songs are just some non-metal examples of distorted/effected vocals that are akin to growling in some metal styles. To me, random plinking on a Xylophone or treated piano is a childish way of making something sound Avant Garde, but misses the point of Avant Garde and to dismiss an entire genre because of it would be in error - used properly, with regard to texture, tonal quality, structure and compositing it is valid and far from being a cheap gimmick and the same is true for distorted vocals in metal. Distorted vocals are the equivalent of distorted guitars, it's just an instrumental technique (and the voice is just as much a musical instrument as a guitar, violin or a piano) and while it may appear prevalent in all metal, it is not, nor is it a defining trait, with many bands in most metal subgenres using clean vocals, or mixing clean and distorted when it fits the music. As with distorted guitar, there are degrees of distortion and tone, some subtle, some aggressive, some dirty and raw - a loud distortion sounds different to a quiet one, a soft distorted voice can sound more menacing and aggressive than a shouty one.   The main point of Jake's initial argument is that the spectrum of Metal is broad, encompassing a wide variety of styles and techniques and no single element can be used as an argument or criticism against it in general terms when there are so many examples that can be cited to counter it. If distorted vocals are not to your liking, that is fine and acceptable, but it would be unwise to tar all metal vocalists with the same brush.

I use some even more extreme singing styles myself (you should hear my throat singing, which I interestingly discovered as a child when experimenting my voice and developed to a very high standard before I learned it is a technique used by shamans of certain tribes). What I object to is not the growling itself, it is the being stuck in it. Vocals should fit the lyrics. Maybe the vocals of growlers do fit the lyrics (sorry, I can't understand them), but the only lyrics those growls would be fitting for are in my opinion pretty macabre ones. What annoys me is not the growling per se; that, as you rightly mentioned, is just a technique. But those growlers are pretty much stuck on it; that's what I find annoying. Now either their vocals always fit their lyrics (which, as already mentioned, I don't understand), then it is definitely the lyrics I hate and consider to be childish. If I did such growling (which is perfectly possible), then the lyrics would probably resemble being from a Lovecraft novel or the likes. It is the purported image that goes along with growling which I simply find ridiculous. "Here I am, so very terrifying". Sorry, that only makes me laugh.
Maybe I am doing the growlers an injustice, and this "Here I am, so very terrifying" is not their purpose, but somehow I doubt it.
To sum it up: If you growl on a few songs: Nothing wrong with it. If you do it all the time: Ridiculous.
I use throat singing very rarely; it puts a lot of strain on the vocal chords. It has certain similarities to growling, but there are differences too. Someone who is familiar with throat singing will instantly recognize it when it is being used somewhere. There are many different techniques for it; it is very fun discovering them (well, at least it was for me).
With throat singing you can produce two or more notes at the same time, depending on which technique you use. The following video demosntrates a few of them; you will realize why I compare it to growling:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ3BX2tMj1Y&feature=related
A good way of learning throat singing is to repeat "I am" again and again in a singing voice because these sounds are naturally formed back in the throat. Feel how the sounds are being produced there, modify them by changing the position of the lips, blowing up the cheeks and the likes, try to add a rattling noise (careful, this causes A LOT of strain on the vocal chords; not recommended for beginners). As you progress, you will discover those techniques yourself. You can even sing lyrics that way, though it is definitely not easy.
I discovered throat singing by gurgling the melody of German TV sci-fi series "Raumpatrouille" ("Space Patrol") when I was a child, though I had no idea what I was doing then; it simply sounded good (quite spacy, actually). Then one day I heard a radio feature about throat singing and noticed I had done it for years without knowing WHAT I actually was doing when I did it.
Gurgling actually is a good start for throat singing too, like the "I am" method. Be sure you are alone when doing this though; your friends or relatives may think you have gone mad,
Playing a jew harp has many similarities with throat singing, by the way; the way you change the sound of the jew harp is very similar to the way of modulating the tone when throat singing.


Edited by BaldFriede - March 01 2009 at 19:01

As a response to BaldFriede, how many people do you normally see singing when they are trying to communicate a point, like when they scream? I don't find it a valid argument, since singing is an almost universally accepted musical technique.

BaldFriede wrote: angelmk wrote: many people dislikes metal because of grawls ,screams they cannot see the beauty behind the curtain, although it is very enjoyable curtain , but for some it is barrier , i feel sorry for them  canot see the beauty of Opeth, Meshuggah , Death,  Borknagar,Quo Vadis, .. Other people consider it is too agressive , distortion boders them, but most of them do not know what great music is .  Ha, distortion does not bother me in the least; nothing like a good ol' distorted guitar to get rocking. And I would have expected distorted guitars to be a main feature of prog metal. Yet sadly I find it ain't so. The growling is not specific of prog metal, it can be found in other genres of metal too. I personally find it childish and annoying; if that is supposed to be aggressive then the grandmother on my mother's side was a kangaroo. It is a gimmick from a cheap monster movie, in my opinion.

Growling is just a textural technique, Dave Gilmour, Roger Waters and Nick Mason on several Floyd albums, Greg Lake on ITCOTCK is far from being clean vocally and using distortion effects like Captain Bob on Die Lösung, Wendy Carlos on Timesteps and the Beatles on several of their 'psychedelic' songs are just some non-metal examples of distorted/effected vocals that are akin to growling in some metal styles. To me, random plinking on a Xylophone or treated piano is a childish way of making something sound Avant Garde, but misses the point of Avant Garde and to dismiss an entire genre because of it would be in error - used properly, with regard to texture, tonal quality, structure and compositing it is valid and far from being a cheap gimmick and the same is true for distorted vocals in metal. Distorted vocals are the equivalent of distorted guitars, it's just an instrumental technique (and the voice is just as much a musical instrument as a guitar, violin or a piano) and while it may appear prevalent in all metal, it is not, nor is it a defining trait, with many bands in most metal subgenres using clean vocals, or mixing clean and distorted when it fits the music. As with distorted guitar, there are degrees of distortion and tone, some subtle, some aggressive, some dirty and raw - a loud distortion sounds different to a quiet one, a soft distorted voice can sound more menacing and aggressive than a shouty one.

I guess that we all perceive music differently. I also couldn't stand growling when I first heard it ... but the same applies to Avant-Garde, Jazz-Fusion or Experimental Electronic stuff. Eventually you *may* develop a taste for it ... or you don't. But depending on the quality of the vocals *and* your personal bias for (or against) the style you might perceive them as cliche and cheesy (or "childish", as BaldFriede put it) or deeply dark and emotional.