Should Metallica be in the forum?

Ozzloaf wrote: Calling Metallica thrash metal is sort of like calling Opeth death metal... both are blasphemous.

Only if you assume that calling them that means that they're "just that" and nothing else. I'm also more comfortable with calling Metallica thrash than with calling Opeth death ... at PF I created the new sub genre "extreme metal" for those bands which are a mixture of death, black, thrash etc..

Certif1ed wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: Are you going to tell me now that Metallica - Master of Puppets is more prog than Dream Theater - Images & Words?   I would say that those albums are probably equal in progressive terms, especially (but not solely) when taken in their respective historical contexts.

That's where we differ. You only see the progressive approach, I see both that and the prog style. But even if we look at progressive approach alone I wouldn't say that Metallica are on an equal level as Dream Theater ... simply because there are so many songs on those Metallica albums which aren't progressive.

Certif1ed wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: *If* you add Metallica as Prog Metal then you significantly lower the bar for those other Thrash bands.   I don't see the logic - why would that be?

See previous answer. All things considered, I think that Metallica are significantly less prog than Dream Theater and Fates Warning, and adding them as prog metal would significantly lower the bar for further additions. Many people simply don't hear the progressiveness in their music as you or I do ... they hear the Thrash and will not understand what sets them apart from their peer.

*Sigh* I'll simply continue on my website to come up with a better mechanism to distinguish all those attributes ... the first task is to eliminate the label "Prog Metal", or "Prog Rock" for that matter. They're simply too generic.

Certif1ed wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote:   And *yes*, Metallica were a Thrash band back then. There was more to their music than Thrash, but listen to any key song from the early albums ... the Thrash element is always there. If you add Metallica as fully fledged prog it will be *very* hard to rationalize why bands like Slayer or Megadeth aren't at least prog related. Not at all. As you correctly point out, their music was more than Thrash - this contrasts with Slayer or Anthrax, or practically any other thrash band, who were absolutely rooted in thrash from the beginning: "Seek and Destroy" is a clear mission statement from Metallica that their music was never going to be simply thrash. "Whiplash" is a clear statement that, when it came to Thrash, they were up there with the best, but the tempo and key changes make it very clear that this is something more advanced than simple Thrash

Where is it written that Thrash must always be fast? For me Seek & Destroy is also Thrash ... call it "Mid-Tempo Thrash" if you must, but it is Thrash. The identifying element for me is the atonality in the riffs

Certif1ed wrote:   Metallica were full of big ideas, as the path to "AJFA" clearly demonstrates, but keen to re-enforce their connection with their roots, as the "Garage Days Revisted" EP proves. That they covered bands as different as Crass, the Misfits, Budgie, Diamond Head, Motorhead and Queen shows the diversity of their influences. That these covers all sounded like Metallica's interpretation rather than a slavish imitation demonstrates their powerful creativity - indeed, many of the covers sounded as if Metallica themselves had written them.

Many bands have an immediately recognizable style, even when they do a cover. Listen to Cake - I Will Survive ... a really cool cover, sounds 100% like Cake:

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=10C68Gzd5GM

You could even call that progressive ... but as always, there are other factors to consider.
 

MikeEnRegalia wrote: Ozzloaf wrote: Calling Metallica thrash metal is sort of like calling Opeth death metal... both are blasphemous.  Only if you assume that calling them that means that they're "just that" and nothing else. I'm also more comfortable with calling Metallica thrash than with calling Opeth death ... at PF I created the new sub genre "extreme metal" for those bands which are a mixture of death, black, thrash etc..

But.... extreme, historically does not refer to a band with a mixture of those elements.
Megadeth is an extreme metal band (thrash metal)
Deicide is an extreme metal band (death metal)
Emperor is extreme metal (black)
Pantera is extreme metal (groove metal).

Being extreme metal isn't strictly to do with them having mixtures of metal sub genres.
A band only needs to be one of these genres to be classed as extreme metal (which is how it has been defined for many years now), and of course that means you will have people come to your site and then get confused over the genre labeling.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: Certif1ed wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: Are you going to tell me now that Metallica - Master of Puppets is more prog than Dream Theater - Images & Words?   I would say that those albums are probably equal in progressive terms, especially (but not solely) when taken in their respective historical contexts. That's where we differ. You only see the progressive approach, I see both that and the prog style.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: progressive approach - maybe, but not progressive style. Like it or not, most people go by style rather than by the "inner values" of the music.

 

No it wasn't - it was introduced with Black Sabbath (or thereabouts)

 

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Introduced ... maybe as a concept, but not as a constant element in the music. Of course Thrash did not invent the tritonus, but it explored "chromatizism" much more than any of the previous metal genres. Consider the intro riff of Master of Puppets for example ...

 

Yes Mike, Cert have right here, the tritonal was introduced by BS and BTW the intro riff of MOP is very similar of one riff of Warpigs, just played in a lower scale. interesting don't you?

Certif1ed wrote:

 

MikeEnRegalia wrote:

 

^ still, it's important to think about what the addition would mean for future additions. A leads to B leads to C ... at least to some extend this will always be the case.

STOP THE QUOTING! IT'S FREAKING ME OUT!!! 

Well Metallica is a MUCH more progressive band than Slayer or Anthrax or any other of those old school thrash metal bands. Megadeth would be second in terms of progressiveness but they could only be prog-related at most. There's no way that any band other than Metallica back then would write a song like Fade to Black on their second release (and at the time it was released), Metallica's just in a different kind of legue.

^ all the other threads are locked Greg, the later ones deliberately to contain all discussions into this one. The other "key" threads are Mike's from August 18 2008 and the one opened by Teo on May 15 2007.

Of course I realise that, Dean... All threads older than six months, was it?, were automatically locked when M@X made changes to improve the speed of the forums (i hope that doesn't last because often people put a ton of effort into topics/ posts and it's sad to see them fizzle out and be replaced, though one can ask an admin to unlock a  thread, and I'm just not keen on repetition of topics).  Sorry if my intent was not clear in the context of what I quoted.  I just mean that it's been discussed a lot, not just in this thread, and that I would personally like all past Metallica discussion merged into this thread (which it hasn't been) since I like topics brought together in one place (our rule was that no topic be closed, though spam threads were deleted, but we didn't have the same amount of traffic or errors due to hugely long thrreads, so it would not work here).  At another board I belonged to, we would merge threads when sufficiently on the same topic. What I really wished to develop, or find, was a mod where all related threads could be stickied together, though better might be a master topic (say Metallica) where one can choose between the different threads, but each one should deal with a specific sub-topic else too many points get repeated (better than using search, I feel).  It has has been said that there was not one musical argument against Metallica's inclusion in this thread,  though I disagree, perhaps if we merged all those threads there might be one.

Edited by Logan - September 18 2008 at 15:51