Today, I'm gonna talk about my (probably unpopular) opinion on music.
First, I'd like to apologise- I spent around an hour or two playing around in Anvil Studio making examples of some of the styles I'm gonna be talking about, but apparently I completely forgot how to export the songs, so I kinda broke a bunch of stuff... So rather than including cheap MIDI imitations of styles, I'll just name songs that you can find on your own if you need reference.
After the rock and roll club yesterday ended up just being a metal fest (which led to me leaving early), I did some thinking about why I don't like that type of music more. I ended up coming up with a classification system for styles, which I feel are very different yet often referred to as the same things.
This is used to describe anything from the Beatles to Metallica, for whatever reason. In my opinion, this needs to be waaaay more specific- so I suggest using this for the classic bluesy stuff. Things like Jailhouse Rock, Roadhouse Blues, even Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll- they're all based on the 12 bar blues, to some extent, so it seems logical to lump them together as essentially being the bridge between blues and classic rock.
This one is usually used by radio stations, in my experience- it still refers to a lot of different styles, but it's a pretty good umbrella term for "things I will be alright listening to (though not necessarily my favourites)". I think it works for lumping together everything that's too early for metal but not following a clear-cut blues format. Most radio hits from the late 60s to early 70s fit in this category.
Heavy is one of those words with a very clear definition- but unfortunately, it has more than just the one. In my mind, heavy rock doesn't mean fast drums and loud guitars- it means slow, almost dragging, with a lot of power to it (if that makes any sense). The best example of this is Black Sabbath- so many of their songs fit this definition, like Black Sabbath, Wheels of Confusion, Snowblind, War Pigs, etc. One way I always think about this: imagine you're watching an AT-AT from Star Wars marching towards you. The feet aren't gonna be moving quickly, but there's a lot of force behind them. You could probably sync up a clip of that to, say, the intro to War Pigs, but definitely not to, say, a Pantera song. With heavy metal, the definition changes, but I'll get to that later.
Ozzy says in his autobiography that he hates this term- it's just too vague, and refers to too many styles. I have to agree. I wouldn't call Black Sabbath a metal group, even though they're considered the fathers of heavy metal. I would consider them heavy rock, or rock and roll in some cases. Metal to me is fast, distorted and loud- see Freedom, by Alice Cooper for an example. There's a lot going on with the guitars- they're constantly strumming, doing solos or making that archetypal screaming sound- and they're pretty heavily distorted. I can put up with this music sometimes, but I really have to be in the mood to voluntarily listen to it. Frankly, I feel this style is the reason I can't listen to a band less than 40 years old- everyone got too involved with metal for my taste.
This is the stuff I can't stand listening to, honestly. Basically everything I said before that sets metal apart from rock, times ten. All the focus is on creating that loud, distorted sound, with distortion pedals and quick strumming and double bass drums and the like. I know this is probably gonna upset some people, but I feel like not enough effort goes into actually making it sound good. Let me explain. Classically, music is about chord progressions and keys. Folk music, for instance, is basically just a chord progression on acoustic guitar with a vocal line, and optional other instruments. 12 bar blues songs are just a chord progression too. Even a lot of classic rock is built around a chord progression. The issue with heavy metal is that it isn't. I can (and did, for the sample I mentioned that became unusable) write a heavy metal riff by playing 8th notes on one note, then raising or lowering some of the notes in the pattern by a half step. There's no chord progression there, and honestly, if you played those two notes together it would sound dissonant and unpleasant. Combine that with the fact that people like to play this stuff really loud and really distorted, and you have a recipe for what ends up sounding like white noise to me. I'm not exaggerating either- it's primarily one tone, with enough distortion that there literally is white noise in there. This is enough to give me a headache pretty quickly- and having a poor setup with lots of feedback only makes it worse.
There are, of course, lots of other genres I could talk about, but these are the main ones I wanted to discuss for this blog. There's a certain point I wanted to make- as you go down through that list, the stuff becomes less and less "musical". A rock and roll song, like something by Elvis, has a clear, simple chord progression. A classic rock song, like, say, Hey Jude, has a clear chord progression. Those heavy, riff-based songs, like Black Sabbath, don't so much- though the notes they play still clearly fit into a key. A metal song is similar, but with more distortion (which technically means pitches above and below the note, and one could argue that means it's less in key). But heavy metal doesn't have a chord progression, and tends to be in a very unusual key, if any.
Personally, I'm a big fan of music with musical qualities- for instance, Led Zeppelin's Going to California. A lot early Alice Cooper has these qualities, though applied differently- using minor keys, "darker" chord progressions, etc. Things like Black Sabbath I'm often less fond of- though I do like the amount of energy in them, when you're in the mood, and they're quite fun to perform. Anything more than that, though, is just too much.
