Your Current Earworm
 

YES

Well I guess it's the song I just posted on another thread. Honestly I'm surprised this thread doesn't already exist.

This, I'm afraid:

Amaranthe - Maximise

The aesthetics of music like that compromise the pop elements to the point that it feels like the people involved don't really know what they're doing. The bargain basement growler in that song should be shot in the head. Why is he even there except to fit genre stereotypes?

I actually think it's a pretty well made pop-metal tune.

It feels like someone sucessfully combined the Crusader: No Regret soundtrack with modern melodic metal tropes and Abba.

The growler isn't exactly what makes it work, so that's that.



I'm still not sure what I think of the band as a whole, but this song has won me over. I used to hate the band, actually, but old school metal neckbeards are ****ting on the band so often I thought they must be doing something right.

Modern melodic metal tropes are the problem. They're ****. They're pop music tropes coming from a tradition that has issues with pop music tropes and so can't truly reconcile what they're going for with the history that produced their sound in the first place.

Maybe you and everyone else in here need to stop kissing 80's metal's ass and get with the times, maaaan.



So what do you think about Leprous?

Should 80s alt rock fans have "gotten with the times" and embraced Pearl Jam?

They should have given 90's alt a legit chance, yes.

I gave your **** a chance years ago. I liked a bit of it, still thought the aesthetics were cringy even in the best cases, and dismissed the majority of it as aesthetically incompetent. There are good songs buried in some of that ****, but Jesus Christ do most of those bands not know what they're doing or at least are unwilling to break away from their niche fanbase.

Whoa, ok, that's broad enough that I'm not entirely sure what you mean.

Plus, I'm getting into new things all the time. "My ****" wouldn't be quite the same now as years ago.

But in any case, I'm incredibly glad metal has, to a large extent, broken away from swords & fantasy, blood & gore, misanthropy & anti-religious screeds. There's an impressively varied rainbow of approaches now more than ever in metal. Of course, even more importantly, musically. Not just in terms of lyrical themes and visual imagery.

Musically, I like colorful bands and just in general music with some dimensions to it. Something like Amaranthe might well just be a fancy of mine with a ticking clock attached to it. Other bands, I'm into in a more deep rooted way. But in any case, I don't have much interest in current metal bands that want to serve me the same dish I would have gotten in 1991.

"Your ****" = the kind of **** you just posted.

I like a whole bunch of metal bands that aren't the same thing, but let's lump them all together.

Anyway, screw what bands specifically I like. I'm defending modern metal in general, even the bands I don't personally like.

You posted a symphonic metal band and so I was talking about symphonic metal. I don't know much about Dir En Grey so I'm not talking about Dir En Grey.

Amaranthe is not symphonic metal in any way. There's no symphonic elements whatsoever. Literally the only symphonic metal I like are a few of the catchier tracks from the two Nightwish albums with Olzon. Oh, and one After Forever album that miraculously didn't suck like the others did.

Amaranthe is closer to a band like Lacuna Coil or something.

Yeah no **** you that's heavily derived from symphonic metal. It might be on the more pop spectrum but don't bull****.

The vocals don't do that faux-opera thing and the hooks are pure pop. There's no trace of the usual goth aesthetic either. It might resemble some symphonic metal in some minor ways, but that's not what it is. I've listened to a lot of symphonic metal albums and none of them sound much like this band.

The riffs in Amaranthe are even more inspired by modern stuff like djent than anything from the symphonic metal playbook, which was more of a power metal and 90's goth metal thing, musically.

But yeah, in some sense, there are similarities. I just don't really find them to be that big.

I think you can't see the forest for the trees.

I think I'm a big enough music geek to care about the nuances.

Try explaining to your grandma why grindcore, melodeath and death metal aren't the same thing. Even black metal, for that matter.

Try explaining to a gorilla the difference between dictatorships and monarchies.

I LOVE YOU, NEEMA!!!

^ :yeah:

Bats & Mic

https://i.gifer.com/L2Ps.gif

+10000000000

Couldn't agree more. Not only that, but the productions are so slick and overpolished that there is absolutely zero point of any riffs actually being there. If you're going to play like a pop band, don't try and pretend to be a metal band.

Anyway, in relation to the topic:

If you're going to make pop then make the best pop.

if you're going to make pop then you're a fraud

You only say that cause you're a hipster who's more interested in novelty than in quality.

I actually only say that cuz that album is called Pop :0

Really? Cause I think you can't really do any of the genres you mash together well so you use mashing them together as a crutch for actual creativity.

no it's definitely called Pop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_(Gas_album)

I mean if you want to wuss out.

my music's dumb, so what

So did you listen to the new Clarence Clarity album yet you pop loving bitch

I did. It was nice.

Ok well. Good.

It was pretty nice tbh. I was very impressed. Not over the moon but I've been not over the moon about plenty of pop music I became over the moon about. At the very least it was definitely fun.

my favorite pop albums of 2018 would also qualify as earworms rn

I'm saying this counts






https://blackdresses.bandcamp.com/album/wasteisolation

Basically, yeah.

I'm just gonna be of the opinion that metalheads who entirely dismiss modern metal are no different than some guy who complains rock music doesn't sound like Zeppelin anymore.

I mean, whatever floats people's boats.

Specifically about that Amaranthe song though, I think the " If you're going to play like a pop band, don't try and pretend to be a metal band" line is pretty damn weird. You make the rules of metal? They're not "pretending" anything. They're doing a thing, if anything, without pretensions. Get your head out of your boring 80's metal elitist butt.

No, I don't make the rules of metal, but you've got to draw the line somewhere. What elements of metal does Amaranthe have? They have growls and generic power metal riffs, but everything else about them is pop. So they technically have metal elements, but I personally would never consider them to be metal and they don't feel like a metal band to me. To each their own, I don't care if people like them.

"boring 80's metal elitist" I didn't know that could be applied to someone who's a fan of a lot of nu metal bands and considers Blue Cheer, Gun, and Golden Earring to be metal before Black Sabbath.

and before an argument starts about "you only consider stuff you like metal", Limp Bizkit is metal. They suck, but I would never try and argue that they aren't a metal band.

Metal drumming, metal riffs, metal vocals. Plus they're not really doing anything that hasn't been seen in all sorts of other metal bands for 20+ years, except for the riff style, which is more current.

"No, I don't make the rules of metal, but you've got to draw the line somewhere"

I draw that line at bands that don't have metal elements.

Like Mumford & Sons.