Hey guys, if any of you reading this are familiar with the prog rock bands who would take a shot at trying to do pop rock in the 80s (like what Genesis did), I need your help.
Basically, I'm wanting one of my next articles to focus on which of the bands made that jump, examine their outputs during their pop rock period and say which ones were most successful from a musical (not sales) perspective.
So, why am I asking you guys for help when I have the entire internet available to help with research? Put simply, I'm not a prog rock fan. I don't even like Pink Floyd that much, that's how low my opinion of prog rock in general is! I do have a few bands which I'll make a small exception to, but, even then, none of them are my favourite bands by any measure. So, I feel it would be better to ask you guys so that I can get pointed to the bands who I can talk about, rather than missing the big ones which people wants me to talk about or missing some under-appreciated bands who I've simply not come across.
So, if any of you guys (or someone you know) knows a lot about about prog rock (or prog metal) and want to help, please comment here and let me know the bands that fit that description. I'll do my best to critically examine their music and get the final article up as soon as I can.
Since I'd like to have some time to listen to the bands in question, I ask that you provide the names of the bands and the albums that fit the description by midnight (UK time). I'll then make a note of all the bands and albums that appear in the comments, listen to all of them in my free time (which I don't have a lot of at the moment, so this article may take a while to finally appear) and critically evaluate them. While I do know a few bands who went in this direction, I encourage you guys to say even the most obvious choices (like Genesis and Rush), since I might not know about the ones which are obvious to prog fans.
Thanks in advance to every person who provides a band suggestion and I hope you enjoy the article when it's done!
Friday, 16 August 2013
Monday, 5 August 2013
The Big 4: why Exodus/Testament/Overkill/aren't part of it.
I'm sure everyone who looks up information on the Big 4 of thrash metal has heard people going on about how [X] band is better than the bands who make up the the Big 4 (Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax) and that the band they like deserve to be in there (usually at the expense of Anthrax). The thing is, most of these people fail to realise is that the Big 4 term isn't actually a name that means "These are the best thrash metal bands, no question asked", but actually means "These are the bands who were the most popular thrash metal bands" (hence the "Big" part of their name) and, with it, came a huge opportunity to influence people which the smaller bands never quite managed (although all of the bands definitely are influential to quite a few retro-thrashers: most of them seem to be huge fans of Overkill, Exodus and Slayer if you sit and listen to their music, but some also seem to swear by a few other thrash bands, including Metallica. You don't hear a lot of people taking the route of Heathen, though...but I digress). However, there are quite a few reasons for many people to hold the belief that certain bands should be in the Big 4 at the expense of some of the bands currently there, so I'm going to try to break down the reasons and see if I can point out why those reasons don't hold water when you look at them hard enough.
One of the first reasons (and, sadly, one of the most common) is the mistaken belief that the big 4 term means "These bands are the best thrash bands out there". I've already pointed this out in my introduction, so I'll not repeat it here, but, needless to say, this is a popular mistake that many people who really should know better seem to make.
The second reason that springs to mind is that these people try to use technicalities to argue why the band they think should be in it should be included (one popular one from Overkill fans is that, since they released a demo the same year Metallica released their debut, they qualify as releasing thrash metal and, as such, were one of the first thrash metal bands and should be included). This is a flawed argument, since most people out there are more likely to purchase and listen to an album than they are to purchase a demo (to stick with the Overkill example), especially if they are not in the local area. Sure, it might be popular in the local area, but high sales in a local area don't necessarily mean high sales across the country, let alone the world. Also, demo sales don't necessarily prove anything to a record executive (and, by extension, the general public), who will be looking at album sales, not sales of a demo which the band likely self recorded in the bedroom of one bandmate. Granted, a high selling demo is likely to result in the band later being offered a contract, but this doesn't mean that the album will achieve the same level of sales when offered to the mainstream (especially among extreme metal fans: some of them consider a band signing to ANY label to be selling out).
The third one is that many people do not like the material that the Big 4 have released since the 90's and start to focus on the underground over the mainstream acts. This isn't a bad thing (there are some amazing underground metal acts out there), but this does mean that many of these people seem to act like these bands have personally offended them by releasing less-than-stellar material. However, what these people forget is that metal as a whole was in a pretty bad place during the 90's. After all, grunge had taken over the limelight, so metal bands were stuck in a catch-22 situation: they could adjust with the times and risk enraging their already established fanbase (as happened to many thrash bands, including Metallica) or they could stick to their guns and risk never being able to release another record again (as happened with many thrash bands). For all they knew, their style of music was dead in the water, never to become popular again and, as such, make them unable to pay their bills because they couldn't earn money to pay them. So many simply quit: they couldn't make themselves change their music, but they also couldn't afford to be unable to pay their bills. The ones who stuck around mostly found themselves receiving flack from fans who didn't like what they heard. I'll admit, I don't like most of what I've heard from the Big 4's 90's material, but I don't blame them for making the decision they did: at that point, they didn't really have much of a choice. For them, it became a case of riding the storm, hoping it would blow over and that they would still be standing later. And, luckily, it did work out for them: the retro-thrash movement sprung up thanks to bands like Evile and Municipal Waste, helping to show that thrash wasn't dead and made it become popular again (and then get a lot of scorn from old thrash fans due to the music not being as distinctive as it was in the 80's. They really can't make up their minds, can they?). Many of the old bands like Exodus, Death Angel and Heathen have made returns since then and, on the whole, I'd say the thrash scene has pretty much rebuilt itself up nicely. But, to me, I think the main reason the scene fell apart the first time was because there wasn't more new blood being pumped into the scene. As odd as it may sound, all the mid tier thrashers giving up was more the death of thrash than the Big 4 deciding not to continue being thrash for the sake of maintaining a career. Without more thrash records coming out, there simply wasn't a real scene left for thrash fans to continue following.
These aren't the only reasons, but these are the reasons that tend to crop up the most. If I've missed anything that you want to bring up, feel free to comment!
One of the first reasons (and, sadly, one of the most common) is the mistaken belief that the big 4 term means "These bands are the best thrash bands out there". I've already pointed this out in my introduction, so I'll not repeat it here, but, needless to say, this is a popular mistake that many people who really should know better seem to make.
The second reason that springs to mind is that these people try to use technicalities to argue why the band they think should be in it should be included (one popular one from Overkill fans is that, since they released a demo the same year Metallica released their debut, they qualify as releasing thrash metal and, as such, were one of the first thrash metal bands and should be included). This is a flawed argument, since most people out there are more likely to purchase and listen to an album than they are to purchase a demo (to stick with the Overkill example), especially if they are not in the local area. Sure, it might be popular in the local area, but high sales in a local area don't necessarily mean high sales across the country, let alone the world. Also, demo sales don't necessarily prove anything to a record executive (and, by extension, the general public), who will be looking at album sales, not sales of a demo which the band likely self recorded in the bedroom of one bandmate. Granted, a high selling demo is likely to result in the band later being offered a contract, but this doesn't mean that the album will achieve the same level of sales when offered to the mainstream (especially among extreme metal fans: some of them consider a band signing to ANY label to be selling out).
The third one is that many people do not like the material that the Big 4 have released since the 90's and start to focus on the underground over the mainstream acts. This isn't a bad thing (there are some amazing underground metal acts out there), but this does mean that many of these people seem to act like these bands have personally offended them by releasing less-than-stellar material. However, what these people forget is that metal as a whole was in a pretty bad place during the 90's. After all, grunge had taken over the limelight, so metal bands were stuck in a catch-22 situation: they could adjust with the times and risk enraging their already established fanbase (as happened to many thrash bands, including Metallica) or they could stick to their guns and risk never being able to release another record again (as happened with many thrash bands). For all they knew, their style of music was dead in the water, never to become popular again and, as such, make them unable to pay their bills because they couldn't earn money to pay them. So many simply quit: they couldn't make themselves change their music, but they also couldn't afford to be unable to pay their bills. The ones who stuck around mostly found themselves receiving flack from fans who didn't like what they heard. I'll admit, I don't like most of what I've heard from the Big 4's 90's material, but I don't blame them for making the decision they did: at that point, they didn't really have much of a choice. For them, it became a case of riding the storm, hoping it would blow over and that they would still be standing later. And, luckily, it did work out for them: the retro-thrash movement sprung up thanks to bands like Evile and Municipal Waste, helping to show that thrash wasn't dead and made it become popular again (and then get a lot of scorn from old thrash fans due to the music not being as distinctive as it was in the 80's. They really can't make up their minds, can they?). Many of the old bands like Exodus, Death Angel and Heathen have made returns since then and, on the whole, I'd say the thrash scene has pretty much rebuilt itself up nicely. But, to me, I think the main reason the scene fell apart the first time was because there wasn't more new blood being pumped into the scene. As odd as it may sound, all the mid tier thrashers giving up was more the death of thrash than the Big 4 deciding not to continue being thrash for the sake of maintaining a career. Without more thrash records coming out, there simply wasn't a real scene left for thrash fans to continue following.
These aren't the only reasons, but these are the reasons that tend to crop up the most. If I've missed anything that you want to bring up, feel free to comment!
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