posted 07-14-99 07:20 PM ET            

1. Metal that sounds like jazz.
2. Jazz that sounds like metal.

That means (1) Dream Theater and (2) Chick Corea. Rush is good, too, and Wendy Carlos has some cool stuff out as well.

Chick seems lately to have given up the metal side of the equation. Too bad.

Dream Theater rocks!

I pretty much like anything that's warped, twisted, loud, aggressive, and harmonically intelligent. Music that fits the profile is rare indeed, so I generally settle for some lesser combination of the above.

posted 07-16-99 03:53 AM ET            

Jarvis cocker- A Man among Men

Mis-shapes is the song about my life.
any other got a song which is sounds like it is written about them.

posted 07-18-99 02:28 AM ET            

I don't know, I was checking out some Bach today and he was really kickin' it, but Bach is sort of like metal from a long time ago.

If other musicians write something other than boring crap then I'll listen to it. Unfortunately with the demise of jazz into boring crap metal is mostly all that's left.

Tchiakovsky and Wagner have some non-boring stuff, but they're dead, so there's not a lot of new material coming from that department. Besides, Wagner's political overtones are shallow and cheesy -- even by heavy metal standards.

Rap is aggressive enough but so harmonically sterile it makes Achy Breaky Heart sound like Stravinsky.

So let's see, today's jazz is served up like strained bananas at a nursing home, the hardcore thrash classical composers are dead, country music has become too politically correct to have whiskey, gunfights, or domestic abuse any more (thus passing the proverbial baton to rap music), rap doesn't typically have music in it (although if it did it would be called "metal with some rap in it"), and alternative is a bunch of prissy guys whining about their emotional needs not being met and grrls screaming about what pigs guys are. (Sort of like what happens to your friends after they've had a few drinks.)

Folk music is like country music only a lot more preachy and pretentious.

New Age is like Toccata without the Fugue. It has some interesting harmonies but never goes anywhere, so you sit there building up this frustration as you keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and it never does and you think, "Come on, already. DO SOMETHING!" and you wind up screaming and pulling your hair and shaking your fists and the people around you wonder why you're so tense and THEY think YOU'RE the crazy one when THEY'RE the ones who're CRAZY for LISTENING to that crap! It never GOES anywhere! Why start out with these artful, tantalizing harmonies that could build into something cool but NEVER DO? FOR GOD'S SAKE, PUT ME OUT OF MY MISERY AND DO SOMETHING! (Please wait while I clutch at my chest and pop a handful of aspirin and gasp for breath ... thank you.)

So what does that leave? Metal. Pounding, screaming, 128th-note-arpeggiating harmonically-correct-guitar-string-feedbacking metal. Yeah, metalheads don't have much to like about other forms, and for good reason.

posted 07-19-99 12:01 AM ET            

Krushala,
Deftones rule. I believe there were at Ozzfest for a while. So, if this was the case, they're still around.

posted 07-19-99 12:50 PM ET            

So of course it occurs to me that for maximum aggression the Old Testament is the party zone, but not much Christian Rock goes there.

Supposedly Bach got his inspiration from Christianity, so your suggestion has some validity to it. Christianity is a very intense religion, and that's an excellent start.

I'm also looking for some metal in Japanese. The prevalence of hard consonants and the staccato rhythm of the language make it a perfect venue. Even Japanese poetry has a certain martial intensity to it.

posted 07-19-99 07:39 PM ET            

Nirvana, Local H, Soundgarden, Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Metallica, Pink Floyd, Monster Magnet, and Made to Fade are my favorite bands. Looking back on that list, half those bands are dead.

As far as I'm concerned, the best metal died when Randy Rhoads's plane crashed in 1982. Check out early Ozzy if you don't know what I'm talking about. The Crazy Train solo is the second-best guitar moment ever, after the one-minute feedback intro of High Fivin Mother****er (Local H).

posted 07-19-99 07:53 PM ET         

THere is still some hard drinking in country, just not the pop related pablum that gets played to death on the radio. Good music is where you find it, no genre has a copyright on great music. all types speak in different ways to all the emotions humans are heir to.

posted 07-20-99 01:12 PM ET            

Hmm, if "Throbbing Gristle" isn't a metal band what exactly is it?

I don't like Korn, either. I like Dream Theater. Not all metal satisfies the "intensity on all levels" ideal that I am constantly on the lookout for -- AC/DC's music is boring and predictable.

Here's a neat way of deciding whether the music you listen to is any good or not: Play it back in your head on a piano. If it still sounds intense it passes the test. Good metal bands can actually USE a piano, like Chick Corea or Dream Theater, and can really jam with it.

posted 07-21-99 04:15 AM ET            

Anyway, metal's usually pretty dull. A bit like pop music, really.