The Aesthetics of Music

Genres of music, I have found, are more often divided by their aesthetic than by their actual sound. Oddly enough, this proves to be more useful, as using the combination of sound with the aesthetics creates a more encompassing and complete definition of a particular style of music as an actual cultural movement or event.

Case in point -- hair metal is not metal.

Aesthetically, there are no similarities at all. Musically, there are distorted guitars, which also exist in other types of music. Culturally there is the lifestyle of debauchery, which while sometimes associated with metal, is really more indicative of the successes of popular music in general.

Its insistence that it is part of the metal scene bugs me to no end.

Let me put it this way. In America in the 1980s, there was mainly two styles of "metal" -- hair metal and thrash metal. Put on any Metallica/Megadeth/Anthrax/Slayer/Exodus/Testament album from 1982-1990 and compare it to the output of bands like Motley Crue and Poison from the same time period.

They are clearly not of the same genre, no matter how you look at it. Even with all of the wide encompassing definitions of metal music, hair metal is not metal.

The way I see it, metal is a type of music defined by a lack of comfort. It's loaded with dissonance and distortion, sometimes syncopation and staccato. It's meant to keep you on edge. Thematically, in fact, the lyrics are often on edge. Hair metal is the exact opposite of that. Not only is the music "comfortable" but it is often about getting more "comfort".

And again, radio has ruined the definition. The only kind of metal which regularly gets played on the radio is hair metal. The only thrash band that gets played is really Metallica, and even then its mostly their 90s rock stuff. Megadeth, really only the song "trust" in the year 1998 or whatever; Anthrax and Slayer, forget about it, unless some dude's been bugging the dj for about a week. And then besides that, really only the "classics", like Sabbath (but only the album Paranoid) or Zepellin (more of the classic rocky stuff, less of the metal stuff).

I could probably rant on this for alot longer, but im pretty tired. fuck. damn hair metal.

Now for some real fucking metal (pete, I don't think you can see these videos on buzz)




-- Knuttel