What the fu** is so alternative about rock?

[Carcass]

What the fu** is so alternative about rock?

I get what you're saying. I was probably full of antipathy because I'd just put down The WIRE and, yet again, read someone suggesting that x, y and z bands were all alike because they're vaguely metal.

Yeah, hip hop had already long seen the appeal of swiping heavy rock beats and bits of guitar here and there and yes, there had been the novelty hit Walk This Way.

However, if like me, you don't see death metal/speed metal/thrash metal as being remotely like heavy rock, then there was no antecedent for that song.

And the reason they're different is Aerosmith basically play electrified blues music and Slayer, quite obviously don't exist in that tradition.

Another reason and probably the main one, was the massive leap on from a DJ utilizing breaks to lots of guys (PE and the Bomb Squad) manually operating samplers and using really odd source material.

Again, if you see heavy metal as being not really worthy of this level of consideration and hip hop as not really worth of this level of consideration, then I can see why you think it was nothing new.

Perhaps I'm inclined to think lots of things from this period were without precedent because I was around 16 at the time. I don't think it's just that though.

Also: this isn't an either/or thing. I too thought both Public Enemy Number One, Rebel Without A Pause and Bring The Noise were unlike anything else I'd heard when I first heard them, although it inspired me to check out more Bomb Squad stuff as soon as I could.

[Edie St Pierre]

What the fu** is so alternative about rock?

No, I agree it's an amazing tune. I should explain, properly really.

My experience of P.E was hearing 'Rebel Without A Pause' on the radio, telling my mate Dave about it. He had the 'Bum Rush The Show' album and he did me a tape of it without writing a track listing (I hate it when people do that), track two was a mix of the heaviest, moon coming through the ceiling beats and horrible guitar and it did my head in. When I found out the tune was called 'Sophisticated Bitch' it kind of put me off it a bit.

When I heard 'She Watch Channel Zero', it sounded like the same song sped up 1000mph, with a miles better, more intriguing -and non woman-hating - lyric.

It was the first one with the horrible song title that blew me away sound-wise though. I'd never heard anything remotely fucking like it.

[Guest]

What the fu** is so alternative about rock?

Speaking of rock/rap crossovers, lyrically it's a bit unsubtle but this (from 1985, I think) still sounds brilliant:

Timezone - World Destruction

[Cal Alamein]

What the fu** is so alternative about rock?

remember my roomate coming home w/ the 12" - very enjoyable - very different - just recently put my cassette dub to mp3

PE was damned daring at the time - not just something for MTV to exploit

[G-Man]

What the fu** is so alternative about rock?

I was probably full of antipathy because I'd just put down The WIRE and, yet again, read someone suggesting that x, y and z bands were all alike because they're vaguely metal.

Oh, I know that feeling of exasperation. A bit like I feel when people here say that all the "singer-songwriter" types are all alike because they have guitars and go by their real names.

[Bruno]

What the fu** is so alternative about rock?

Carcass, I think it all depends on how high the flyover is when determining how different these genres are from one another. Depending on the chosen altitude, neither position can be really wrong. Yes there are clear differences between speed metal and the earlier style and yes there are clear continuities.

The 'new metal' fascinates me a bit because it really is in some ways a logical extension, the logical extreme, of the original heavy metal aesthetic; and the various subgenres (death, black, etc) often sound to me virtually, practically indistinguishable from each other. (Much of the difference comes down to the subject matter I understand.)

Harmonically they seem to have just about broken free from their blues roots by allowing much greater scale flexibility (more dramatic shifts) - while still fixating on most of the same intervals that distinguish the hexatonic and heptatonic scales from the standard octatonic ones.

And of course they tend to play everything as fast and loud as humanly possible.

So I'll concede being too flip about new metal being 'nothing terribly new'. I do think though, by the time of bands like Venom and Slayer, it was all entirely foreseeable and inevitable and not terribly surprising; and I also think it's been carried to an extreme that very soon left it nowhere really to go, short of yet another genre-busting leap.

[Carcass]

What the fu** is so alternative about rock?

Yes, I agree with the first bit of what you say but the whole point of heavy metal (or the one strand of it called Doom Metal at least) is that it did break away from the blues tradition to use the tritone, which I guess was more of a bastardised version of various things like opera, horror movie soundtracks and classical music.

Speed metal/thrash metal/death metal have their roots in this and hardcore punk and NWOBHM such as Judas Priest, which were mainly outside of the blues tradition which was carried on by heavy rock or heavy rock bands masquerading as metal.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: if you resurrected Son House - after his initial shock - and played him 'Mother' by Danzig, 'Li'l Devil' by The Cult, 'Smoking In The Boys Room' by Motley Crue etc he probably would have recognized it as being The Blues. There is no way he could have placed 'Angel Of Death' by Slayer into any context that he recognized.

The difference between black and death metal musically is easier to spot in the drumming primarily which forms almost an ambient layer, the incessant 'clatter' of the drumming builds up what is primarily a texture of hypnotic and roiling drum rolls and fills rather than a rhythm and the 'punkish' guitar thrash which tends to be brutal and basic rather than the technical chugga chugga groove of death metal. The lyrics in BM are more likely to be of a 'spiritual' or solipsistic nature as well.

But, yeah, if they're wearing corpse paint and banging on about forests they're probably black metal.

I'm curious as to what you would consider a 'new' musical statement of the 1980s.

[Carcass]

What the fu** is so alternative about rock?

As for them playing everything as fast as humanly possible; there are a lot of metalheads who would disagree with you. In fact there are many people who still get angry about what they consider to be the relatively ambling pace of Slayer's 'South Of Heaven' after the pretty pacey 'Reign In Blood'.

Also, to a certain extent there is the unavoidable fact that you just have to listen to a lot of extreme metal to be able to distinguish between different sub genres, let alone different tracks. Yet when you do, there's a world of difference.

When I was 16 I thought all Miles Davis sounded exactly same. That is quite obviously, an insane position to take but understandable nonetheless.

[Bruno]

What the fu** is so alternative about rock?

But the standard 6-note blues scale features the augmented fourth (tritone). In blues it almost always functions as a leading tone to the fifth; in metal (early metal) it was allowed to stand 'on its own', unresolved (e.g. in Sabbath's 'Symptom of the Universe'), though still within the recognizable context of a blues scale. In later metal the interval is often exploited apart from relation to the tonic, hence the greater flexibility - you'll often hear songs that are constantly switching back and forth between two tonal centers - along with other 'unsettling' intervals like say descending major sixths and sevenths.

As for punk rock the musical/harmonic language really isn't much different from standard rock and roll which is all blues based. I could take Maiden's 'Murders in the Rue Morgue' slow it way down change some rhythms and recast it as a blues song. That little melody is pure blues, though the underlying power chords are standard punk tonic-dominant-subdomninant.

I haven't thought about this sort of thing anywhere near exhaustively, of course. I gotta run right now but I'll think more on what was 'new' in the 80s. Hip hop I guess (though, again...).

[Bruno]

What the fu** is so alternative about rock?

Carcass wrote:

As for them playing everything as fast as humanly possible; there are a lot of metalheads who would disagree with you. In fact there are many people who still get angry about what they consider to be the relatively ambling pace of Slayer's 'South Of Heaven' after the pretty pacey 'Reign In Blood'.

Yeah I was mainly thinking of later stuff. Like say Carcass (?).

Also, to a certain extent there is the unavoidable fact that you just have to listen to a lot of extreme metal to be able to distinguish between different sub genres, let alone different tracks. Yet when you do, there's a world of difference.

Can't really argue with that. I'm sure you're 100% more cognizant of the nuances than I am.

[Bruno]

What the fu** is so alternative about rock?

Well okay, maybe not Carcass. A quick refresher tells me plenty of their stuff is slow paced.

[Carcass]

What the fu** is so alternative about rock?

Well, I wouldn't want to argue with your far superior technical musical knowledge but that is why I said hardcore punk rather than punk. Obviously there's not much in the way of difference between The Sex Pistols and Cliff Richards.

Actually you've hit the nail on the head with Carcass, or early Carcass. The first genre of music to come out which 'all sounded the same' to me initially was grindcore.

This was an ultra fast version of crust punk/hardcore punk/second wave punk played at ultra thrash metal/speed metal bpms and very short song times by the likes of Naplam Death, Lawnmower Deth, The Electro Hippies, Extreme Noise Terror, Bolt Thrower, Doom etc.

I remember at the time it just seemed like a laugh, with some songs by the likes of Napalm lasting under a second. But Napalm are going now and they don't even feel excessively fast now. It is amazing what you can get used to/easily discern pattern in/enjoy etc.

Now, I used to go and watch a lot of this music live in Planet X in Liverpool and while I found it very exciting, I didn't think it was new, more like music I'd already heard played insanely fast.

But then there were other hardcore/grindcore associated groups such as John Zorn's Naked City project which certainly was like nothing on earth I'd heard before.

[Er Liquidatore]

What the fu** is so alternative about rock?

This has turned into a fucking enjoyable thread. And I hate metal. Very good stuff from the pair of you.

[Carcass]

What the fu** is so alternative about rock?

Where are your boys!?

[Er Liquidatore]

What the fu** is so alternative about rock?

Ran away when it all came on top, the slags.

[Carcass]

What the fu** is so alternative about rock?

That's a shame I was going to introduce them to Mr Stanley.

[Er Liquidatore]

What the fu** is so alternative about rock?

A friend of mine had a nice variant on that. I went round his house once and he had a brew going for those of us who arrived. While stirring the tea he asked me whether I'd ever met his Uncle Bernie before, as he was popping round for a visit, and the next thing I know I've got a fresh-from-the-cup spoon firmly pressed on my hand...

Wait for it....

Aiiiieee you bastard!