I have next to no history listening to metal, but have been putting some on the past couple days. This article was a trove of band names. I want to listen to more and find more artists but I'm not really sure the best way to go about it. I've thrown on Cannibal Corpse from knowing the name from somewhere and Nekrogoblikon because I remembered that one music video, but beyond that I'm not really sure who to listen to. Anyone have any recommendations?
'k. So Cannibal Corpse is awful. They really are. Mixed 'em twice and my sister had all their albums, but it's basically Celtic Frost with disgusting lyrics. I suspect I'm going to be pilloried but here's the five albums I'd start with: 1) Sepultura - Chaos A.D. Sepultura are probably the most accomplished of the thrash metal crowd. 2) Metallica - Master of Puppets. Early, angry, heartful Metallica. Technical chops, decent lyrics and a lot of strength. 3) Judas Priest - Painkiller. Basically, Halford's best contribution to metal. It's hailed as a "comeback" album but it's more accurate to call it a swan song. 4) Fear Factory - Manufacture. Fear Factory pretty much dominate the industrial metal camp. I'd argue that Ministry is better but Ministry is less metal. 5) Iron Maiden - The Number of the Beast. Possibly Maiden's best, and certainly lays the framework for all the power metal that followed. Note that ALL that shit is ancient. There's a lot more modern stuff, but this is the stuff that stands the test of time. _________________ARGUING COMMENCES BELOW_____________
Good list. That Sepultura album is a must listen to. Ride the Lightening was my very first exposure to guerrilla marketing. I was on the way out of High School when that album dropped. The losers and freaks were into Motorhead and Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden and life was good. Then one kid shows up with RtL and it was like an earthquake went off. The local Tower Records sold out, and nobody else carried anything that was not top 40. This started a two year love affair with Tower Records, which for you youngsters was a building full of records, tapes and posters full of music dorks. We begged to get more albums, and If I remember right we had to wait for them to sign on with Elecktra(?) to ramp up production. That first kid was responsible for about 30-40 album sales. the only way to be cooler than having the album was having a tshirt. Recall this is before the Internet and direct sales of concert tshirts. A friend of mine at the time drove up to San fran to see them in concert and took about $700 of our cash and bought almost every shirt they had for sale, took them back and distributed them. I think we kicked in for gas for the trip. Master of Puppets may actually be the very first Compact Disk I bought and owned. Ride was Vinyl of that I an certain; I bought a new stereo to play Metallica and that would have been when I was just out of High School. Also, I thought that Cannibal Corpse was a goof band, more a parody than a serious thing. That true? I'd add Megadeth Cryptic Writings to that list. That is a link to the 16 tracks on the album. Tagging byonic
...And Justice For All came out in 8th Grade. We'd fallen pretty far by then. I remember being astounded that a girl in my class didn't like Def Leppard because holy shit, that was some inoffensive, feel-good easy listenin' music, by damn! What did she like? Duran Duran. No, worse than that. Whatever Simon LeBon's non-Duran Duran album was. I mean, yeah, okay. Duran Duran had a hell of a run but that shit was dated when it came out. I lived in concert shirts... pretty much well into my '30s. Without tours I'd have had nothing to wear. Cannibal Corpse isn't a serious thing. They enjoy singing about meat hook sodomy. FUN FACT: Autocomplete in Youtube when you type "meat hook" is "sodomoy." Nothing wrong with singing about meat hook sodomy. It's just very much not my thing. It's not lots of people's thing. And it's pretty much the only thing Cannibal Corpse sings about.
In no particular order, and for no particular reason other than they're bands I dig. If you are lucky, francopoli, kleinbl00, nowaypablo or AshleyR might have things for you too. Anaal Nathrakh Gnaw Their Tongues Mayhem Motorhead Satyricon Arch Enemy Nile Minsk Jucifer My Dying Bride Grails Down Tiamat Corrosion of Conformity Ministry Tvangeste Author & Punisher
Replying to you cause tagged. I can definitely confirm this article's thesis from my own experience. Metal, heavy metal and hard rock are huge in Armenia, where youth culture is exploding at a rate that is exhilarating to see, youth movements and social/political activism would be booming more and more every time I would visit in the summer. It all peaked last year during over centennial of the Armenian Genocide, when System of a Down put a stage up in the central square of the capital city, shut everything down, and rattled up the largest collective youth gathering in the capital's history for a free and fucking incredible show in a fucking rainstorm. I once helped organized a music festival, the first of its kind in Armenia, where proceeds would go to fixing up the school building of the nearby village, who's residents supplied us an open field on top of a hill, and whose children came in droves twice a night carrying barrels of homemade pomegranate wine. The festival grounds' view of the mountainous Armenian landscape and a cavernous valley below–- even the nature around us screamed metal. I didn't handle the booking of the bands, but even if I did it was clear that the only bands around were fucking metal. The one band who came up with acoustic instruments? They did Led Zeppelin covers. Black Dog was the quietest performance of the whole weekend. I think it's about frustration, power, and the enabling of a socially and culturally oppressed youth to start pushing shit around with the help of these bands who tell them, "Desperation is still an opportunity." I guess my point is, I don't understand the metal sub-genre breakdown enough to know what counts as heavy metal, but listen to System of a Down. :D
I bet you may enjoy the documentaries Global Metal and Metal: A Headbanger's Journey.