Metal? Alternative? Deathmetal? Huh?

StuckOnBandaid

New member
Don't laugh, but I have a question for you guys. How do you classify metal, death metal, and alternative and could you give me some examples of bands from those genres. The more posts I read, the more I see that we all kind of have different opinions of what classifies a band to be in a specific genre. Just as an example, I saw Led Zeppelin mentioned in another post, and I would have classified them as classic rock, not metal. I'm curious to know what you guys think.
 

Kaizen

New member
I am to perplexed by this situation. I honestly don't know how each band gets put into this groups but i can attempt to help you.
Metal - Slipknot
Death Metal - Children of Bodom
Alternative - Maroon 5

I don't know if my classification is correct, but from most of the other forums i frequent these are the categories.
 

JLS

Member
You propose the same problem Ludwig Wittgenstein proposed about language. He illustrates this problem using the example of games:


Wittgenstein said:
Consider for example the proceedings that we call "games". I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all? - Don't say: "There must be something common, or they would not be called 'games'" - but look and see whether there is anything common to all. - For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don't think, but look! - Look for example at board-games, with their multifarioius relationships. Now pass to card-games; here you find many correspondences with the first group, but many common features drop out, and others appear. When we pass next to ball-games, much that is common is retained, but much is lost. - Are they all 'amusing'? Compare chess with noughts and crosses. Or is there always winning and losing, or competitions between players? Think of patience. In ball-games there is winning and losing; but when a child throws his ball at the wall and catches it again, this feature has disappeared. Look at the parts played by skill in chess and skill in tennis. Think now of games like ring-a-ring-a-roses; here is the element of amusement, but how many other characteristic features have disappeared! And we can go through the many, many other groups of games in the same way; can see how similarities crop up and disappear.

And the result of this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail.

Wittgenstein showed that the members of categories like games(or music genres) do not all share the same categorical properties, that is, it is possible for two members of the same category to have no properties in common. Both chess and bouncing a ball against a wall are considered games; yet it is possible for these two activities to have nothing in common with each other. What then does the term "games" mean?

Wittgenstein proposed that activities placed in the category "games" do not necessarily have all or any properties in common, but instead share a "family resemblance". Likewise, examples of music placed in a specific genre do not necessarily share all or any properties in common but simply share a family resemblance. All Metal "sounds like" Metal, all Alternative "sounds like" Alternative, and so on. It follows that some Alternative music could also be placed in the category Metal(unless a feature of one genre is that it cannot be placed in the other). For example, Korn is a band that incorporates both Metal and Hip Hop styles. It can be placed in both categories. When this happens on a large scale, a new genre is usually created referring to the new fusion of old genres. in the case of Korn and bands like them, the new genre "Nu Metal" was created to acknowledge the family resemblance of these bands.

This obviously creates a problem when attempting to place a piece of music in one specific genre. The truth is that attempting to think about music(or games) this way is futile. We must accept music genres for what they are: arbitrary distinctions of style with very fuzzy edges that make it easier for us to communicate with each other about music, but fall apart under close examination. The solution? Don't examine them closely...;)
 

Zippy

Banned
The problem is that genres constantly change. What was 'alternative' today may be main stream tomorrow. As for examples,

Metal: There are a lot of new sounding metal bands around atm, such as Bullet For My Valentine
Death Metal: Well, you only need to type in 'scandinavia' on google to find plenty of death metal bands, such as Insomnium, from Finland.
Alternative: Is obv harder to classify, but bands Like 'Mountain Mirrors' (who I believe are form Germany) would probably fit the bill.
 

Conservationist

New member
Don't laugh, but I have a question for you guys. How do you classify metal, death metal, and alternative and could you give me some examples of bands from those genres.

Look at them historically - it's easier to trace different trends.

Death Metal

Asphyx - The Rack
Obituary - Cause of Death
Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness
Deicide - Legion

Generic metal is "heavy metal," which is both genre (all metal bands) and subgenre (heavy metal subtype).

Heavy Metal

Angel Witch
Judas Priest
Iron Maiden
Black Sabbath

"Alternative" really means "indie" which means rock, not metal. Best example of this is Filter.
 
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