Punk or Metal?

[sharkbait]

 

Originally Posted by UstadKhanAli

Let's see which political party uses the most punk or metal on their campaigns and decide from there.

 

After John McCain was endorsed by Ted Nugent in 2008, a friend suggested he use "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang" as his stump speech stage entrance music. Still crack up a little when I visualize that....

[Ronan Murphy]

 

Originally Posted by Folder

If you are old enough to remember the 80's which side were you on?

 

I was totally on both sides. Always was.

[girevik]

 

Originally Posted by UstadKhanAli

I like metal, but like every other genre, there's good stuff and then there's Winger.

 

I'll still take Winger over Bon Jovi. Heard some of Kip Winger's more recent stuff (solo project) - he's certainly evolved as a musician and songwriter, so much in fact "She's Only 17" sounds like it was written by another person.

And of course I'd take lots of other bands over both Winger (the band) and Bon Jovi.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

Originally Posted by Ronan Murphy

I was totally on both sides. Always was.

 

Exactly. It's all music.

[Zooey]

 

Originally Posted by UstadKhanAli

And what about the bands that I mentioned? Where do those go? Is Slayer more punk? Or metal? What about Discharge? Or the Misfits? Or the Chili Peppers? Was Black Flag punk and then when Greg Ginn began doing guitar solos, they were metal?

 

Don't forget Motorhead! There are definitely metal styles that have a direct link to punk: thrash metal, speed metal, grindcore, hardcore, etc.

Many of the band I listened to in the 80s are now largely called "post-punk," but we never called them that back then. That's a pretty big umbrella that includes stuff like goth and deathrock, but also Echo and the Bunnymen and more experimental bands like Wire and Swell Maps.

edit: I see now that girevik made almost the same observation.

[UstadKhanAli]

Girevik will take Winger over Bon Jovi. And that's fine. I'm the other way, although I don't care for either. Winger had better face stubble. What can I say?

Motorhead. I was gonna put them too but I ran out of typing time, but that's another perfect example.

Power ballads of the '80s: These would be put in the metal camp, but at some point, they veer dangerously close to Air Supply and other middle-of-the-road stuff, don't they? So is this still metal? Or.....or is the very nature of subverting the MOR status quo by introducing metal guys wearing spandex and eyeliner more deliciously punk? What did the architects behind "Sister Christian" or "More Than Words" have in mind in upsetting the orthodoxy of bland ballads?

[blue2blue]

Wire was postpunk before most folks knew about punk. (Formed in '76.)

To me, the dividing line wasn't between punk and new wave or metal or whatever. It was between legitimately cool or interesting and lame and poseur. To my way of thinking, there were lame poseurs throughout the genres. There were, arguably, less of them early on in the punk/new/no wave thing -- but by '78 or '79 there were all kinds of lameazz phonies flooding into the new music scene. Some of them, of course, sold a lot of records. I remember when I heard the Cars first record for the first time. I knew it was going to go over big with certain types, and, of course, it did. Ditto with the Police. I came out of the Santa Monica Civic after seeing the Clash in Feb 79 and A&M records had flyered everone's cars with "Support the Police" bumper stickers. I'm sure some intern at A&M thought that was sure-fire -- but the lot was littered with the things afterward. (Now, later, the Clash had some 'rock of the 80s' style hits and they probably did get some crossover with Police fans, but that was mostly through the mainstreaming of the Clash more than any increase in adventurousness of Police fans.)

[UstadKhanAli]

 

Originally Posted by blue2blue

Wire was postpunk before most folks knew about punk. (Formed in '76.)

 

They were pre post-punk (PPP, for those in the know).

[UstadKhanAli]

The Damned. I may have mentioned them already. Were they PPP? You decide.

[tim_7string]

 

Originally Posted by Folder

Those were just the first popular bands that popped into my head.

U2, R.E.M. and the Pixies were influenced by a lot of the proto punk bands of the 60's and 70's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Wave_music

Metallica, Guns and Roses and Bon Jovi were more influenced by the hard rock bands of the 60's and 70's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_music

I was in high school in the late seventies when this cultural split first started.

The kids who listened to Elvis Costello and the B-52s sat at one table. While the kids who listened to Judas Priest and Kiss sat at the other table. Where I lived these two groups became antaganistic towards each other.

I've never been too big on categorizing music but if you were around in the 80's and were a big fan of rock music I don't see how you could miss the polarization of these two branches.

 

I was the Elvis Costello/B-52s kid, although I didn't listen to Costello. I would listen to my Devo, U2, The Human League and Love And Rockets albums while my peers were listening to stuff like Ratt, Kiss, Poison, Def Leppard and Whitesnake.

My perception of Guns N' Roses is far different from yours. Like some people that saw Mot

[Zooey]

I guess Television would be another band that's as old as punk, but usually categorized as post-punk.

 

Man, I love me some Wire.

[Zooey]

I was the Elvis Costello/B-52s kid, although I didn't listen to Costello. I would listen to my Devo, U2, The Human League and Love And Rockets albums while my peers were listening to stuff like Ratt, Kiss, Poison, Def Leppard and Whitesnake.

 

 

If you had gone to my high school, we would have been in the same crowd (I graduated in 1989).

 

Though for me, high school was all about the Smiths. I was obsessed with the music, the lyrics, everything.

[girevik]

Girevik will take Winger over Bon Jovi. And that's fine. I'm the other way, although I don't care for either. Winger had better face stubble. What can I say?

 

 

Yup, I'm not ashamed to admit having what hipsters would consider to be "bad taste".

 

Steely Dan is another band that today is considered way uncool to like, but {censored} it, I'll stop loving them the day I die. They're neither punk nor metal, which makes them doubly uncool.

[girevik]

I was totally on both sides. Always was.

That's why hardcore was invented.

[girevik]

I was totally on both sides. Always was.

That's why hardcore was invented.

This thread got me thinking about two of the best concerts I attended locally this year: Swans and Sunn O))). Both loud as hell - more than loud enough to be metal, but minimalist like punk. Couldn't tell you which camp either band should be in.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

Yup, I'm not ashamed to admit having what hipsters would consider to be "bad taste". Steely Dan is another band that today is considered way uncool to like, but {censored} it, I'll stop loving them the day I die. They're neither punk nor metal, which makes them doubly uncool.

 

 

Yeah, life's too short for that stuff. You like what you like, and just try and keep an open mind, and that's it.

 

BTW, I like a few Steely Dan releases too, including "Can't Buy a Thrill" and "Aja".

 

I like plenty of stuff that's often considered cool, plenty of stuff that's seriously off the radar, and plenty of stuff that people think are insanely uncool. I love Sade, for instance. I think she's great. My friends think it sounds like easy listening music or is seriously uncool. Who cares? I like Flock of Seagulls and Boston's first album too, and those are not considered cool. I just really don't care.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

Swans and Sunn O))). Both loud as hell - more than loud enough to be metal, but minimalist like punk. Couldn't tell you which camp either band should be in.

 

 

Another good example. Both are seriously loud, that's for sure. Both have some good stuff.

 

I also like what's sometimes labeled freak folk, both the American version and the Scandinavian/Norwegian version. Love it, love it, love it. What do you call that? I don't know. I just know that I like it.

[girevik]

I watched a documentary on Queen last week. I remember once upon a time it was very uncool to like Queen. But damn that band was brilliant. Freddie Mercury was like a god who walked the Earth with the uncanny ability to "play" massive crowds with his hands like a puppeteer. The documentary included a lot of rare footage, including early gigs - I was surprised how "metal" they sounded live.

 

The documentary did hint at Queen feeling a bit threatened by punk, and thus being inspired to risk alienating their existing audience by trying new things (eg. the minimalist funk hit "Another One Bites the Dust", incorporating synths, etc.).

[UstadKhanAli]

 

I watched a documentary on Queen last week. I remember once upon a time it was very uncool to like Queen. But damn that band was brilliant. Freddie Mercury was like a god who walked the Earth with the uncanny ability to "play" massive crowds with his hands like a puppeteer. The documentary included a lot of rare footage, including early gigs - I was surprised how "metal" they sounded live. The documentary did hint at Queen feeling a bit threatened by punk, and thus being inspired to risk alienating their existing audience by trying new things (eg. the minimalist funk hit "Another One Bites the Dust", incorporating synths, etc.).

 

 

Punk really did shake things up a lot, making a lot of musicians feel nervous or suddenly irrelevant. And so did the ensuing wave of synthesizer bands, causing many rock artists to feel out of step. And coupled with this was MTV, where suddenly having an image and a "look" was all-important. So many bands adopted synthesizers, and for many, it felt really forced or awkward, while others adapted better.

 

Led Zeppelin, if you listen to Coda, recorded some of those songs, like "Wearing and Tearing" in direct response to punk, trying to inject some energy into what they were doing.

 

I like Queen. I don't like all their stuff, but at their best, the songs were elegant and ambitious. "Bohemian Rhapsody" is the stuff of "Wayne's World", but it's also a beautiful and highly ambitious song, albeit a kitschy one. Those harmonies are gorgeous, and the layering of orchestrated guitars is magnificent. And yeah, they could also rock pretty hard at times.

[UstadKhanAli]

Really loud bands - grunge - ushered out much of the synth bands of the '90s, making them in turn sound kinda "old hat".

 

But beyond the mid '90s, rock and hardcore and metal hasn't generally been nearly as dominant creatively in the mainstream, giving way to, once again, synths, the continuation of hip-hop/rap, electronic-oriented pop, etc. Some of the electronic stuff has been very interesting, and there's been some interesting indie rock and freak folk stuff, which I've really enjoyed, but a lot of current pop and rock sounds too safe and manufactured and fake to my ears.

[Folder]

My perception of Guns N' Roses is far different from yours. Like some people that saw Mot

[UstadKhanAli]

I think a lot of us on this forum may be a little too old to truly understand what my original post was asking, including myself. I was talking to a friend who's a few years younger than me about this thread and he was adamant that this divide was very real when he was in high school.

 

 

I'm not. I was in high school in the '80s. What I keep saying is that it was many different camps. To put a bunch of people in two camps is silly. That's what I keep saying...as well as a lot of people. People "get" what you're trying to say, but to be polite but blunt, that's not remotely accurate at all.

 

You're forcing a polarization when there wasn't one.

 

There were a lot of people who listened to punk. A lot of people who listened to New Wave. A lot of people who liked Top 40 and pop. A lot of people who listened to metal. A lot of people who listened to metal "lite" (Bon Jovi, White Lion, Journey, whatever that group is that sang "Sister Christian", that kind of thing). At our school, we also had a lot of people who listened to funk and R&B. There were some that listened to progressive rock - not a lot, but some. A few who listened to blues. And I went to a very homogeneous school, so a more urban school would have an even greater diversity.

 

And between these, there was also a lot of people who listened to numerous genres of music. I had a lot of friends who listened to jazz and classical, for instance, and some of the progressive rock guys listened to jazz and fusion.

 

There weren't two camps, or four, or even six or ten.

[Folder]

that's not remotely accurate at all. You're forcing a polarization when there wasn't one.

Everything that I have related about my own experiences have been accurate.
There was a polarization among many people that I knew in the 1980s. As a matter of fact that polarization still exists to an extent among some of my friends.

I envisioned this as a light hearted thread for people who remembered the basic "rock music trends" of the eighties. (not funk or R&B or Jazz or country or classical) I suspect that most people on this forum have always had broad tastes in music and like multiple genres. I know I do.

If your experiences were different than mine that's fine. It's really not that big of a deal.

[Folder]

 

I was totally on both sides. Always was.

 

 

Wow Ronan, I thought you looked familiar.

I was just reading your interview in the current Tape-Op this afternoon.

Great article!

[Folder]

Heard some of Kip Winger's more recent stuff (solo project) - he's certainly evolved as a musician and songwriter, so much in fact "She's Only 17" sounds like it was written by another person.

 

 

I like the version of Emerson, Lake and Palmer's "Tarkus" that he did with Jordan Rudess and Rod Morgenstein. Very Cool IMHO.