I was struggling with talking shit about this subject
because at first, I liked watching them every once in a while. But every time I
watch one, I find something fucking wrong with them. What am I talking about
even though you can clearly tell what it is by reading the fucking title? Metal
documentaries. At first, you’d think that doing a documentary on pretty much
any aspect of Heavy Metal would be a good watch or a great way to give a poseur
a crash course in true metal. But in practice, the failure usually lies in the
filmmaker’s bias and ignorance to basic facts about metal. Now, what was the
first thing that came to your mind when you saw the title of this post? Sam
Dunn and Banger Films, right? Of course, they’re practically the only
documentaries we’ve all watched in our lives. Lets be clear, when you do a
documentary on something like metal, you’re going to inevitably let your
preferences take control of the production. First of all, the family tree.
The Heavy Metal family tree sounds like a good idea at
first, but the second after you think that, you’ll realize it’s not as easy as
one would believe. Not just that mapping the relations of genres is pointless
when several bands within even a singular genre can take inspiration from a
dozen bands of different styles of music, but identifying bands that belong in
said genres falls to the responsibility of the listener. Sam or whoever put it
together barely fucking listened to genres outside of thrash, death and black
metal. Lets start with the original tree from the top with Early Metal
Okay, got the basics on here. Sabbath, Deep Purple, Zeppelin
and whatnot. I’d argue that most of this is rock, but seeing as how many of
these bands were highly inspirational to the first generation metal bands, I’ll
give it a pass. But Moving straight over to progressive metal is where we
instantly run into a brick wall. Uriah Heep and rush. Let me make this clear.
I’m Canadian so I’m hardwired to like Rush. But Rush and Uriah Heep are not
metal. Progressive rock. Then lets not forget that he has the audacity to list
Meshuggah as if to imply they are a quality example of progressive metal.
Moving to Power Metal is where we really take a swan dive into the shark.
Scorpions, Judas Priest, Rainbow, Accept, and Dio. Are you fucking kidding me?
Scorpions and Accept I’ll get to in a minute, but Judas
Priest? Are you high? They are inarguably THE heavy metal band. Black Sabbath
may have gotten the ball rolling and I will concede that they are the first
doom metal band, but Judas Priest fucking set the mold. How the hell do you
misplace them?! And Rainbow? Okay, I’ll give that they were the Power Metal
archetype on stage with the larger than life scope of the show, the rising
album and some tracks off long live rock ‘n roll, but their live improvisation
and interplay between the guitar and keyboard are really only things you see in
very rare bands in Power Metal. They influenced a lot of progressive bands, but
really it was Dio’s lyrics that most Power Metal bands took inspiration with.
Now, moving way on over, he calls mislabels Doom Metal bands
as Stoner Metal. Okay, somebody please point out to me a Stoner Metal band. I
am unfamiliar with this genre because aside from Metal Archives’ never ending
mission to invent more genres than bands, I haven’t found any evidence that it
FUCKING EXISTS!!! Witchfinder General, Saint Vitus, Candlemass, Trouble’s early
work, this is all fucking Doom Metal. And if the 12 year old who wrote this
would stop listening to his first Metallica record and fucking look on the Internet
for 3 minutes he would fucking know this!
And then we have shock rock an hard rock to justify Glam
Metal and Pop Metal. Okay, why do you need to split hairs here? Is Quiet Riot
really all that different than Twisted Sister? Sweet was hardly that high on
the Sunset Strip’s radar. Guns n’ Roses was pretty much the closest thing to
Hard Rock I can possibly give you a definition of. And Doro!? One of Heavy
Metal’s five female vocalists that actually sings metal? You have the testicular
fortitude to imply she belongs in the same breath as Def Leppard?
And now here’s what I was alluding to earlier. The New Wave
Of British Heavy Metal. I’ll say right off the bat that I think the idea of
assigning a geographical location to a “wave” of music is over-analytical since
many bands that sound similar to bands in said “wave” would come from several
different places. For example, Accept and Scorpions. Walk up to anyone who
knows anything about metal and ask them what they call Accept and they WILL say
heavy metal. Ask them the same thing about Scorpions and depending on the
person they will sigh and begrudgingly call them the same, or piss on your car.
The only reason they’re in the Power Metal section is because they’re from
Germany. The reason why Dio is in there is because they were an American band
and that Sam only listened to Heaven and Hell and only saw Dio’s album art. The
reason why Judas Priest is in power metal is because they were pushed out of
the NWOBHM section by Sam’s massive hard on for Iron Maiden.
Now listen, you like Iron Maiden, and I like Iron Maiden.
EVERBODY likes Iron Maiden. They’re the AC/DC of metal. But I am still not
entirely unconvinced that Sam Dunn got Banger Films started purely because he
wanted to meet Bruce Dickinson and interview him for EVERY DOCUMENTARY HE DID.
I’m not kidding. Headbanger’s Journey, Global Metal, and most episodes of Metal
Evolution. The motherfucker finds every reason to get in a room with the guy.
Even in the Shock Rock episode where he just gets him to squeeze in a talk
about how is inspiration was Arthur Brown. This is primarily where I find the
problem in a metal tree. When you give British Metal its own spot, you’ll
demean the importance of bands from other countries and confusingly put them in
a different genre.
The inclusion of Goth metal is one of the things that really
perplexes me. Is it really that valuable of a genre? Also, I’m not an Opeth
fan, but their music sounded more like a Progressive/Death band than anything
Gothic. Speaking of raised eyebrows, Grunge is on here. Look, even the grunge
bands that he interviewed in his grunge episode didn’t think that Grunge had
much if anything to do with metal. This is not the only genre/band that he
tries to desperately legitimize as Metal, so fuck this. Punk’s on here to
influence Thrash and the first wave of black me-MERCYFUL FATE?! Are you fucking
stoned?! Another straight up Heavy Metal band mislabeled? Why? Because King
Diamond wears corpse paint?! Does that make Kiss Black Metal?!
Remember when I said that the writer of this barely listened
to anything outside of Thrash and Death metal? Well, take a gander at the
Thrash list. Fifteen goddamned bands, including the inspiration for every PBR
drinking, pot smoking eighteen year old with an Ibanez and baseball cap,
Pantera. Then there’s the other proto-nu metal group, Sepultura. Resident
shitty Melodeth band Children of Bodom are on here for no goddamned reason.
Over to the right, industrial metal is on here for no other reason than to
justify Nu Metal on the list. We’ll get to that eventually.
Now, I’ll come right up front and say that when it comes to
Black Metal, I’m no expert. Aside from Venom, early Bathory, and the odd other
band, I don’t know enough to consider myself a Black Metal elitist. I can also
humbly say that I was never a great geographer. But still, I can confidently
say that I do not believe that the UK is in Norway. What does this have to do
with anything? Well, I guess I’m just wondering why CRADLE OF FILTH is on NORWEIGAN
BLACK METAL, let alone on a BLACK METAL list!!!
Death Metal…I have no problems here other than the fact that
Nu Metal was apparently somehow inspired by them. And here we have the first of
the ‘core bands. Grindcore. I know that half of these bands are either death
metal or just Thrash, and that Grindcore fucking sucks. Next. Okay, Metalcore
inspired Nu Metal? Why does that seem kind of inverted to me? Also, it’s just
thrash that inspired Metalcore? The very name implies that it’s a
combination of Hardcore punk and metal! If Just thrash were the case,
Metal radio stations wouldn’t suck!
Hard alternative is on here just for Nu Metal, and you’re
seriously going to have to help me out on this because I have no fucking clue
what Hard alternative is. But if Rage Against the Machine and Faith No More are
on here, I can only assume that Hard alternative is another name for Nu Metal
as much as I find Goth Metal is for Symphonic Metal. Speaking of which, he got
Nu Metal 100% right. Save for Metalcore and Death metal inspiring it. Aspiring
metalheads, take note. These are the bands to avoid.
Okay, looking at Swedish Death Metal we have another
problem. The reason why Sweden’s Death Metal scene was so interesting was
because many of their bands had melodic elements in the music when Death Metal
is normally void of melody. Some of these bands are indeed Melodic Death Metal.
But some are just plain Death Metal. BUT we also have groovecore sellouts In
flames and Soilwork. And this list was made AFTER they sold out. Anybody with
an internet connection would know this shit! Also, calling it Swedish Death
Metal will distract from other bands that play a similar style but aren’t from
Sweden…I’m just repeating myself, so lets move on to the final rectangle.
The “New Wave of American Metal” is something that literally
makes every metalhead I talk to laugh their asses off. And not just because I’m
in Canada. According to Sam Dunn, the brilliant anthropologist who discovered
this exquisite and innovative genre, such notable acts that are a part of this
movement are Shadows Fall, Lamb of God, Darkest Hour, Chimaira, Killswitch
Engage, Unearth and God Forbid. So basically Metalcore. Yes, Sam Dunn has
deemed the swath of False Metal that American warriors of steel are having so
much trouble with to be the new face of American Metal. That is fucking
heinous! They have enough troubles with MTV, The radio, Eddie Trunk and Hot
topic, they don’t need an alleged metalhead supporting these fuckers!
So yeah, the “Definitive Metal Family Tree” is full of shit.
Big shock. Maybe in the future I’ll talk shit about the movies and maybe the
show. But in the meantime, I’m going to go into the false part of town and
start a fight.
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