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RIP Quorthon

15K views 76 replies 12 participants last post by  regressivetransphobe  
#1 ·
Five years ago today, we lost Quorthon who was the mastermind behind Bathory. If there's ever a musical hero, he was it!

He also explicitly states the classical influence, as you can see in that article.
 
#3 ·
I began to listen to classical music shortly after forming BATHORY, and from 1985-1986 it was all I would listen to. I had been playing various types of rock in various constellations since 1975, so picking up Wagner, Beethoven, Haydn and others really broadened my musical awareness extensively. The motif signature naturally comes from the world of opera.

Bathory interview
Interesting to see this from one of underground metal's founders.
 
#4 · (Edited)
Yeah, for sure. There are a myriad of examples along the lines of the above interview which point to direct classical influence on metal. While many bands capture the spirit of classical in a modern context, some certainly had and have academic knowledge of it and how to play it. Examples of various kinds of direct influence I can think of:

Ideological:

- Varg Vikernes' (creator of Burzum) comments on rock music as essentially flashy blues; his subsequent transition to medieval ambient folk music
- Faust of Emperor's name

Theoretical:

- Luc Lemay of Gorguts' degree in theory and appreciation of Bach, etc.
- Crimson Massacre's lack of repetition within songs, formal classical training of band members
- Rob Darken's (Graveland, Lord Wind) love for the Conan the Barbarian soundtrack, a classical film score which directly inspired the structure of his pieces
- Celtic Frost's musical triptych at the end of Monotheist, particularly the part of the Requiem, which actually is full-on classical music that puts any Prokofiev suite to shame and was initially intended to be a part of a three-movement Requiem in itself
- Pantheist (see below) - their incorporation of Baroque organ and Romantic piano, including reworkings of pieces by Chopin and a clear Bach influence
- Cliff Burton's Bach-inspired bass solo on Kill 'Em All; his formal classical training

Aesthetic:

- Ildjarn's Hardangervidda, (orchestra-like synth strings)
- Emperor's Opus a Satana, an orchestral take on Inno a Satana
- Summoning - strings, proud horns and trumpets echoing the sounds of ancient battlefields
- Ras Algethi, Pantheist, other funeral doom bands - adoption of Gregorian chant, strings, piano
- Black Sabbath's being influenced by horror film soundtracks

This is a very small list that I came up with off the top of my head. I know I'm leaving a lot out.

Most people aren't aware of the influence of classical on metal, but that's because they think AC/DC, Judas Priest, Slipknot, Cannibal Corpse, and Dragonforce are actual metal bands. Time to enlighten them. Fans of metal music, add more!
 
#5 ·
Most people here aren't concerned with facts. They just want a reason to sound cool to compensate for their failing lives. Cognitive dissonance, as always. It's one of the snipiest forums I've been on, because being able to claim you're a classical fan makes you seem smarter than the average person. They're all jockeying for that status, probably between answering tech support calls.
 
#6 ·
I agree.

This reality only makes Michael Jackson and Beatles topics all the more baffling here, though. I guess it's an attempt to condescend to the idea of unofficial, non-canonical music as inherently frivolous and for 'fun.' If Stravinsky employs radical techniques just for the hell of it rather than because he has something to say, that's fine, because he's coming from within the tradition. If a subculture of circus performances and parlor tricks springs up in the African American community like jazz, well, that's unserious entertainment-music. Besides, affirmative action says that everyone, regardless of competency at expressing something strong and real, deserves a place in the school textbooks. But when something blatantly and violently opposed to this idea itself emerges, it's obviously not going to fly.

In a way, it's like donating to charity without understanding the political reasons for why poverty exists, all the while only mingling with societal elites.
 
#8 ·
Have you ever considered that the reason many classical and jazz listeners hate metal is because it is musically simple and sounds bad?

(please don't continue to assume I haven't heard any - I've heard quite a lot, mostly on your recommendation)
 
#10 ·
I'm a trained musician, I've heard metal songs - harmonically, melodically, improvisationally and rhythmically they are fairly simple. I've analysed it in enough detail to work that out.
 
#13 ·

There is no music in this - it's horrendously repetitive (and not even a particularly interesting idea in the first place) and the vocalist can't sing a note.. I can't understand how someone who appreciates classical music can think this is good.. musically or aesthetically.
 
#14 ·
My, that was awful. And I am not just saying that to be inflammatory.

I agree 110% with Bach...I am surprised anyone who has a taste for even the most bombastic and in-your-face classical music could find this 1) appealing and 2) anything like anything in the classical repertoire.

Anyone attempting to tie the two genres together should not use this music as an example. It sounds to have more in common with regular rock music with a fairly consistant beat, lack of counterpoint and repeated power chord electric guitar riffs.

What exactly does this have in common with Schubert?

And I guess the runes are supposed to ekove ancient Aryan culture or something...epic, dude!
 
#26 ·
Metal is just musically unappealing to me. I don't see how anybody could listen to say Megadeth after listening to Vaughan Williams' "The Lark Ascending." I mean why deprive yourself of such aural beauty?
 
#37 · (Edited)
Ah, Dunkelheit.

Anger and dissatisfaction are immature emotions.
A very immature statement. Many times, anger and dissatisfaction are entirely appropriate reactions to the environment. Furthermore they are positive emotions because they provide impetus toward change. If you sit in your prozac fog eating what you're fed by the mass media, afraid of your own shadow, afraid of your very emotions to such an extent that you try to deny your animal nature, you're going to be sitting in that very same prozac fog 20 years from now, wondering why nothing has changed for you.

Part of metal is a celebration of the emotion of hate. In certain situations, hate is an entirely appropriate and healthy emotion and is once again an impetus toward positive change. Not everything good is entirely pleasant.

The statement that metal is simple and therefore somehow inferior is a straw man for a number of reasons. First, complexity is not necessarily desirable. Not everything needs to be the Goldberg Variations. If it is, complexity loses its meaning. In fact, complexity as an end unto itself has already lost emotional meaning-- it becomes an exercise in dexterity and pure math, sacrificing feeling.

There are bands like Meshuggah which in my opinion are rhythmic exercise, complexity for its own sake. These bands feature bizarre time signatures which make most classical arrangements look absolutely pale.

So first, I disagree with your thesis that complexity is necessarily desirable. Second, I disagree with your thesis that metal is somehow less complex than classical or jazz, which is simply not the case. The fact is, metal encompasses a breadth of substyles far larger than jazz, amazing considering the comparatively short time that it's been around. At times, it's very complex indeed, too much so for its own good I think: the true aesthetic of metal does not lie in complexity for its own sake.

Distortion and pounding drums push parts of the emotional scale that are simply unavailable to traditional classical and jazz. If you are unable to find beauty within the static, that doesn't necessarily mean that the beauty is not there, and is no indictment of metal but is in fact an indictment of you.

If the emotions expressed in metal are somehow unacceptable to your fragile psyche, perhaps you should examine why that might be.

What's so frightening about it?

metal is just pop music.
Classical and jazz are just pop music, self-aggrandizing protests to the contrary notwithstanding. Particularly in the case of jazz, they are also dead abstraction, saying nothing, connected to nothing, meaning nothing. They are both absolutely dislocated, uprooted from their cultural origins. Are you drinking at a 1930s black after-hours speakeasy? Are you a member of the German aristocracy? If not, your investment in your identity as a member of some sort of jazz/classical literati is pretentious: you're going through the motions, pretending to be something you're not. In fact, the originating cultures of both jazz and classical would find you silly, pretentious and contemptible, for a variety of different reasons.

Quorthon, Black Jesus, Varg Vikernes and Abbath Doom Occulta are Diogenes, come to burn down your hoary dead temples.

Let me give you an example of a Man:

Image
 
#41 ·
Bach said:
I can't even be bothered to read your pretentious screed. Classical and Jazz are not pop music - they are musicians music.
That was a very pretentious thing to say. The fact is, they are popular music. The fact that musicians enjoy them does not change this fact and amounts to argument from authority.

Mirror Image said:
I have high musical standards and it just isn't up to my standards.
By this you mean, there are certain types of music that you like and other types that you don't. The types that you like are the types that are associated with high cultuah and sophistication. All the most sophisticated, cultuah'd people listen to them. You are highly invested in your opinion of yourself as a highly cultured sophisticate and the music you choose to listen to is a manifestation of that.

If you had been born in Japan, medieval koto music is what you would listen to and find sophisticated and cultured. If you had been born in Indonesia, you would be a cultured, sophisticated aficionado of kecak, kendang and gamelan.

And you would say that you had high standards and that other music was inferior when in fact it would be nothing more than a pretension to social class.

Do you eat only Kobe beef?

BTW, I'm not saying that you should like metal. It can be extremely abrasive. Not everyone likes Bach either.
 
#43 ·
That's the bottomline isn't it? Yes, I have high musical standards and unfortunately juvenile metal that you so highly praise doesn't make the cut.
You keep claiming you have high standards. Once again, your investment in yourself as highly cultured musical sophisticate.

The bottom line is that it's really a matter of personal opinion. What you see as standards are in fact presuppositions based on what you've been told. You've been told that classical and jazz are sophisticated, the music of the elite-- even though jazz was the music of black addicts, and you yourself are certainly no member of the aristocracy among whom classical music became popular, just one of many shibboleths with which they differentiated themselves from the unwashed masses. The fact is, it's nothing more than a technical exercise and can be rendered quite passably by robots.

Much of your derivative, emotionless drivel doesn't make MY cut. Particularly the jazz which I find execrable.

It does nothing. Says nothing. Means nothing.
 
#44 ·
:confused: Okay, I think this is a good reason why I DON'T talk to people who are really into metal. They lack the inability to make logical statements.
 
#46 ·
And we all know what a reputable source Wikipedia is.

Jazz is genre music. Both jazz and classical are popular music. If you disagree, take a look at sales figures over the decades. Keep in mind that at one time jazz was associated with criminal addict ne'er-do-wells and alcohol and heroin consumption. Many jazz musicians were heroin addicts.

The fact that the dead traditions are kept alive by college professors who still go through the motions of "bebop" and "cool jazz" doesn't make it anything other than what it is and always was.

Popular music.
 
#48 ·
Drugs have been apart of all genres of music. Not just jazz. If this is the only argument you have against jazz, then you better start looking at the bigger picture, which is you don't have an argument.

Metal is as guilty of having drug addicts as any other genre of music. Get your facts straight.
 
#53 ·
If this is the only argument you have against jazz, then you better start looking at the bigger picture, which is you don't have an argument.
You apparently have a reading comprehension problem-- strange in someone supposedly as highly educated and sophisticated as yourself.

The fact that many top jazz musicians were heroin addicts, to say nothing of alcohol and cannabis, isn't intrinsically an argument against jazz. The point is that it gives the lie to your pretension that jazz is somehow on a higher plane.

When in fact it was produced largely by dopers and drunks. "Higher Plane" indeed... in fact they were the dregs of society and it's only comparatively recently that it's become the cause celebre of the tweed bar set.
 
#55 ·
Right, okay, so jazz is somehow inferior because it's played by drunks and dopers?

I love how you keep trying to make excuses and defend metal by trying to tear down a genre of music that's highly regarded around the world and taught in schools and institutions.

Name 10 prestigious colleges in the United States that teach composition students about metal. This is going to be good...
 
#56 ·
Right, okay, so jazz is somehow inferior because it's played by drunks and dopers?
Once again, I'm astounded at the difficulty you seem to be having in comprehending something that seems quite simple to me.

I will state it for you once more, this time as simply as I possibly can. The fact that jazz comes from speakeasy dive bars gives the lie to your thesis that it is somehow not popular music.

Name 10 prestigious colleges in the United States that teach composition students about metal. This is going to be good...
Once again, argument ad majorem fallacy, debunked thus: numerous colleges in the United States teach students about hiphop. This trend is increasing. Another pathetic attempt at maintaining your fantasy of intellectual elitism.

You seem to have an inferiority complex regarding jazz. I have never attacked jazz even though I don't particularly care for it.

The core of what you appear to be having difficulty understanding is this: the immediate discussion is not some sort of debate regarding the quality of jazz (a subjective opinion) but rather its indisputable status as popular music.

Popular music it was, is and always shall be.
 
#57 ·
Once again, I'm astounded at the difficulty you seem to be having in comprehending something that seems quite simple to me.

I will state it for you once more, this time as simply as I possibly can. The fact that jazz comes from speakeasy dive bars gives the lie to your thesis that it is somehow not popular music.

Once again, argument ad majorem fallacy, debunked thus: numerous colleges in the United States teach students about hiphop. This trend is increasing. Another pathetic attempt at maintaining your fantasy of intellectual elitism.

You seem to have an inferiority complex regarding jazz. I have never attacked jazz even though I don't particularly care for it.

The core of what you appear to be having difficulty understanding is this: the immediate discussion is not some sort of debate regarding the quality of jazz (a subjective opinion) but rather its indisputable status as popular music.

Popular music it was, is and always shall be.
Regardless of whether jazz is a popular music is beside the point I think, jazz will always be more superior to metal, thus, this is why jazz is taught in schools across the globe and metal isn't, because metal has no historical or musical value.

I'm done talking with you, metal man.
 
#59 ·
I 've spent at least an hour reading these theads on metal vs. classical vs. jazz and whatever... My head feels like a giant watermelon. The last thing I wanna do right now is listen to any of aforemetnioned genres!
 
#60 ·
I think, jazz will always be more superior to metal, thus, this is why jazz is taught in schools across the globe and metal isn't, because metal has no historical or musical value.
So because hiphop is taught in schools across the globe, it's on the same level as jazz.

Your implication, not mine. But you're getting it now.

No historical or musical value? I think not-- it's far closer to classical than jazz is. But if you don't want to talk to Metal Man anymore, it's a free country.

Once again, you'd be far meeker in person.
 
#61 ·
I really hate to necro threads, even more on first posts. I just stumbled on this thread and thought I'd bring in my point of view on the subject of matter.

1. Music isn't "just" about theory. Some opinions I've read here have theory importance in such a high esteem that they forget the point. The best portrait isn't always the one that is the most photo realistic.

2. Horrible, truly horrible examples of metal music to try to make your point at the very least heard by classical music folks on a classical music forum. Here are some of my suggestions that should at the very least, trigger some interest.

Metal + Avant Guarde done right

Metal + fusion done right

Metal + Progressive done right

Just weird stuff

But honestly, Metal is most of the time a battle cry (i.e. :
) and most of the time listening to it makes us feel stronger. Not for our failed life, but like for me who had to wake up after 2h30 of sleep to continue working on my master in neurosciences, it made me forget the sleeplessness. Any form of art that can generate an emotion, a feeling this strong in a person is good art. The point of art is to convey emotions, not to show off skills. That's why bands like Brain Drill who show ridiculous amount of time signature/technique/scales for the sake of showing it is able to isn't considered good music.

A complex emotional song isn't better than a song of similar emotional content.

P.S.: don't try to "get" metal on the first try (just like with most jazz), you really have to work to understand this type of music just like it would take time to understand the dissonant classical chinese music if you're not used to (like a previous poster said).
 
#62 ·
Wow, youve just revealed the purpose of art to this messageboard. Why on earth had none of us ever thought of that? Its so simple! Conveying emotion....
I disagree btw.

Secondly, theory in painting is not all aimed at producing photo-realistic portraits. Abstractionism, pointillism, impressionism, expressionism etc... Have also developed theories.