Explaining what Metallica's songs are about.

Most of you have heard their music but they have inserted spiritual themes into their songs that not many people have picked up on,

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Somebody thought about this for way too long. Somewhere along all that dribble I had to laugh at "no metallica fan has ever figured this out". It's great to see the different interpretations people come up with and how they're the only ones who know the "true meanings" lyrics mean.

 

is it that surprising that no metallica fan ever figured that out? 'spiritual' themes? c'mon... only if spiritual is defined as tricking idiots into buying your product by selling a 'dark' image so as to reach out to angsty suburban teenagers. how else could you sell musical masturbation?

 

I like songs like Fade to black, but generally I like their songs primarily for their sound and not their meaning. Especially on Kill 'em all. Prrrrdrderererr hit the lights!

 

This doesn't make any sense. I'm sure the OP is full o shit, but so are you. What is "musical masturbation" supposed to mean? If you mean pretentiousness, or excess technicality, I can think of a thousand bands that fit the bill better than Metallica. I don't even want to touch your paranoid concept of metal.

 

musical masturbation... loud and fast, with no goal other than displaying how fast you can move your fingers or other necessary appendages. i could add another term, though, that is especially coined for metal vocals: musical deepthroating. the majority of those guys conjure images of S&M, truckstop-style, brutal blowjobs... when they grunt or whatever the fuck it is that they do... you know, that noise that sounds like a mix of choking and vomiting?

by the way, my concept of metal isn't paranoid. my opinion on the matter is that metal just fucking sucks. get over it.

 

Your opinion was never mentioned until just now. You described metal as a false "'dark' image" that exists to take advantage of misguided youth.

Shut the fuck up Reagan.

edit: I apologize for the above comment. It was a stressful time.

 

no worries... but reagan? ouch

my post was also made during a somewhat stressful time. but yeah... my general consensus on 'metal' is that it is sorely lacking... lacking depth, that is. by this, i mean that it is (the best way i can describe after being up for 28+ hrs) monosyllabic. there isn't too much going on, and as a result i find it very bland and not interesting at all.

i guess i should elaborate a bit on where i'm coming from, too. i count myself as a fairly talented musician. the stuff i like to play would probably be best described as funky jazz with a definite bluesy flavor. it isn't anything overly technical, but i put a lot of emphasis on timing and dynamics. this is why i referred to metal as musical masturbation... i perceive it as 'wack as fast as you can until it explodes everywhere'. i've never heard too much variation in metal... just chuckchuckachucka WHAAAA. that probably wasn't a very good description. oh well.

anyway, have the best of days. there's no hard feelings on my part

 

Ah well, if you haven't heard too much variation in metal your opinion doesn't mean much I'm afraid

 

after all, opinions ARE like assholes, everybody has one... and if you don't, then you have some pretty sorry luck

 

Don't know about assholes but some opinions have a better foundation..

 

enter sandman, spiritual? No.

James Hetfield's recollection as to why Lars still wets the bed. Yes.

 

this is true. does it validate me in your most holy and omnipotent of views, if i mention that i have listened(attempted) several kinds of this most 'beautiful' of musics? i have even attempted to play with some of these self-avowed 'metal-heads'. you know, the guys that love to play the same three power chords and rip a speedy minor pentatonic, then think they are gods. it was most unenjoyable. and anyway, you must think i was never in high school... isn't that where metallica lives? well... there, and in grandparents' basements the world over. even when i would listen to these guys, the only album i could bear was 'master of puppets'. anyway, my point is... that you are quite incorrect in assuming i have no knowledge of 'metal', and therefore have nothing to form an opinion on. in fact, i rather resent that.

 

I like metal and yet I agree with you that metal lacks depth. Compared with many other forms of music it is mostly simplistic, one-dimensional at a strictly musical level. It's in the meaning and philosophy of metal is where all the depth is, and there is a lot of it when you know where to look for it. I can compare it to looking at modern and abstract art - you might say it is simplistic compared with renaissance art, but the inner meaning is often much deeper. A matter of form vs substance.

 

interesting... i enjoyed the art comparison, also. however, i still feel (in comparison to art) that the vast majority of metal i have heard sounds like it would be painted on wax paper,with a hairbrush, and use condiments as paint. that being said, where should i look for this depth?

 

Well, metal is much more diverse than stuff like Metallica. So where my opinions on hiphop (which I do not enjoy at all) are also probably only scratching the surface of the genre, it seems yours are on metal. No pun intended.

 

for sure. i can see where one could infer that i was using metallica as a face for a whole genre. but, that wasn't my intent. i don't know how it all got elevated to discussion of the genre anyway... my point was simply that metallica sucks donkey dick.

 

I think it was this post, and I don't mean the last two lines because you're of course fully entitled to that opinion.

 

a jazzhole eh? you ever heard of Cynic and their album 'Focus'? if you had and just made that statement, than paint me dumbfounded. to say Metal lacks depth is very ignorant, and i think you even know it

i could say Jazz is a bunch of pretentious assholes who get off on wanking to every scale on the board and their depth just lies in over-the-top technicality.....

but i'd be lying, not only to you, but to myself. i like some Jazz, i haven't dug that deep into it but i have far enough to know what i said is complete BS, just like your statement on Metal.

from what you said about playing with 'metalheads' you seem jaded from a bad experience, not all metalheads are idiots just like not all Metal bands lack depth. i'd bet those same people you played with would be the type of 'metalhead' to say they're 'fans of every type of music except rap and country hur hur hur' and frankly those people aren't metalheads-they're idiots and a mark of shame for those of us that are honest and passionate fans of Heavy Metal.

i bet you if you gave it a chance Metal could change your life, and if not at the very least you might learn to see it's depth.

OT:Metallica are juvenile, there's nothing deeper in their lyrics, it's why they're so damn popular. case closed

 

no, i had never heard that. i did, however, just listen to about four tracks from the album. regrettably, it isn't really my thing.

as for the so-called 'metalheads' i was referencing... they were mostly as you described. i don't think they had ever even considered bending a note... they just played the same scales, occasionally changing the pattern, at the speed of suck. needless to say, that doesn't work too well when you're trying to pull off some afrobeat-ish stuff.

on the depth thing... as much as i don't want to bicker about this thread, i have to disagree. i think, that if metal were to have real truly true depth, it wouldn't be called metal. then again, music is just organised sound, so everything qualifies in that sense. i definitely have more respect for musicians in the metal vein, than the garden-variety 'rapper-singer' types.

also... bear in mind, that i don't listen to jazz exclusively... so when i refer to depth, it doesn't apply to jazz exclusively. i am simply referring to the layering of the sounds, and the density they possess. sometimes, a lot of times, it is nice to not go a million miles an hour in a thousand different directions. sometimes, the million miles and thousand directions is what your brain calls for. for my part, there is a vast array of sounds i would rather hear than metal, in any of it's incarnations. but metal has already changed my life... it just took a telephone pole and a little speed.

this part, though: "i could say Jazz is a bunch of pretentious assholes who get off on wanking to every scale on the board and their depth just lies in over-the-top technicality.....", is pretty funny.

good times.