Does Modern Metal Suck?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ส.ค. 2024
- Does modern metal suck? Find out in my reaction to Bradley Hall's look at modern vs classic metal.
Bradley Hall's "Is Metal BETTER Or WORSE Than It Used To Be??" • Is Metal BETTER Or WOR...
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Big respect for raising awareness of my crippling "T" shortage 🙏
I love you man.
Thoughts and prayers 🙏
I thought you Brits may import some Ts from eastern Europe.
Hey man, hope you're doing alright without any T's 😔 it's crazy that in 2023, a whole country can be forced to live without any T's. I'm pulling for you, buddy 🥺
@@FinnMckentyPRMBA 'hou's and prayers*
"...And justice for all needs bass guitar" I have to agree. I just watched Korn's cover of "one" from their MTV Icons performance and the bass really shined through. It sounded sick.
did fieldy changing tunings to play it?
IDK @@subparnaturedocumentary
@Luke5100 It sounded like I just broke your heart, chill out homie the album was still sick.
@Luke5100 Yeah, I get that and I agree. Thanks for clearing that up. lol
@Luke5100Personally, I think the album is great, but if the bass was even audible it might even be my favorite Metallica album. Because it isn't though, it's only 4th place for me.
I love the mixing on those old school death metal records - that solid mid-range production just scratches the itch.
What's interesting also is that even movies had better sound recording and mixing in the late 80's/early 90's.... Mixing in particular is a lost art.... Nowadays sound FX and music will be at a million decibels and then you can barely understand the dialogue.
The older sound was warmer and more authentic. As opposed to being overproduced, over layered and sounding sugary sweet. Metal needs to maintain that element of danger.
The other double edged sword that nobody mentions is there are WAY more bands today than there were in the 80’s, 90’s and 2000’s. Back then there was only maybe a dozen bands that you absolutely HAD to keep up with. Today there are dozens of bands a month with releases, it seems.
That’s great, there has never been so much great music to listen to. But at the same time it’s really hard to get invested in and attached to so many of them. I have so many full albums that I’ve only listened to once or twice.
And also most of the bands today are just copycats of some other band.
@@NotHere2SellCookiesThere’s like 50 big metalcore/djent bands atm that sounds exactly the same. Overproduced, compressed to hell, breakdowns and whiny clean vocals in the chorus. It’s a pain in the ass finding unique new artists nowadays, they’re out there, just buried under alot of mediocrity.
Modern metal is way overproduced, but it is also very difficult logistically to record a band live off the floor unless you're in a pro studio with a big budget, and even then the band has to be insanely tight and well-rehearsed (even more so compared to the old days) to compete with the precision and clarity that people expect to hear from metal now. Recording to a click is necessary for 99% of bands.
Not necessary, just a lot easier
One thing you can also do is record the drummer to a click and keep it as unquantized as possible. Then just use the transients of the drum recordings as the "grid." So if the drums start to drag a certain way, you can edit guitar or bass around that. Instead of always defaulting to the DAW's grid.
It's also super generic.
Cookie Monster singer✅️
Constant double bass✅️
Borderline amelodic guitars✅️
Congrats. You have a modern Metal band.
You don't need lots of money to hire a small independent studio. My band recorded a four track EP on a budget of less than $1000. We used the studios amazing amps, all with cab mics. We also recorded without a click and played together in one take.
The options are there for any band if the will is there.
@@stevec6427 $1000 is a lot of money
“Mix bad, older music not good” is the equivalent of “graphics bad, older game not good”
Or when people complain about older movies that have more dated pre-CGI special effects. They can't appreciate what the artists had to work with, they just dismiss it.
@@robwalsh9843LOTR is 20 years old and the CGI in that is still better than most movies coming out today.
i think you are confused in your analogy. music is about how it sounds, and a bad mix ruins the sound, and therefore ruins the song. a game is about how the rules work, not what it looks like. people have been playing chess with pebbles and pennies or just their memory for centuries, it's not about what the board or pieces look like. but a painting is about what it looks like, and if someone uses crappy materials, the painting can be ruined not matter how good the concept.
@@perfectallycromulent it’s not about that exactly tho. It’s about people over looking and not giving something old a chance because to some people it’s not “as good” as the new stuff simply cause it’s not modern with the times. An example being old analog recording vs digital, old game with with less sophisticated Tec and graphics being played on a 13 inch CRTV vs similar type game on a ps5 and 65 inch 4K UHD TV.
Point being, just because somethings quality doesn’t hold up to modern standards doesn’t mean it’s bad it just means you may have to take a bigger step back yo appreciate the art if that makes sense.
I guess what I was thinking was how many comments on an old game do you see that say “wow I wish they world remaster this!!” Like, why? What’s wrong with the original? Most people just want a boost in graphics and that would make the game “good/ playable” again to them rather than continuing to take it for what it’s worth and enjoy it for being a product of its time.
My main problem with modern metal is that it's too guitar/breakdown oriented and there just isn't enough emphasis on melody and good refrains. No matter how extreme, oldschool bands like Maiden, Metallica, Slayer, Deicide etc all relied on memorable chorus lines which made their best songs instant classics and easy to sing along to. Apparently today it's all about the heaviness and aggression of guitars, vocals are not that relevant anymore.
I mostly agree but current deathcore is an exception. If you look at Lorna Shore and Slaughter to Prevail, among others, the vocal performance is actual the emphasis.
@@crazydud3380OP was talking about metal, not deathcore
@@icankillbugs Deathcore is a subgenre of modern metal. It is a fusion genre of hardcore punk and death metal. If we decide that fusion genres don't count, then even thrash must be thrown out, as that was derived from a fusion of hardcore punk and NWOBHM.
Listen to Suffocation. Winding song structures, breakdowns, and without many hooks way back in 1991, with Scott Burns producing.
I think genre is very important to consider. Something that's meant to be "extreme" and "brutal" (like brutal death metal) has never needed those things, even back then.
@@Sergio-nb4hj never said I particularly love Suffocation anyway
What was modern becomes classic over time, some people become stuck in time because it reminds themnof their youth. Load of great music out there in many different genres, just enjoy it and listen to whatever makes you happy
When it comes to the question "what can be done in Rock that hasn't been alredy done", really like what Farvann has to say. He compared it to Jazz, that gnere has been done to death for far longer than Rock has been around, but there are still a lot of People Who like it, i'd be cool with it, if that happens with Rock too.
I feel like jazz has lasted longer because it incorporates a way wider variety of instruments, any one of which can take a lead roll. Rock is getting tired much quicker because it has always been guitar centric.
Plus jazz doesnt have as many nerds attached to it.
@@ChristopherJames1993 I dont know what sort of Jazz you listen to, but Jazz people are like prog nerds on crack. Has a jazz song EVER been played without the DJ rattling off a comprehnsive history of every player on the recording? And any time an aquaintance "discovers" Coltrane, outdated head wear, and $15 latte's... dont even get me started.
I think the reason mixing quality matters so much to us modern metal fans is because as you said in another video, modern metal is essentially like EDM. We want something to sound so heavy that it activates a fuckton of chemicals in our brain. If the mix isn't good enough, it just misses the opportunity to provide us with that punch.
@@Luke5100To me, it's pre-80's stuff that sounds very thin... Once the 80's came around, guitar sounds became a lot "fuller".
@@ryanjacobson2508I can get behind that for the best albums of the 80s, at least. Heard the original Raining Blood earlier this week, and it is still hits as hard as it ever did.
very well said
I think a lot of this also has to do with the way the music is listened to. When I was young, music was mixed so it would sound good on a cassette tape played in a car stereo with no sub, no amp and just a couple of 6x9 speakers on the back deck. The factory stereo in my 2008 Honda is better than a top of the line custom, aftermarket stereo one would pay significant money for back in the 80s (And the music is now digital, so no tape hiss or warble).
Weird, I think a lot of modern metal doesn't sound heavy because of the mix, everything is so static, we'll trimmed, clinically clean with no balls in sight.
I love the imperfections on older records, its sometimes create a unique distinctive sound to the record. Thats why modern metal sound the same to many people, the overproduce and same technique. The annoying thing about old recording is the sound is so low thay i have to turn the volume up, and if the next song on the shuffled is modern loud one, good luck, especially if you listen to headphones
LOL, you go from a classic metal song straight to modern deathcore, it's like "Oh well, hearing is overrated, anyway!" 😂
Another thing I dislike about modern metal bands is that no one seems to be striving to capture a unique sound signature anymore. Used to be that you could identify a band almost immediately by their sound and unique tones and phrasing without even hearing the vocals. Bands like Van Halen and Pantera had such unique sounds that almost no one else sounded quite like them. Rush is another one.
Rush weren't metal so they don't count on this. But it's true that they had their signature sound (even when they stopped playing prog rock in the 80s)
when you heard fear factory or type o negative you knew right away
@@subparnaturedocumentary Both excellent examples.
@@Luke5100 in the 80s they tuned down their prog influences with albums like Grace Under Pressure or Hold Your Fire. Obviously they'd return to that sound for most of their career but it's not like they always did prog
@@elrincondelocutre9884 you could identify rush simply by the bass tone alone
Me and a lot of people I personally know have a deep love for classic and modern metal. Honestly I find it ignorant when someone completely trashes either era to no end. In fact I think the best groups and artists pull from both eras. As an amateur musician who's about to be 27 I love the old and new. We need more harmonious interactions between the older generations and the new ones
I’m on board with you. I got into metal in the early 80s and still enjoy the old stuff but just as much love modern metal.
Metal went bye bye after the creation of Korn. They suck balls.
"Still trapped in the UK's tea shortage" ever since we dumped it into the Boston harbor in 1775😎
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MURICA . . . FUCK YEAH!
as someone who produces records mixes and masters their own music I fully agree with you about not letting an imperfect mix ruin your appreciation of a song
True, but then there's AJFA vs. Black album as a counter.
Whether you like old or new stuff, there is also one thing to consider: how many of the contemporary bands will still be there in 10-20 years?
Take any form of art: for every Michelangelo or Raffaello, there were 10 copycats, which tried to imitate their styles because they were popular, but today are completely forgotten.
The only difference is that today spreading your creations is far easier, and this is a double edged sword: on one hand there are far more "copycats", on the other it is also easier to find diamonds in the rough.
@Luke5100 my bad: I didn't mean that a band should be long lived but that should be able to make memorable songs
Gojira strikes a timeless balance. Ill never stop listening to them. Granted, they are influenced by Metallica, Sepultura, Morbid Angel etc. Nice to see them influencing the newer bands though.
Gojira is possibly one of the crappiest bands I've ever heard tbh
@@icankillbugs ok
@@icankillbugstruth, they’re doodoo
I've never seen people get so upset about a band, Gojira is great! Let the people enjoy!
I saw a girl in a Nirvana shirt when buying groceries earlier today, and for the first time I thought about asking her to name three songs.
I blame Finn for this.
“It’s not like a producer will put a gun to your head”- I just knew a pic of Phil Spector was going to fly up on the screen.
This channel is always really good. Thanks again for facilitating interesting and topical discussions on heavy music. Thoughts:
In the 80's, being a "rebel" (going against the cultural grain) meant being a narcissistic, selfish, anarchistic, nihilistic, "rock star". That was the counter cultural metal/punk position of the times, and a rebellion against their parent's generation's values. The reason that doesn't really jive today, is because, in the instagram era we live in... the AVERAGE person IS all of those things... the status quo right now IS indulgent egotism, and directionless meandering through life, to an unprecedented degree. A random 14 year old girl nowadays could give Niki Sixx a run for his money, in terms of belligerent partying. That's where we're at. So, the "rebel" against the status quo (today) is a different animal really... it's being learned, goal oriented, down to earth, focused, and not at all self destructive (as a counterpoint). IMO this is why the rockstar persona, as it was, cannot really exist comfortably in 2023. What was "badass" in 1986, is basically how a college girl acts on any given Saturday night of her life. "YOLO" "WE OWN THE WORLD BITCH" is likely exactly what RATT or POISON were thinking mid 1980s, funny enough. If you look at all the modern guitar gurus and young shred gods, sitting in their home studio, ripping, they have a whole other vibe. I am NOT CERTAIN it's for the betterment of rock music that the current generation is kind of overproducing, making videos sitting in a chair all day with no real "live energy", kinda avoiding any real "danger" in their music or even performance... but, it is what it is atm. There's an academic nature to modern metal that, to me, can kinda kill the "attitude" of metal, for lack of a better term. However, I believe you don't have to be like those old-school guys to be interesting... but, something was perhaps lost from the "persona" when the pendulum swung hard the other way in early 2000s. To the point in the video, maybe the more alarming thing we all see, is how there is NO real torch to be passed in terms of "legendary" characters in the scene. At least not on he level of like a Halford, Dimebag, or Mustaine and company.
Also, it may very well be just a crazy over-saturation problem happening in all media. There's just... so much stuff. People don't really "follow" artist's work so closely now (except maybe other musicians) . Like reading liner notes in a CD booklet is an impossible act to consider for the newer generation. Last thought here is...I think all the new bands are making music for other bands... and not at all a general audience...and that is the root of the issue. It has to do with social media, I'm sure, but the kind of "vacuum" and separation/distance that bands enjoyed from one another in decades past is what maybe allowed for more creativity and originality. Now, we are hyper aware of what everybody is doing and thinking at every moment. Can't be good for finding a unique voice. You can't sit with your own thoughts long enough without interruption.
Unearths album in the eyes of fire was one of the last big metalcore albums recorded without a click track. It had that subtle level of human imperfection and feel in it. Still holds up.
And that album still fuckin owns!!!
Man, Focus was so ahead of its time. I remember hearing Uroboric Forms on the At Death's Door II compilation by Roadrunner. That compilation, itself, was great (Death, Fear Factory, Suffocation, Cynic). I spent a weekend driving all over southern California looking for that Cynic album. I drove over 100 miles, visiting 8 different music stores. Finally found it on audio cassette at the Tower Records in the Anti-Mall in Costa Mesa. Wore the tape out within a year it got played so much. Saw them open for Cannibal Corpse. I felt bad for them. They were not meant for that crowd. I'm glad they got back together in an age that could fully appreciate them. I've seen them 5 other times now. They're ability to re-invent themselves while still remaining undeniably Cynic is awesome.
RIP Sean and RIP Sean.
Finn, you should do a video on them. They're long-lasting impact is criminally under-documented.
comps were the go to back in 90s man thats for sure
I think the thing I liked about production before it was all so perfect,was the variety.
You’d get so many different sounds .even the same bands would sound completely different each album purely because of the mix
Korn and Blink 182 used the same Mesa Rectifiers. Blink used the dual and Korn used the triple.
There has never been a better time to be a metalhead.
In terms of the touring scene, that may be right. In terms of general availability of good music, that will ALWAYS be right, because you can always go back to listen to the classics whether or not there are a lot of good modern bands at any given time. No good album releases from your favorite niche micro genre of metal? Go back and listen to the earlier albums; problem solved! Essentially, it will always be the "best" time to be a headbanger in terms of availability in music; the only thing that changes is the touring scene, and yeah, right now, it's pretty fire.
Metal as a genre has NEVER been so diverse and varied and inspiring as it is today.
Couldn't agree more homie. I completely agree.
Have you ever heard the term "Golden Era of rock music"? But for you weirdos, what's "inspiring" is modern "metal".
Let's be fucking glad that metal is still around. Five to ten years from now, metal may evolve or return to its roots. Trends come & go. What stays with us is what moves us.
Lol. Good joke
Inspiring today?
Irony because I think more people (relatively speaking) listen to metal in the 90s, 2000s as opposed to today.
Evidence? Less airtime or radio play for metal music in mainstream media platform presently. So nope.
Breakdowns have been so overdone that I have come to hate them (and as a result make an effort to avoid genres that have them). It's a trend I expected to die a long time ago (and to my surprise it hasn't). If Lorna Shore cut out their boring breakdowns, they would be an awesome band (rather than just a pretty good band). Solos are not a must for me, but highly appreciated and a great solo can be the climax of the song. That's why modern bands that still can shred and do it well (like First Fragment and Inferi) resonate well with me.
Maybe if they put breakdowns at the beginning of the song, must sound fckn great? Haha
Wait did you comment on the wrong video? The title of this video infers it's talking about metal but then you bring up Lorna Shore 🤔
Metal just sounds great recorded on old technology. I can't say if it's "better" or "worse", but as a matter of personal preference, I LOVE it. I can definitely enjoy an album recorded on a Tascam cassette portastudio. There's something about it that just sounds awesome.
Same. And fortunately there is some”modern” metal that is like that. I love trivium’s earliest demo and As I lay Dying’s earliest stuff and they sound like absolute ass.
@@maverick4255neither of the bands you mentioned are metal though
@@icankillbugsand what they're? Reggae?
I listen to way more modern metal these days then classic metal. There are plenty of cool things going on in the modern metal scene. Really enjoying the new Orbit Culture album that dropped today.
" the mixes are bad!"
Me *listening to 80's-90's punk... oh
Hahaha good call but that's what made that era so special in its own rite
I'm not really into metal, but I love the new metalcore album by Kingdom of Giants called Passenger. I also love everything Alcest puts out and he is seen as black metal.
100% agree late 90's / early 00s had the best mixes, the right balance of using techology but still keeping a natural and dynamic sound
I love all metal. I just want loud drums and mean guitar riffs and songs that make me want to get up and move/break shit. As for the whole debate over classic vs. modern mixing and production, I think there's strengths and weaknesses to both that Bradley highlights well. Classic production has that organic feel. Things are imperfect and there's a grit on everything and it just feels very natural and very live. I think this is why vinyl and cassette have made a comeback too. There's something about record/tape hiss that just makes stuff feel like home. But I don't always want that. Modern styles demand a more clean, more quantized sound. I can't imagine a band like Abnormality or Archspire drowned in hiss and sounding slightly muddy. Classic production would hide all the complexities and cool little tricks in those bands' sound
I love classic metal. I love modern metal. Im a better person for it. I also collect horror VHS so production quality doesnt matter much to me.
I feel like there's no much in dynamics with modern metal. There seems to be a lot of stuff that just has the exact same sound to it. A sound that doesn't offer much dynamics. A lot of what I've heard is on one side of the extreme. Guitars that are tinny and sterile sounding, vocals that are either high pitched or low growling and just a consistent drum blast beat.
Song writing just was so much better back then IMO. It took you on journeys and seemingly the lyrics just had more to them (maybe that's because you can actually hear the vocalist lol).
Really good video, very true overall. Too many bands these days, everything sounds Linkin Park perfect, not as many unique and catchy songs.
The Violent Sleep of Reason is one of the most underrated albums of all time, and each track was recorded in 1 take, full studio, all instruments on 1 track, like a live album. Still sounds clean. Phenomenal album
The mix is almost as important to me as the music. I’m not saying I like overproduced because it’s not that. I don’t like that. I just like a really good sounding mix. Part of that is probably due to my dad (RIP) was a career audio engineer. The mix doesn’t have to be exceptional for me to enjoy an album but it does need to surpass a certain standard otherwise I’m going to write the album off entirely (unfortunately) - also yes, most of these modern metal bands coming out over the last few years do suck. For reference on what I like, dark tranquillity is my favorite band. Probably followed by Insomnium.
One band that comes to mind that blew me away when i first heard them and i thought to myself there one of the first bands that were able to capture the old production of the late 80s maybe early 90s was Powertrip when it came to thrash.
When it comes to old mixes I think it depends if you have some kind of nostalgia for those songs. If yes - the bad mixes wont matter to you, but if you'll try to listen to something old for the first time and hear the bad quality - It's gonna ruin the experience for you. It's like with games. If you played I don't know - Morrowind when it came out, you will still be able to enjoy it but if you tried to play it now for the first time? Well, I think you're not going to have great time with it.
Not always. I wasn't even born when Reign in Blood came out and while I don't like that album I do like the mix. Same with Individual Thought Patterns. For some reason that bass guitar overruling basically everything in the mix sometimes gives it a lot of character.
There will always be people who want to go to the source of their interests. But lots if people just go off of their first impressions.
I was listening to slipknot and deftones when I got into bands like carcass and napalm. My first impression was "woah, this sounds rough" but I was interested enough in the songs to keep listening.
@@Iyashikei-t4uthose mixes were seen as polished back then lol. Thats how exaggerated mixing in metal has become 😂. If you happen to wanna listen to dark lo fi metal checkout Carcass' Reek of putrefaction and Napalm Death's Scum LP
I played Morrowind for the first time in 2019. Loved it, my favorite TES by far.
I think late 90s death metal has the best production (Gorguts, Cannibal Corpse, etc.) it’s a little more polished than the stuff from like 90-93 but not overproduced bubble bath clean we have today
Don't mind me. I'm just wondering if late 90s-Early 2000s Nu Metal is now considered classic or is still modern.
General rule is anything 25 years or older can be considered a classic.
It’s kinda funny thinking about it now, but the more the “core” genres started taking over the scene more I ended up drifting back into crust punk and stuff like that. I can’t help it, I like my metal nasty and aggressive and most modern metal just doesn’t do it for me.
90’s and 2000’s production and mixing undefeated, most criminally underrated producer imo is ZEUSS. His records from that era sound perfect to my ear.
For those unaware, there is a such thing called ...And Justice For Jason on TH-cam and Spotify that has Jason's bass turned up in the mix on the AJFA album.
The thing I like about modern metal is that there is so much more diversity and variety. Like in the 80s, it was a lot more focused on just a small handful of classic bands and albums, and traditional metal and thrash metal were basically the only genres around that weren't in their infancy. Compare that to today where metal has developed significantly more and there are countless more genres and bands, which just leads to so much more variety and it's just significantly more interesting overall in my opinion.
whoever says that guitar solos are replaced by breakdowns is so off. Like every metal band in the game plays solos except for metalcore bands. All the popular metal bands right now (Mastodon, Behemoth etc.) play solos. I dont get that point at all.
But those are legacy bands from early 00's. All popular new bands (in rock that means
There was a lot of tape editing, even on orchestral recordings. Just not to a laser precision like today.
The fact that we even have the electoral college is bad enough, but adding insult to injury is that most states have decided that delegates should not be proportional. If we're going to have the electoral college, then all states' delegates should be proportionate to the votes in that state. In either case though, the electoral college should be abolished.
Agreed about Altars of Madness. You drive down the street blasting that album in 2024 it still turns heads. It's not just incredible production for 1989, its just great production full stop.
Altars of Madness is one of the all time best death metal albums. I like Blessed the most, as far as Morbid Angel goes, but Altars is incredible too. Maze of Torment!
Also, I love that he mentioned Poppy! I’m still not down with Sleep Token, though.
Also the latest underoath album isn’t completely quantized and sample replaced, there’s audible imperfections but it sound amazing
What does that have to do with metal?
shoutout to the songster mention in chat at 4:44! love that site
I used to like Periphery,and Spiritbox is an exception to the rule for me. But honestly once Djent became rampant in metal and kind of “the sound” for modern metal and the new releases I stopped exploring metal beyond the 7-8 bands and few extra songs I already liked. If there is another true innovation that comes along I’ll check it out,but for the most part I’ll stick to the limited metal I already listen to.
Same here, I hate djent. I wanna listen to songs, not riff collections. Additionally, focusing mainly on heaviness is stupid. Tuning down veeery low or those 9-string guitars are absurd as well, somehow many 80s bands wrote heavy stuff on 6-string guitars tuned to E standard.
I am going to apply this to pop punk. I think pop punk started off as to raw in its production and then it got really polished to the point where by the time the second simple plan album came out the genre got mega overproduced. But then when TWY came out I think that’s when pop punk production got perfected all leading up to life’s not out to get you by neck deep which is the single best produced pop punk album ever made. Jeremy killed it on that album.
Love that album! Andrew Wade engineered , mixed and produced it along with Jeremy.
Love Andrew he is amazing at his job. Besides maybe jerry on the three blink albums he did no one has ever made a pop punk album sound better then those 2 on that album
The problem with modern metal is the *lack* of solos. Solos is the reason metal became big in the first place.
I think mixes are very important depending on the band/album/song. For instance I loved PJ's Ten and Green Day's Dookie but since it was their first major studio albums they now sound way too polished like there's a Instagram filter on them. Also, listening to major song's demos vs the studio album are usually world's apart. Like occasionally streaming will throw in some goofy remixed version of a great song and it's like, yeah, no.
Sean Reinert and Paul Masvidal were 19/20 for Death's "Human" record. For Cynic's album "Focus" in 1993 recorded the album live in the studio with Scott Burns they didn't use any "extras" mainly because they couldn't afford it and Morrisound was busy in those days. For Deicide's "Legion" in 1992 it was recorded in the same way. Same producer too. You don't think producers matter? The best in the business were Bill Metoyer on the west coast and Scott Burns in Florida. Bill Metoyer made ever band from Slayer, to Sacred Reich to Sadus sound good from his production bench. Burns did basically everything from Whiplash to Exhorder to Deicide to Death to Obituary. Producers matter.
iMO, production quality is so digitalized and musicians are at such a high level of skill, that it all sounds basically the same to me. I personally think production quality of the 2000s to 2010s.
I would trade all "breakdowns" for solos anyway. To me, the mind trip of a good solo is one of the big reasons I am here. A lot of personality comes out in the solo. It's inspiring.
why not both tho
@@aaron.durci.4444Using breakdowns in music generally is a big mystery to me.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’ll take a generic pentatonic solo over a breakdown any day. One of my favorite aspects of metal is the drive and aggression so to me breakdowns are super annoying because it brings the momentum to a crawl. Like the musical equivalent of being stuck in traffic.
@6maniac6metal6 excellent visual, I can see myself stuck on an on-ramp, blazing sun and just praying for a hole to break andni can escape. The solo is the hole and the jam is the breakdown. 47 M, ny
@@vonNachtmahrthey sound cool bro. Mystery solved
Back in the '90s you could tell a band just by their guitar tone. Obituary, Fear Factory, Pantera, Type O Negative all had their own sound and tone.
Also, part of the appeal of 80s/90s metal, for me, was that it was a little "naive", played by people who didn't really know what they were doing. The technical talent of modern players has kinda destroyed that
Nowadays they all sound the same. I dont know how these kids can tell the diference
For me mixing can’t ruin my enjoyment of a song but there’s something really special about a great mix (see Black Album or Zeppelin IV)
I like both old stuff and new stuff. I'm 52 so grew up with the old stuff
A high school friend of mine Jason Gobel was one of the guitar players in Cynic when they recorded their first album. He is still recording today, great player.
Metal was far more innovative between between 1985 to 2005 than from 2005 until now (2024). So many bands were exploring different levels of heaviness, tempos, aggression and melodies. Modern metal seems stale and uninnovate, caring more about image or fitting the template.
I think my issue is that when I start listening to a 7 minute metal song, the music generally is not worth being 7 minutes. If I have to default to paying attention to the mix quality, I probably should just stop listening.
The hell do you listen to where 7 minutes seems long and boring? 8 second grindcore tunes?
@@icankillbugsNo you misunderstand. I can listen to a 15 minute film score cue just fine if the music is eloquent, well written, and is actually moving somewhere. I find a lot of modern (American) music isn't arranged well and is repetitive. I don't need to hear most songs at a minute and a half because I know where it's going to go. They aren't "WORTH" being 7 minutes.
In terms of short music: Blink 182's Dude Ranch and the score for American Beauty by Thomas Newman have pieces that are one or two minutes and they're solid.
@@Luke5100100%
The GOOD mixes from the 90s were amazing. Albums like Deicide Deicide were really hindered, though. I just can't crank that one loud enough to enjoy in my truck, on my ipod, or my home stereo to get the full effect. Sounds like someone is listening to it down the block. A shame as it has some of the catchiest songwriting in death metal. I remember how excited everyone was at the production on Legion, which had a good sound, but to me the songwriting wasn't quite there. And again I remember when Hypocrisy Osculum Obscenum came out, everyone was freaking out about just how good the recording was. I remember driving around town playing that one in the car and it was thumping the seats and rattling the mirrors. My friend had an old Corvair and we had three guys in the front bucketseat headbanging and disloged the entire fixture. Good times, Wish we could have rocked Deicide Deicide that hard.
i dont think people are intentionally "focussing" on the bad mix, theyre saying the song doesnt sound good to them, and the mix is the culprit
Cause we drink so much of it, theres no T left to speak with.
very true about " musicianship " , many could surpass what Eddie Van Halen could do , but how many can write and or come up with a good riff like Malcom Young could ?
Cynic Focus tempo drift is glorious. You can hear 19yo kids getting excited for certain parts all playing them faster. You can feel it.
Modern metal is in an amazing spot and is some of the most fun I've had in music in a long time. So much Incantation, Entombed, and Morbid Angel worship out there that's doing it right and doing it justice. Plus all the great core bands that dabble in the metal world. Love it 🤘
"great" "core" lol
I think modern production is a big part of it. Everyone is using the same drum samples and same plugins. Therefore there is no “unique sound” like the classic bands had. Instead, everyone sounds the same and on a grid. Those old Pantera, Van Halen and Metallica records sound like people in a room playing their instruments.
Ice Nine Kills new record has some of the most musical and shred solos I’ve heard in a modern metalcore type album that actually work. Last records that really made them work with early trivium and all that remains.
The mix issue is a yes and a no for me. Songs should be more important, but there are times when music just isn't fun because of how it sounds. A lot of metal records are simply so loud and compressed that no matter how good the songs are, I get exhausted listening to them. A solid hour of nothing but loud, loud, loud, without any dynamics is absolutely enough to make me turn off good songs.
I'm an old guy too but I %100 agree with you about older recording quality, I think it made each album more unique.
I'm older than both of you guys so when it comes to the production of classic metal, I don't find it all that bad. In fact I'm old enough to remember when most bands were defined by their live albums (which always had the worst production). Frampton Comes Alive, Kiss Alive, Queen Live Killers, Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains The Same ... all of these are my favorite albums of these respective bands and its because the production is kinda crap, but its REAL. No overdubs, no edited in orchestras or other stuff, just the real band playing the music live. Modern metal bands don't even give you a real live show when they play live anymore (watch live videos from some of these bands like Animals as Leaders ... you can hear keyboards in the mix but I don't see no keyboard player).
21:34 Agreed. I thought Colin Richardson did an INCREDIBLE job on the old Carcass stuff (including 2011's Surgical Steel). And Morrisound Studios in Tampa really perfected the "kick triggering" that's essentially where we are today. But even then, those triggered kicks were perfectly in time with what the drummer was doing - which may or may NOT have been recorded to a click. At the time, those techniques *were* ground-breaking. Please tell me what was wrong with "Altars of Madness"? Incredible album.
TO ME WHICH EVER Time ERA YOUR BORN INTO THAT'S MOST LIKELY THE MUSIC YOU PREFER. IM AN OLD SCHOOL METAL GUY I LIKE YO HEAR THE BANDS PLAY THERE INSTRUMENTS NOT LIKE PLAYING THROUGH COMPUTERS TAKES THE FEELING OUT OF IT BUT I DO STILL LISTEN TO MODERN METAL IT JUST LACKS FEELING ALSO OLD SCHOOL METAL YOU HEARD A BAND YOU KNEW WHO IT WAS BY THE SOUND AND VOCALS UK DRILLERS 6.6
I thought about it like 20 or more years ago when there was some artist being sued for some copyright shit or other saying his riff sounded like some other guys riff. Thinking to myself "Can you actually write a riff these days that sound like no other riff thats ever been written?", and that was many years ago... it's even harder now.
Metal has some of the most talented musicians but some of the worst songwriters.
I'm firmly in the camp that 90s rock/metal production is objectively superior to modern rock/metal production. The power and energy unique to that era is completely lacking in this new overly produced type of sound.
I’ve been kicked out of like 5 bands for not wanting to sound like everyone else lol Apparently I was the one who was too rigid for wanting is to have our own sound. I took it as “we cant do that because we only know how to sound like other people”.
I largely reject the last criticism with a single name... Ian Fraser Kilmister.
I prefer classic metal to modern metal.
I like the raw and aggressive sound of classic metal. Also, the riffs are more interesting and recognizable.
Modern metal bands sound almost all the same. They focus too much on being as technical as possible.
I really don't get why Death's Human and Morbid Angel's Altars of Madness are listed in the "horrible mix" category, they both still hold up.
Totally agree. Musicians are better but songwriting....ehhh?
Btw, I had a tascam 4trk to start with. Actually I used two boom boxes and a 2 chn mixer before that. Very old school.
10:20 what's left? Rock music scoring a spoken word recital of Shakespeare or the Canterbury Tales, or some other ancient texts. You know, some full 7 hour marathon of a thing.
Reason Ronnie Radke can't be the modern Rockstar is the same reason nobody can be the modern rockstar. The internet.
We live in an era where no musician has any sort of mystique, because all their info is publicly available and their behaviour is broadcast across social media 24/7. Back in the day, Ronnie Radke's shitty rap album would have been an urban legend he'd just shoot down at interviews, now the whole internet can clown on him for it. Nobody talked shit about Metallica the way they do now until that one documentary dropped, but Ronnie's whole career has been that from start to present.
In reality Ronnie Radke is actually very similar to a lot of the archetypical Rockstars but unlike them, Ronnie never had a period where all the clown shit wasn't broadcast to the world.
A breakdown is basically a solo without a solo...
I feel the same about solo's as I do about breakdowns. If it makes sense for the song then add one, but when it feels like its been put in in an obligatory manor, it shows and is terrible.
Watching now. Just want to comment before I forget on the mix. I find this perplexing as well. I also find it perplexing because we listened to these albums and tapes on completely different equipment. I don't have my old tape decks, record players and speakers so I can't summon up a comparison now, but I know when I listen to Ride the Lightning on my computer through my mono speaker (which sounds terrible, isn't in stereo but still costs an arm and a leg) it sounds different than how it did when I used to listen on tape with two speakers. Yes the tone was harsher, but that was the point, and I don't really understand the focus a lot of current critics place on early metal having a harsh tone (it was meant to be abrasive). I don't think there is anything wrong with the new preferences, but I do wish people were more charitable towards the past and understand they are examining it from a vantage point where the technology is so different they may actually be missing something
As a wannabe music producer I do appreciate a good mix and I won’t listen to music if the mix is shockingly bad to the point where the instruments are inaudible and you can’t tell what is going on.
14:29 :"...and I do thing we have lost something..." Yeah, a bugger.
love you !
You absolutely can punch in on tape, edit tape, they use to cut tape but back then when u punched in u lost the other take when u punched in on the same take if you wanted to save the old take you would have to record in another track. People talk crap about the mix and sounds on albums 40 years ago partly because the era of perfect music when everything it gridded, engineers will sit there for days moving every drum hit every guitar & bass notes vocals right on the beat, checking that every note is from everything is in tune, finding what samples to use on the drums, so when people listen to albums that weren’t fixed they always compare to perfect albums. Also don’t forget if u didn’t have a ton of money to record back in the day the album would reflect that if you had 14 days in the studio you had x days for guitar, x for drums, x for vocals so you didn’t have time to do 100 takes of every song you have to move on even if something isn’t perfect and if u spent too much time on one thing then something else would have to be rushed loosing quality. Nowadays u can legit build a home studio for a couple grand and make amazing quality songs. You don’t even need to go that far you could even just have a computer, good mic pre amp, few good mics, make a booth to record guitar’s & vocals (I am a firm believer in using live amps if u wanna know why I will post below my thoughts) and then just use a studio to record the drums. It’s so cheap to record now even studios are cheap and with all that said everyone can make music that sounds perfect because it’s so cheap so everyone is use to music sounding perfect but the problem is people that aren’t good musicians can make music that is perfect sounding but have no talent or lack of so we have more music out now then ever most is tasteless.
As far as using live amps go forr me I have a very good ear & I’m a tone chaser so dynamics are important to me a live amp reacts to every little nuance like the angle u hold a pick how hard or soft u dig into the strings just a slight difference makes a big difference you get a different energy u really feel it and with a plug in guitar sound u loose that energy & feel, I will play much harder or softer because it doesn’t react like a live amp u need change up how u play a bit and if u want to let a note ring out with some feedback to make the note morph u really can’t do it the same, everything meshes together a lot more like when u play a chord each note making the chord doesn’t stand out like a live amp does. This is just about plug-ins I’m not talking about a modeler like a kemper I’ve never used them but could be good for recording idk. I still do use plug-ins for recording though but what I do is record a direct in signal when recording a live amp and I will find a plug-in tone that sounds great blended in with the live amp which does work very well. People like to argue with me about plug-ins until they have me listen to a bunch of songs and I am able to point out which used plug ins and which used live amps.
One of the best examples of organic and high-level mixing was Korn’s Untouchables. It sounds massive, tight, and refined, yet organic and groovy. Here to Stay is one of the better metal riffs and songs of all-time in my opinion
The examples of production quality that Bradley cites are perhaps not the best, but there's no question that there are a lot of badly produced albums in the early days of metal that, quite frankly, make the albums sound much worse than the actual song writing and performance. Max recently re-released early Sep albums, and while anyone can question the motive, I don't think anyone can really question that those albums, production-wise, sounded like ass until Beneath the Remains came out. This is definitely an improvement in the scene (although strange outliers of poor production do still exist).
Listening to Schizophrenia was physically painful. Something about the high frequncies just hits hard in all the wrong spots.
Probably the worst production for an album I have ever heard, and I've listened to a lot of 80s Metal Demos and 90s Black Metal bands that did the whole "recorded at a cottage in the mountains without plumbing and electricty" kind of production style...
Back in the 90s I was in fights for being into the wrong type of punk ... and we all fighted the metal and hard-core kids it's just odd how tribal we used to be
"What is there left to do?"
Not to pat myself on the back, but I predicted this in the 00s with the new wave of American metal. A lot of bands in that period started coming out that had the musicality of older bands, but the heaviness and production value of modern bands at that time, it was a peak and it seems like metal hasn't really done much since then.
Also, skilled players aren't as impressive as they used to be because they're everywhere now. Back in the day you had to kind of network, really listen to music, have a good ear, find viable sources, etc. to be good, but now with the internet at your tips you kind of have to be just lazy and dumb to not get good. All you have to do is youtube stuff and practice for a few hours a day.
Im convinced the concept of musical genre is all media hype. Seriously, the difference between many metal styles is so tiny, that only mega fans can tell the difference, and they get realllly mad if you cant tell lol