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U2 is probably the most overrated band in Rock history. They have a lousy rhythm section, the lead guitarist seems to know only one riff, and Bono is a complete bore!

Vocals of that style were already 'standard issue' in hardcore and emo by early 90s. Refused were an influential band, but their vocal style wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Indian Summer, the Swing Kids, Heroin, Mohinder, etc all released albums with vocals in that style earlier in the early 90s. They're pretty common in metalcore from that era too (when it wasn't trying to project a 'tough guy' attitude) - Converge and Rorschach being two examples with albums out before 1995. To be fair, The Refused were contemporaries of Converge (both put out their first releases in '94), but Rorschach first put out an album in 1990 and they weren't innovative when they used those vocals.

Powerviolence is best hardcore.
Youth crew is good stoner music.

Thanks for the information. I haven't heard any of those bands, as far as I remember.



I prefer d-beat/crust (or "kängpunk"/"käng" like we say in Sweden).



I think the early Refused albums/EPs, demos etc. were really boring. Nothing new, right? The first good album (well, EP) is Everlasting, if you ask me.

Yep, I agree.

I concur. I don't like Bono's vocals, and the songs are pretty generic-sounding.

Those are all American bands. I don't like the terms 'emo' or 'screamo' because of how they were redefined by the media in the early 00s, but if we accept a band like Rites of Spring or Moss Icon as ur-emo (basically a specific sound within the first wave of post-hardcore), and bands like Jawbreaker and Texas Is The Reason as the soft, indie, accessible side of late 80s-early 90s emo bands like those ones are the hard, frantic, screamy side of it.

Orchid, Saetia, Pg.99, Planes Mistaken For Stars, Small Brown Bike, Portrait, Reversal of Man, I Wrote Haikus About Cannibalism In Your Yearbook, I Hate Myself, Four Hundred Years, Angel Hair, Envy, I Would Set Myself On Fire For You, Love Lost But Not Forgotten, You & I are some more examples of that genre. A band like Converge is basically where metalcore of that era crossed over into the harder side of emo from that era.



I love me some d-beat, but I think I prefer gloomy American crust punk like His Hero Is Gone and From Ashes Rise to European crust like Skitsystem or Discharge and similar. That said, I like them both sides of the genre quite a bit.

Oroku, One-Eyed God Prophecy, Roads To Shiloh, Shikabane(from Japan, and sometimes closer to PV or grindcore), Appalachian Terror Unit, Iskra(from Cascadia, and increasingly black metal sounding) and Union of Uranus are some other gloomy sounding crust bands.

A few of them overlap between these two styles: Union of Uranus, One-Eyed God Prophecy, Reversal of Man and Orchid could all fit on both lists I gave.

Adele can't sing.

I love Echo and the Bunnymen and The Sisters of Mercy and Talking Heads.

I also love Iron Maiden who I know are considered cheesy, but I do enjoy them.

Mainly the original hardcore punk, but including everything up to mathcore.

Also I'm pretty sure screamo was around long before Refused, but it had a sound more akin to grindcore or black metal (typed this last night, but it didn't go through, funeral has since listed such bands). While I don't listen to it much, I actually like screamo of all sorts.

Now continuing today, I realized the main source of our debate is NOT that glam or grunge saved metal, but that Venom ruined it, obviously it doesn't make sense that glam saved metal if you think Venom improved metal. I listened to the song Black Metal again, and ironically enough it has a standard pop/rock song structure, sure it might have the lamest chorus ever, but it's still a chorus. I've also concluded that it's more a really cruddy hardcore punk song than a metal song, sounds like a cross between Motörhead and Black Flag or something like that. The riffs mainly consist of punk chord progressions, drumming is straight d-beat, the rough vocal style were at the time more common in pink than and the intro scratching is a very punk technique. I'd even go to say that 1st wave black metal is really an offshoot of hardcore punk that just got acceptance in the metal scene because it was the laughing stock of the punks, while metal heads unironically digged all that cheese. I will say Venom actually become alright later in their career once they actually got good playing and could properly play heavy metal, but the only song from their early discography that I don't consider garbage is Countess Bathory, which has an almost glam sound to it.

One more unpopular opinion, I think Disturb's Dan Donnegon is one the best riff makers of the 21st Century.

"Into the Pandemonium" is my least favorite Celtic Frost album, even though it's their most experimental. That said, "One in Their Pride" is kind of a neat track since it dispenses with metal almost entirely and goes for an industrial hip hop sound. It may not be as good as say Skinny Puppy or Ministry, but it is interesting nonetheless.



The original version is also known as "One in Their Pride (Porthole Mix)", but there's also a "Re-entry" mix that I can't seem to find at all on YouTube. It's only present on remastered versions of the album, however.

Well, as we should all know, experimental isn't a synonym for good.

The song is pretty dope the way, nice and funky.

^ "One in Their Pride" has really been growing on me, it gets better each time I listen to it.

On a bit of a different note, this song is really cool as well. It's probably the most "accessible" thing Merzbow has ever done, but it's still hella weird.

Motorhead and Venom both straddle between metal and rock, but Venom come closer than Motorhead. If you think Black Metal defines Venom, you should probably give one of their more progressive songs like At War with Satan a listen. Rating any band on the basis of a single song will lead to a superficial impression - no matter what the impression is. Further, Venom's undeniable lack of musicianship in their early days forced them to innovate in other ways - maybe they lacked melody and virtuosity, but they were faster and more intense than anything before - they a major role in establishing the arms race that lead to all the different varieties of extreme music. Without that, metal would likely have ceased to exist except for as a watered down influence on a few genres of mainstream hard rock.

Metal and punk basically went back and forth with trying to 'out extreme' each other, but a band like Venom never would have fit in with bands like Amebix, even if they had obvious similarities. It took another 10-15 years before the walls between metal fandom and punk fandom crossed over, even if fans within each scene listened to bands from the other.

I've listened to plenty of other early Venom songs other than black metal, yeah they're more metal than the title track, but aside from Countess Bathory I still think they're garbage. I will give that "At War with Satan" is better, again, I find Venom got better as they went along, but early Venom is still to blame. Like with Pantera, the larger issue I haven't isn't with the band themselves, whatever is garbage can just be ignored, but their legacy. IMO metal should be melodic and grand, while punk should be aggressive and direct, which is while I consider early extreme metal to be the worst thing to have happened to metal. You say if it wasn't for extreme metal metal would just be a watered down influence in rock, but I say extreme metal is already the result of watered down metal influence in rock, with watered down hardcore punk thrown in for good measure. It lacks both what I like about punk, and what I like about metal, and then it was set as the stand for "true" metal basically until power metal.

"Further, Venom's undeniable lack of musicianship in their early days forced them to innovate in other ways - maybe they lacked melody and virtuosity, but they were faster and more intense than anything before" As I like to put it, Venom is basically the metal version of Ramones: they both played really fast to cover up their lack of talent.

When contrasting crust punk with 1st wave black metal, I think the distinction of which is punk and which is metal is more based on scene than music, both take heavily from both and have similar aesthetics. Crust punk is just political while black metal is fantasy (satanic fantasy, but still fantasy). Crossover-thrash represented more of bridging the scenes than bridging the musical styles.



His cover of Silent Night is decently accessible.

I think that bluegrass is the most wonderful music in the world.

When I feel sad and hopeless, I listen to the soundtrack from Harlan County War and feel better.

I think that John Prine, Hazel Dickens, and to a lesser extent Iris DeMent have some of the most beautiful voices ever to grace the recording industry.

I use the term, "A voice that could peel paint" as a high compliment.

Wow, that is a a lot of bands that I've never heard of (I know some though). I'll try to listen to them when I have the time. Do you know any "shortcuts" (ehum) to listen to these bands. Feel free to send a PM.

btw. Totalitär rules! This Just Might Be... the Truth:

Can you specify that, please? Her music is extremely boring and I can't pay attention but as far as I've heard her vocals pass the radio/popular-youtube-video standards.