(Sub)Genres: Segregating, Separating, and Desecrating.

Why is it that every time a band comes out and it sounds slightly different, that suddenly we have to put a label on it and start a sub-genre. Aren’t there enough genres out there. We have been doing it since the beginning of music but started getting stupid about it in the 80’s . There was already Rock, and then Hard Rock and Punk Rock then Heavy Metal. Then something happened in Metal, someone played faster or they played harder so we had to come up with a different category. We created Speed Metal, Thrash Metal, Death Metal, Industrial and in the past few years Nu-Metal. Why can’t it all just be metal. Soon we will need the Dewey decimal system (some are saying to themselves “What the hell is that and how could it possibly help?!?”) to tag our songs in our Media players.

If bands tune their guitars a bit lower or adds something different is it a necessity to give them a new genre. There are some genres that deserve a whole new category, like punk rock…it totally defined itself. This new breed of “Punk“, however, is different. These guys have talent (can’t say I enjoy their talent) and yet we throw them into a genre that is totally the opposite from what they are. Punk wasn’t just a genre, it was a way of life. Lets face it, Punk is dead! Thanks for the memories but its gone and not forgotten. You can emulate and imitate every punk band and mimic Sid Vicious all day but you can’t relive the time and lifestyle.

Nu Metal: I’d like to find the person who came up with this sub-genre and choke them. Then I’d like to take every person that says they don’t like a band because they are “Nu-Metal” and I’d like to choke them too. Nu-Metal has been tagged on every band in the last 10 years that has tuned their guitar below E and has added anything to the music besides the basics of a guitar, drums and vocals. I never even heard of the term Nu-metal until Slipknot came around and then I found out that a lot of the bands I liked were deemed as nu-metal and for some screwed up reason they were hated by the so called “Real Metalheads”.

I first heard Slipknot in a small record store near Watertown, NY back in 2000. They had a listening station set up and I was combing threw the new bands in the library when I came across a cd with a bunch of guys in jump suits and masks. Naturally I was curious so I started playing track one, which shortly led to track two “(SIC)”. I was amazed because up until that point metal had become boring to me, almost cumbersome. This was something new, something raw and different to me. To me this was the rebirth of heavy metal.

To Be continued…