LOST IN TRANSLATION

\r\nLost in translation, fans of the metal music scene are carried away by the meaningless and yet essential categorization which characterizes the scene these past few years. The problem has spread to such extents that I believe it is about time a dictionary was created to explain the hundreds of idioms that have appeared. This situation is rather “useful” in order to include the numerous bands whose sound may be “hard” but whose music bears no relevance to metal music.\r\n

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\r\nBefore I go on, I think it’s necessary to try and find the definition metal music. In order to do that we have to take a journey to the past, so that we can collect evidence and ultimately compose the definition of what he have come to call metal.
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\r\nSomething we tend to forget about these days is Heavy Metal, which spread through the late 70s. In the 80s, what we in general call metal, was a new music wave which was close to rock music, only with heavier guitars (due to distortion), faster speeds, more explosive, spontaneous and aggressive than rock.
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\r\nHeavy Metal was for the musicians of the scene a way of expressing their feelings, which could include fear, anger, pain etc. In order to cover this need, many of the Heavy Metal musicians learned music along the way and with their limited knowledge of music managed to impressively attribute a feeling, which in my opinion is one of the main ingredients of Heavy Metal.
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\r\nOf course feelings can’t be described by mathematic equations or integrals, so the only way to comprehend a feeling is to actually feel it. Here lies the importance of feeling or not feeling it at all. One of the main reasons why Heavy Metal created a worldwide core of fans during all these years, is the truth that some people discovered in this kind of music.
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\r\nAs time passed, things became less and less pure, finally leading up to the late 80s, in which the categorization and splitting of Heavy Metal music in different scenes – branches began. Those were scenes that gathered specific characteristics and tries to prove themselves to be more “metal” than the rest.
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\r\nSome of them tries to be heavier than the rest, dome tried to be more technical – in some cases more savage – or more of an expert in music than the rest, and so on. Metal fans joined this game, carried away by the media that promoted whatever the Record Labels told them to.
\r\nToday we are confronted by a situation in which the term “metal” is so vague, that it is almost humiliating, a term left up to each person’s perception, a commune that takes in anyone who can play a little heavier than the new mainstream rock bands.
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\r\nMetal has come down to being a gipsy caravan that someone can be a part of today but not tomorrow, simply because it was a nice place to camp. Metal used to be a type of music, a means of expression of feelings, but now it has been reduced to a university in which one can invoke one’s musical expertise or compose music with goniometers and rulers, or include girls that turn metal into opera with their beautiful silky voices, or even punks who used to throw up while listening to Heavy Metal but now try to show us their point of view with all their “core” elements. And finally Metal tends to take under it’s wings everyone but the people who actually created it, promoted it and made globally known. I am talking about bands of the past, bands that today’s fans so easily disregard.
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\r\nMetal has become a flea market, but in the end everyone will gather their stands and leave nothing but trash behind. My opinion is that in a few years, even the term metal will be replaced by another one, one that will leave room for discussion about it’s contents.
\r\nIn a few words, I am simply telling you that Metal will die by the hand of it’s own “metalheads” who fall right in the trap of trying to look open-minded and just consume everything that is passed along at them, and while being fearful of sounding glued to their beliefs, disregard the very thing that made them listen to this kind of music in the first place.
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\r\nAvant-garde metal - Black metal - Death metal - Doom metal - Glam metal - Gothic metal - Groove metal - Power metal - Speed metal - Stoner metal - Symphonic metal - Technical metal - Thrash metal - Traditional heavy metal - Viking metal - Alternative metal - Christian metal - Crust punk - Folk Metal - Funk Μetal - Grindcore - Grunge - Industrial metal - Metalcore - Neo-Classical Metal - Nu Metal - Post-Metal - Progressive Metal - Rap Metal - Sludge Metal – Math Metal – Deathcore - Groove Post-Thrash - Southern Hardcore Metal - Technical Brutal Death Metal - Extreme Old School Thrash Metal – Progressive Metal Melodic – Melodic Death - Brutal Death Metal - Blackned Gothic Industrial (Dance) Metal - Beatdown Hardcore - Melodic Black Metal - Speed/Melodic Thrash Metal - Depressive Black Metal - Symphonic/Power/Neo-Classical Metal - Progressive Death Metal - Misanthropic Black Metal - Symphonic Black/Death Metal - Traditional Doom Metal - Black/Folk/Progressive Metal - Christian Heavy Power Metal- Hair Metal - Doom Metal/Industrial - Industrial Black Metal - Industrial Death Metal - Industrial/Thrash/Groove Metal - Electronic Progressive Death - Raw Death - Melodic Dark Metal - Experimental Black Metal - Extreme Horror Metal - Dark/Gothic Metal - Gothic Rock/Metal - Blackened Death Metal - Electronic black/death - Ambient Industrial Metal - Industrial Hardcore - NS Black Metal - Raw Black Metal - Psychedelic Black Metal - Pagan Black Metal - Experimental Ambient Black Metal - Funeral Doom - Doom/Black Metal - Experimental Drone Doom - Avantgarde Black Metal - Atmospheric Black Metal - Experimental Symphonic Black Metal - War Black Metal - Epic Black Metal - Technical Black Metal - Symphonic/Orchestral Black/Gothic Metal - Drone/Noise/Black Metal - Celtic Black Metal - Blackened Folk Metal - Experimental Grindcore - Technical Brutal Death Metal - Death/Sludge Metal - Doom Sludge Metal - Experimental Doom - Drone Doom - Progressive & Melodic Death - Progressive Metal/Shred - Neo-Classical Folk Metal - Middle-Eastern Folk/Experimental Progressive Metal - Viking Speed - Atmospheric Melodic Viking - Blackened Folk/Viking Metal - Oriental Folk/Progressive Metal – Crossover - Folkish Epic Black Metal - NS Pagan - Operatic Avant-garde Metal - Orchestral Metal - Operatic Progressive Metal - Orchestral Ambient Doom Metal - Extreme Symphonic/Epic Heavy Metal - Dark Symphonic Death/Doom Metal - Speed/Shred/Neo-Classical Metal - Experimental Symphonic Black Metal - Epic Symphonic Blackened Metal - Progressive Symphonic Metal - Symphonic/Melodic Black Metal - Orchestral Pagan Metal - Symphonic Power Metal/Shred
\r\n…Good luck sorting all that out.
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\r\nKostas "Purevil" Kyriakakis
\r\nTranslated by Iro Kapeloni\r\n

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