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re: Alice in Chains Dirt may be the greatest album of the 90s.
Posted on 12/21/15 at 12:17 pm to Sayre
Posted on 12/21/15 at 12:17 pm to Sayre
quote:
To compare Facelift to any type of hair metal seriously makes me take a hard look about how seriously I should take the opinions of anyone who could be that deaf. I defiantly lived through the hair metal craze. We used to stomp dudes just for wearing Poison shirts. I can think of not one single thing any of that useless bullshite has to do with Facelift, musically or lyrically.
There is an awesome bootleg if you can find it of Facelift as entirely hair metal. It's the AiC demo for the major labels, and it's just horrifying.
It was a bad fit for them, but I do think the label tried to put AiC in the hair metal box, for which their sound was a terrible, terrible fit. But it has that same glossy production of that era, as if they were trying to cram them in the Poison box, regardless of what the songs were. They label just had no idea what to do with them, so they tried to make them sound like everyone else. Which is why Facelift is such a mess. You can hear the good band trying to breakout of the 80s production, but it is buried under there.
3
Posted on 12/21/15 at 12:49 pm to Baloo
I see elements of what Baloo is talking about, but overall I do NOT hear a hair metal album in Facelift. What I do hear is the birth of something that should not even be classified as grunge. AIC do not sound like the Melvins, Nirvana, nor Mudhoney. They have some similarities with The Screaming Trees and Mother Love bone, but they are just as original as Soundgarden was, IMO.
Songs like "Love Hate Love" and "Die Young" have a bit of 80's glam rock to them, but then you listen to "Sunshine", "It Ain't Like That", and "Sea of Sorrow" and you hear these overwhelmingly catchy songs that are ambushed by gripping guitar and synchronized vocals. "Sunshine" is just a constant adrenaline kick that settles and reaches a zenith and settles and then breaks the impossible zenith of awesome.
When people do say that bands like The Melvins and Green River and Sonic Youth deserve just as much credit as AIC...no they do not. Those bands did not make it huge for a reason. AIC eats them all alive. I like aspects of all of them...hard not to like Buzz and what he does, but AIC they are not.
Songs like "Love Hate Love" and "Die Young" have a bit of 80's glam rock to them, but then you listen to "Sunshine", "It Ain't Like That", and "Sea of Sorrow" and you hear these overwhelmingly catchy songs that are ambushed by gripping guitar and synchronized vocals. "Sunshine" is just a constant adrenaline kick that settles and reaches a zenith and settles and then breaks the impossible zenith of awesome.
When people do say that bands like The Melvins and Green River and Sonic Youth deserve just as much credit as AIC...no they do not. Those bands did not make it huge for a reason. AIC eats them all alive. I like aspects of all of them...hard not to like Buzz and what he does, but AIC they are not.
Posted on 12/21/15 at 12:51 pm to Sayre
quote:
'Sap' is fricking awesome, but it doesn't come close to the emotional devastation Jar Of Flies carries.
100 percent agree. I do not know how anyone can say otherwise. Sap is what they wished Jar of Flies would have been.
Posted on 12/21/15 at 1:12 pm to PiscesTiger
quote:
that should not even be classified as grunge.
At a certain point, I think that AiC was much more of a traditional heavy metal (not hair band) act, with grunge influences as they came out of the same environment - this is very similar analysis to:
quote:
Soundgarden
They didn't "look" the part (well, AiC did, at least early), so they got lumped in with grunge acts like Pearl Jam and Nirvana because of geography and relatively grungy appearance.
That vocal delivery became increasingly associated with grunge, too - so that contributed to this as well. Plus the relatively dark themes that predominate.
But, both AiC and Soundgarden, overall, were far more traditional heavy metal acts, with more intricately layered guitars. This is why the "definitive" band being Nirvana is somewhat problematic. He was unique and expressive as a guitarist, but Cobain wasn't particularly gifted on the instrument, either. McCready is really great on the guitar, (listen to his work outside of Pearl Jam), but they kept the songs relatively simple because of the genre.
Cantrell and Thayil could play either one off the stage, though. Grohl is the outlier on the "grunge" side of the ledger, but then again, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam have shared a drummer for so long now (not forgetting that Dave Krusen played the drums on Ten, before going into rehab) there is no distinction there.
So, they all had crunchy guitars, the same home base, similar vocal delivery and dark lyrical themes. What came to be called "grunge" was an apparent "rejection" of hair metal, so other heavy acts got labeled "grunge" without much additional thought.
Posted on 12/21/15 at 1:24 pm to Tiger Ryno
Dirt
AIC
Jars of Flies
SAP
Facelift
AIC
Jars of Flies
SAP
Facelift
Posted on 12/21/15 at 1:28 pm to Ace Midnight
Yeah, so many very different bands have been thrown under the "grunge" blanket that the label doesn't really mean anything musically. To me, it's more of a geographical reference.
Posted on 12/21/15 at 1:58 pm to Baloo
quote:
But it has that same glossy production of that era
I simply do not agree. Until today, I had never in any way, shape or form considered AiC and Poison to be similar.
Facelift is not my favorite - but mostly because the songs aren't as good. It isn't "a mess". None of the songs on there seems anything like Poison - or really even "hair metal" at all.
Posted on 12/21/15 at 2:01 pm to Ace Midnight
quote:
At a certain point, I think that AiC was much more of a traditional heavy metal (not hair band) act, with grunge influences as they came out of the same environment
This is correct.
quote:
But, both AiC and Soundgarden, overall, were far more traditional heavy metal acts, with more intricately layered guitars. This is why the "definitive" band being Nirvana is somewhat problematic. He was unique and expressive as a guitarist, but Cobain wasn't particularly gifted on the instrument, either. McCready is really great on the guitar, (listen to his work outside of Pearl Jam), but they kept the songs relatively simple because of the genre.
Cantrell and Thayil could play either one off the stage, though. Grohl is the outlier on the "grunge" side of the ledger, but then again, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam have shared a drummer for so long now (not forgetting that Dave Krusen played the drums on Ten, before going into rehab) there is no distinction there.
So, they all had crunchy guitars, the same home base, similar vocal delivery and dark lyrical themes. What came to be called "grunge" was an apparent "rejection" of hair metal, so other heavy acts got labeled "grunge" without much additional thought.
As is most of this as well.
The reason AiC is so awesome is that they are a metal band - a metal band that left behind some of the tropes and trappings of the tail end of the hair metal scene.
I still don't like ragging on "hair metal" like this, because there was lots of great hair metal as well.
Posted on 12/21/15 at 2:09 pm to Big Scrub TX
quote:
Until today, I had never in any way, shape or form considered AiC and Poison to be similar.
In that heavy metal is built around 4/4 time, similar chord progressions, tuned down, distorted guitars, with one or more solos of 8 to 12 bars, they are similar in genre and all harken back to a "heavier" music heard at the very end of the 1960s - somewhere between Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath is the line between hard rock and heavy metal.
And a shite ton of good hard rock bands straddled that line in the 1970s. It wasn't until the 1980s that it became, more or less, the default sound for hard rock acts - for the better part of 15 years.
You had all of those NWOBHM bands, who were also strongly influenced by Zeppelin, Sabbath, as well as Glam acts and Queen - that fusion resulted in hair metal - good or bad. The first very high profile band to reject that style or those characterizations, at least in a public way, was Metallica.
The second was GNR. GNR is almost the "pivot point" between hair metal and grunge - from a style and influence standpoint. Their era of dominance coincides with the lull at the end of the hair metal period and the beginning of grunge being the definitive hard rock genre. These Seattle bands that transcended this period get broadly labeled "grunge" - but what they had in common was more of a rejection of the glossy, pop hook sensibilities of hair metal, and the overproduction (embodied, for good or ill by Mutt Lange's work with - frick it - pick a band) - not in their musical sensibilities.
Posted on 12/21/15 at 2:10 pm to Big Scrub TX
Yeah, I think people who completely dismiss hair metal are just trying to look cool.
Posted on 12/21/15 at 2:22 pm to Ace Midnight
quote:
4/4 time,
Whoa right there, Ace man. I don't agree with that characterization at all? Rush? Metallica? Megadeth? etc.
quote:
tuned down,
Nor this. Heavy metal is built around "tuned down" guitars? Metallica's first album that was tuned down 1/2 step was The Black Album. I'm not sure Maiden or Megadeth ever had a tuned down album.
quote:
You had all of those NWOBHM bands, who were also strongly influenced by Zeppelin, Sabbath, as well as Glam acts and Queen - that fusion resulted in hair metal - good or bad. The first very high profile band to reject that style or those characterizations, at least in a public way, was Metallica.
Maiden precedes Metallica.
quote:
The second was GNR. GNR is almost the "pivot point" between hair metal and grunge - from a style and influence standpoint. Their era of dominance coincides with the lull at the end of the hair metal period and the beginning of grunge being the definitive hard rock genre
Yep. That's why the only time you see Guns looking like that was literally in the Welcome to the Jungle video - which actually was released the first time in 1987. By the time it was re-released in 1988, you never saw Axl's hair teased again.
Posted on 12/21/15 at 2:23 pm to High C
quote:
I think people who completely dismiss hair metal are just trying to look cool.
I came of age in the 1980s. Hair metal became a parody of a satire of a parody of itself. However, there were some phenomenal players (particularly the lead guitarists, but other great, great players could be found if only one looked, at other instruments) and great music that came out of those acts.
Posted on 12/21/15 at 2:27 pm to Ace Midnight
quote:
Hair metal became a parody of a satire of a parody of itself.
But that's true of almost every genre, yet we fetishize things like the 70's.
quote:
However, there were some phenomenal players (particularly the lead guitarists, but other great, great players could be found if only one looked, at other instruments) and great music that came out of those acts.
Correct.
And here's a question: where do you include someone like "Metal Church"? Were they "hair metal"? Were they thrash? Is thrash hair metal? etc.
Posted on 12/21/15 at 2:28 pm to Big Scrub TX
quote:
I don't agree with that characterization at all? Rush? Metallica? Megadeth? etc.
Just as a basic of song construction - trying to find commonality. And you picked a genre challenging band in there, to boot. Is Rush heavy metal or hard rock?
Another one to throw in as an exception is the genre-defying Tool, who not only uses different time signatures, just to show us how much better they are - the drummer sometimes plays a different time signature from the rest of the band.
But I digress.
quote:
Heavy metal is built around "tuned down" guitars?
The definitive "heavy metal" sound is Black Sabbath. Iommi's fingertips got cut off so he had to tune the guitar down to play with metal caps on his fingers.
It is not universal, but that is the sound that informs all those subsequent acts.
Posted on 12/21/15 at 2:34 pm to Big Scrub TX
quote:
Were they "hair metal"? Were they thrash? Is thrash hair metal?
And I've indulged in it to a certain extent in this thread, but as my previous post suggests - there are genres and there are genre-defying acts. Was Queen "heavy metal" or "hard rock"? Most are going to say hard rock or mainstream rock, but listen to "Stone Cold Crazy" - arguably the first "speed metal" song. Brian May is another crazily gifted player. He still plays the guitar he and his dad built from crap they found lying around. And he has a doctorate in orbital mechanics or something (like Tom Scholz smart).
Tool - what genre is that? "Tool" genre?
Pink Floyd is another act that can be tough to nail down, as they went through changes from the Barrett/Waters and Gilmour/Waters/Gilmour dominated eras.
Def Leppard? They started out as NWOBHM - they're associated with "hair metal" (and some can argue their musical formula was lifted by a number of acts, particularly Bon Jovi), but were they just mainstream "hard rock" by the time Hysteria and the late 1980s rolled around?
Metallica, even. Difficult to pin them down to a specific sub-genre, thrash, speed metal (that was a thing back then), what have you, but certainly by 1990 things had changed.
So, genres are useful starting points, but ultimately inadequate to discuss the nuances of rock music.
Posted on 12/21/15 at 2:39 pm to Ace Midnight
quote:
Another one to throw in as an exception is the genre-defying Tool, who not only uses different time signatures, just to show us how much better they are - the drummer sometimes plays a different time signature from the rest of the band.
So then we agree...Tool is terrible.
quote:
The definitive "heavy metal" sound is Black Sabbath. Iommi's fingertips got cut off so he had to tune the guitar down to play with metal caps on his fingers.
I'm not sure that's true. I always heard his response was to use lighter string gauges. I always thought BS were tuned down so it would sound darker.
Posted on 12/21/15 at 2:41 pm to Ace Midnight
quote:
And I've indulged in it to a certain extent in this thread, but as my previous post suggests - there are genres and there are genre-defying acts. Was Queen "heavy metal" or "hard rock"? Most are going to say hard rock or mainstream rock, but listen to "Stone Cold Crazy" - arguably the first "speed metal" song. Brian May is another crazily gifted player. He still plays the guitar he and his dad built from crap they found lying around. And he has a doctorate in orbital mechanics or something (like Tom Scholz smart).
Queen is rock n roll with shades of many genres.
quote:
Tool - what genre is that? "Tool" genre?
something terrible, whatever it is
quote:
Def Leppard? They started out as NWOBHM - they're associated with "hair metal" (and some can argue their musical formula was lifted by a number of acts, particularly Bon Jovi), but were they just mainstream "hard rock" by the time Hysteria and the late 1980s rolled around?
Def Leppard is both the core of the genre as well as the outlier. I love them and am truly flummoxed by how to classify them.
quote:
Metallica, even. Difficult to pin them down to a specific sub-genre, thrash, speed metal (that was a thing back then), what have you, but certainly by 1990 things had changed.
Started as thrash and then turned to sort of "heavy prog" and then to hard rock.
Posted on 12/21/15 at 2:41 pm to PiscesTiger
quote:
What I do hear is the birth of something that should not even be classified as grunge. AIC do not sound like the Melvins, Nirvana, nor Mudhoney. They have some similarities with The Screaming Trees and Mother Love bone, but they are just as original as Soundgarden was, IMO.
Well, grunge isn't really a genre. It was a marketing term applied to the Seattle scene, originally applied to Mudhoney, and then expanded to the other bands. But honestly, they are all fairly different: Pearl Jam is arena rock, Nirvana is post-punk, Mudhoney is hardcore, Soundgarden is metal, Alice is hard rock, the Screaming Trees are close to a straight rock band, and Mother Love Bone were glam. But grunge was a shorthand for Seattle bands that mixed metal and punk, each just did it to different degrees. AIC was just closer to one pole than Mudhoney was.
Sea of Sorrow, for me, is the standout track on Facelift. It is the one that points at their future direction more than anything else.
And not at Pisces, but I'm an adult. I don't give a crap about looking cool. I just f'n hate hair metal with an undying passion. It's not a pose. I hate the whole genre, which is why Facelift bothers me... they were trying to force AiC down that road. It is to their great credit they took control of their career and refused.
Posted on 12/21/15 at 2:44 pm to Ace Midnight
quote:
Hair metal became a parody of a satire of a parody of itself.
This is both really true and way less true than is casually assumed. The best example I can submit is Slave to the Grind (Skid Row). It was released about 3 months before Nevermind was released. STTG is a great record. It's almost as if Skid Row were intentionally themselves trying to fight against the excesses of "hair metal" as it had devolved.
Also, Dr. Feelgood was released in 1989. That's pretty close to the end, but we all certainly agree that is a classic album.
Posted on 12/21/15 at 2:45 pm to Baloo
quote:
. I just f'n hate hair metal with an undying passion. It's not a pose. I hate the whole genre
Would you, then, please at least do us the favor of defining the term?
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