re: What kind of music do you classify the Avenged Sevenfold, Breaking Benjamin stuff

A7X is pretty much the most radio-friendly metal that exists nowadays. They borrow lots of influence from Metallica/Pantera/etc but have an extremely varied catalog over 20 years (listen to albums Waking the Fallen vs self-titled vs The Stage and get back to me, for example). Their musicianship is essentially unmatched by other artists that are as popular in the mainstream as they are.

Breaking Benjamin is radio hard rock that used to be pretty good, but their last 3 albums have grown incredibly formulaic both lyrically and musically. They have declined tremendously but used to show some good variations in their early albums. They are very different stylistically. All of the genre-labelling within rock and metal is overkill.

I absolutely agree. I also seem to find that bassists tend to be the worst about liking stuff only because it is complicated or difficult. In my opinion, musicality comes first. Something being difficult simply for the sake of difficulty’s sake isn’t worth anything. That’s why most be-bop jazz sounds like cats dying. It’s really hard to play, but it’s also hard to enjoy. I can make a computer play music no human can perform, but to do so is to miss the point of music entirely. Chasing some arbitrary edginess or complexity just for the sake of being complex or edgy isn’t artistic, it’s dick-measuring. It’s overcompensating for an inability to come up with something that actually sounds fun, interesting, or meaningful. It’s mental masterbation.

Now, at the same time, when something is already a great song AND it just so happens that some of the parts of that song that sound so interesting are, in fact, extremely challenging to perform, then that is noteworthy, but the quality of the music always comes first. Van Morrison shows you can have a simple structure with simple lyrics and create something that sounds like magic. White Lion showed you can make stuff that’s catchy and accessible to the casual listener that sounds simple, but is actually extremely difficult to replicate. You can play four chords and the truth and make a beautiful song just as impressive as a mixed meter orchestral metal epic. They are all welcome in rock, the key is to make it interesting, make it fun, make it relatable, and make it genuine.

I think the reason why nu-metal simply doesn’t resonate with most people, and why most of it sounds lame, is because it doesn’t feel genuine. It suffers from similar problems that modern country music has (and there’s a lot of crossover between the two). There was a massive industry demand for material and bands and that created a whole bunch of mediocre, mass-produced, manufactured music made to sell an image that didn’t fit the medium. It’s supposed to be angry, aggressive, and cool, but often sounds whiny, desperate, and isolated. They were trying to sell it as party music when what it was was depression music. It just doesn’t make sense for those who didn’t grow up listening to it, and barely resonated for those who did.

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