Formerly @Vespair@lemm.ee
Nobody is ever going to take you seriously if you keep equating this to genital mutilation, which in common usage clearly and always refers to female genital mutilation which is so vastly different and more barbaric so as to render any kind of comparison immediately moot.
If you have to speak in hyperbole and melodramatics to make your point, you don’t have a point.
This is exactly what I mean by the anti-circumcision movement might have a point in theory, but in reality it’s a bunch of dudes who think they wouldn’t have tiny dicks if not for the surgeon.
I know it’s a “joke,” but I also know damn well that these men actually believe this bullshit deep down.
It will forever be impossible for anyone who isn’t deeply reddit-brained to take this cause seriously, at all. And it’s a trojan horse to conservatism anyway.
Please let this bullshit stay on reddit.
I respect and appreciate what Hasan does and the impact he has even if I myself am not a fan.
But boy, I do wish he managed to be less annoying while doing it, or that we had a better face for the movement in broad media than him.
Ved Buens Ende is new to me, thanks for that 🤘
Frankly, a lot. I’m a big fan of rateyourmusic, so I’d recommend starting there:
https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/black-metal/
https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/death-metal/
That being said, without being immersed in the genre it can be hard to tell the difference, and description alone can be unclear, so I’d really recommend listening to a few examples from each of those pages.
And it is worth noting that both of these are huge genres with a number of subgenre children below them, so some of this is going to be in broad strokes.
In general, black metal is going to be largely defined by consistent use of tremolo-picking and blast beats supported by double bass; death metal uses these elements but these are a consistent fixture of black metal. Black metal tends to be very “wall of sound” in its approach - everything all at once in maximalist ways - but with little to no strong regard for production or recording quality. In terms of pace, black metal tends to be almost punk-like in tempo, driving and fast but rarely breakneck-blistering. And the vocals of black metal tend towards high pitched shrieks and fry screams, though clean singing (especially theatrical) is not terribly uncommon (though an all clean singing black metal song is basically unheard of). Lyrically (side note: I am not a fan of defining music in genre terms by lyrical content), black metal has a long history of very particularly anti-Christian, pro-Satanic lyrics, and unfortunately there is also a large segment of black metal that is full of disgusting white supremacist rhetoric; thankfully that segment has largely self-segregated and you’re unlikely to run into them in most modern metal circles. And the lineage of black metal is strongly influenced by punk rock; black metal would not exist without punk.
In contrast, death metal may feature tremolo-picking and double-bass supported blast beats but these are usually textural parts of a greater whole. Death metal was born directly out of thrash metal (itself the evolution of short-lived speed metal), so death metal sounds a lot more “metal” than punk-influenced black metal. Beyond tremolo picking, guitars in DM tend to be very down-tuned and feature very prominent riffs; where black metal is “wall of sound,” death metal is frequently very very guitar and/or vocals-forward, and these elements usually sit very clearly in the mix rather than blending in. Songs are also traditionally more progressive in structure than black metal which tends towards repeating motifs. The tempo of death metal is often very fast, but this is not a requirement. Vocally, death metal is where you hear “growling” most. These vocals are usually low false chord growls rather than the high-pitched fry scream shrieking of black metal. Lyrically death metal can be extremely diverse with no real set expectations like in black metal, though a sense of the grotesque and macabre is certainly common. While not wholly detached from punk music (nothing post-speed metal really truly is), there is no glaringly obvious punk DNA like you can hear in black metal.
Keep in mind these are generalities and meant to apply to the “traditional” or “baseline” versions of these genres; the sub- and microgenre children thereof all have their own rules and whatnot that can radically change this.
Jon Barbas, music critic and reviewer from Heavy Metal Philosophy has a saying that I fully agree with: “Death metal has the highest floor but lowest ceiling in metal while black metal has the lowest floor and the highest ceiling.” What he means by that is that most black metal is genuine garbage but the good black metal is transcendent. Death metal has a super high average quality rating, so if you listen to any random DM band you’re probably gonna have a decent time; black metal has a super low average quality rating so if you just pick any random BM band you’re probably gonna have a terrible time. But man, if you take the time to find some good black metal, goddamn is it good.
All this said, I’m not an expert, just an avid fan whose “special interest” happens to be heavy music genres. I highly recommend you read the RYM pages and listen to some of the examples from the corresponding lists to get a feel for it yourself.
edit:
If you don’t want to read and just want some listening recommendations to hear the difference, check these out:
For Black Metal: My favorite modern black metal band is Gaerea, though their recent work has drifted away from black metal into being some kind of black metal metalcore hybrid (I love it). Go back to their 2022 album Mirage and listen to that, or at least the songs Salve and Deluge. And/or listen to the album In The Nightside Eclipse by Emperor from 1994, which is a classic of the genre - just know that it’s technically symphonic black metal so there will be additional symphonic elements (“pure” black metal, at least good pure black metal, is actually kind of rare - a lot of the quality stuff is a subgenre or strongly influenced by other genres).
For Death Metal: Absolutely start with 1989’s Altars of Madness by Morbid Angel. Not only is that a great example of the truly typical death metal sound, it’s also just one of the best albums in the whole of extreme metal. Beyond that, Cannibal Corpse is probably the next logical step, as by far the most successful DM band of all time - their song Hammer Smashed Face is probably the single best known death metal song in the world.
I definitely think Vader is a better fit for specifically Epic Doom Metal rather than traditional doom metal.
I disagree with this. At best, this is a square-rectangle situation. I’d agree that many, maybe even most, stoner metal bands are also doom metal bands, but the vast majority of doom metal bands are not stoner metal. No savvy person would refer to Thou as stoner metal.
And counterintuitive as it sounds, what a band calls themselves actually does not matter at all. Genres are descriptive, not prescriptive; if Depeche Mode came out today and called themselves a black metal band it wouldn’t make their music not synthpop/dark wave.
Stoner metal is a separate thing from doom metal.
It is strongly influenced by doom metal, but distinct from it.
Extreme metal isn’t a genre, it’s a container for genres such as black and death metal
It’s based on D&D (but doesn’t require any knowledge or lean on the game strongly at all), so it’s small party combat.
I just think it’s so visercal, so well-defined without being dry. At all times I felt like the picture of the fights was really being painted blow by blow, including deft movements and tactical thinking. It was never “they exchanged blows,” it was always “Drizzt turned in perfect time to evade the hammer’s swing, and maneuvered between the legs of the larger man to send the jagged edge of his blade through the man’s back,” only much much better because R.A. Salvatore is 100x better a writer than I am.
R.A. Salvatore’s Icewind Dale Trilogy.
I don’t know why this fell out of popular culture, but it’s excellent and I haven’t read a writer who writes better combat.
I liked the first Mario Kart for SNES, but honestly all the entries* after that haven’t done anything for me and frankly I think none of them even feel like full games.
*I haven’t played the newest for Switch 2, but it does look like it might have more to it maybe?
That is cereal, yes, but it’s not exclusively cereal. Oat and nuts and fruit, even oatmeal and hot porridges are cereal - in fact my grocery store labels this section “hot cereals.”
Okay actually too goddamn real
I just think it’s boring that you think money is the only reasonable motivator for these people. There are other forms of compensation and appreciation. And it’s not the only option available to us. It’s crazy to me that people understand the idea of countries that have military conscription but can’t fathom the idea of a system of workable civil conscription.
As I see it you successfully identified a problem and a solution, but that does not suggest that that is the sole or even best solution.
Tbh I think you can one time drop a very friendly but more direct: “hey have you guys thought about posting your stuff in a music community on Lemmy? It’s like reddit but smaller and with a very engaged audience. I think they’d dig you there!” Or something to that effect. Just don’t be a dick about it or spam them.
A lot of them don’t know about or don’t understand the fediverse. We need to be more proactive in asking this of the artists we love. I’ll try to be better about doing my part to mention the fediverse to artists in my sphere, an especially good fit given the DIY roots of the punk/hardcore lineage of much of it.
Absolutely, TT is scary and the take-over has been insanely obvious. Despite this people are still regularly making real content and connections on TT. Tiktok, the company and app themselves, are vile and disgusting, but Tiktok, the community, is still largely very decent, imo.
I couldn’t care less about the topic, personally. Do it or don’t; you’ll certainly never hear me out here pushing for it. But none of these losers were victims of some great tragedy. This is MRA messaging bullshit and I’m constantly sick of ostensibly left people falling in line with it.
I’m not saying circumcision is right, I’m saying on the list of issues that actually matter in the world and are worth the effort of “solving,” circumcision is like #431253124324 on the list at best.