Lamb Of God Frontman On Lack Of Innovation In Music And “Djent”
Lamb Of God frontman Randy Blythe recently had some heated exchanges/rants regarding the lack of innovation in music today and the subgenre classification of metal music. Speaking on the former through his Twitter, he replied to the question “who would you say is a band that’s very influential in today’s decade…who is a pioneer?” with the following:
“In today’s decade? Nick Cave is still interesting to me. I dunno man- most music is garbage today. I’m waiting 4 innovation. Everything in modern culture is so derivative & referential. People’s HUMOR consists of one liners from other tv & people lives “#winning” Music is worse. The big thing now being “Mash ups”. Except for humor purposes (once again, ENTIRELY derivative), THEY SUCK. Write a NEW song I am trying my best to figure out a new way to think (only for MYSELF- I don’t want to change anyone but myself) about music, art, ect.
I’m REALLY tired of the same old shit being constantly rehashed, ect. It’s particularly hard music- there are only so many notes, ect. So while I dont expect to invent some revolutionary new art form or music or writing, I WILL NOT succumb to the lackadaisical road most take. That road being “Don’t try, stay safe, & don’t put your neck on the line doing something that might make you look uncool” FUCK THAT SHIT & FUCK regurgitating someone elses music, writing, art, or stupid reality tv punchline. THIS IS YOUR FUCKING LIFE. WAKE UP & LIVE IT. G’nite”
Meanwhile, when asked “have you heard of djent” (once again via his Twitter,) Blythe launched into a series of discussions on the style and genre classifications in general with a handful of Twitter users. Some highlights from his responses include:
“THE STUPIDEST name yet for ANOTHER “genre” of metal. If you call yerself “djent”- cap yerself NOW”
“THERE IS NO SUCH FUCKING THING AS “DJENT”. ITS NOT A GENRE. I’m sorry, it’s STUPID AS FUCK. Metal already WAY over classified.”
“…all this BULLSHIT “Deathcore” & “Djentcore” & fucking “Cantplayinreallifebutcanonacomputer-core” it’s just a NAME”
“People can call themselves WHATEVER THEY WANT- it’s fucking heavy metal- this sub-classifying shit is a pathetic attempt to say that you are re-inventing the wheel. YOU ARE NOT. ITS FUCKING HEAVY METAL. Get over it. “Djent”? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?”
“I can say that I am a fruit bat, copy fruit bat movements, & soon all my friends will too. Then we will have fruitbatcore. Can we fly? NO.”
“No, Meshuggah is NOT “djent”. Meshuggah is MESHUGGAH. FUCK.”
Of course, while fairly self-explanatory, more context for the replies can be found at Blythe‘s Twitter. He may just be onto something with fruitbatcore though, flying or not.
COMMENTS
While I’m certainly not going to agree with everything he said, I will agree that metal…well really ALL types of music are getting way too overclassified. I got in an argument at work today with a kid who was listening to his techno music to loud for me to hear our customers. Except that apparently it wasn’t techno, it was “house.” Stupid sh**.
People who listen to that shit are dorks. I shit all over those kids on a daily basis.
Lack of innovation. Staying safe. Rehashing ad nauseam. That’s Lamb of God you are talking about. Don’t get me wrong, they’re a good band, I listen to them sometimes. But also a totally unoriginal one. Basically a thrashier take on Pantera. Minus the hits. The only reason LOG’s records have improved over time is because their musical ability and production values have improved: not because they’ve innovated or tried anything new. LOG is a band that sticks to the beaten path with doggedness. At least the djent bands are trying out something new. Yeah they’re aping Meshuggah, but they’re also going new places with it.
as a fan of this band i have to agree with you. especially on the pantera thing. last week im ears deep in ‘southern trendkill’, and i thought, man LOG is really borrowing much of their schtick from pantera. irony is a bitter pill, and hearing randy blythe rant like this is easy to fathom. particularily because he’s such a malevolent fucker to begin with…
Yea I was about to say the exact same thing referrencing Pantera as a HUGE influence in LOG. It’s pretty obvious but every single metal band is going to sound like somebody before them. There’s no getting around it. Unless some mysterious instrument is invented somehow and revealed to the metal world, you’re not gonna come up with something new at this point. And I don’t care what genre bands like Born of Osiris and Veil of Maya are being called. They’re pretty rad in my ears so that’s all that really matters to me.
@stuckpig, the Motograter. clearly a revolutionary instrument.
I’d agree for the most part, but I’d have to say that their music style has most certainly changed, The song patterns and breakdown points especially
I think if you’re going to get into an argument about how to classify a band, it’s dumb. But simply classifying something as thrash, black, etc… makes sense because there are actual musical qualities that differentiate them, nothing wrong with that. Also fruitbatcore needs to happen, get on it Randy.
“Cantplayinreallifebutcanonacomputer-core” <—Best line ever.
What kinda pisses me off about that is that (sadly for Blythe, I guess) djent bands usually prove that they can actually play live (or as he says, “inreallife”) and not just “onacomputer”.
As everyone else is saying, I wish LOG themselves innovated from album to album at least 1% of what djent bands innovate within the metal genre. Yeah, labels and subgenres are usually stupid, but if they exist, it’s because at one point or another someone needed them, and tbh, I sometimes find it useful that there’s a term like “djent”, for example, to describe bands with a certain sound in common. Maybe someone should tell Blythe his band is just the same old metalcore album after album?
Well, I dont agree. Lets be honest… Metal is somewhat interesting at the moment. Whats wrong with rewriting meshuggah riffs over and over?….Its getting the consumers attention and its getting more and more kids listening to metal. Bands like Cloudkicker, Tesseract, Volumes, Elitist.. etc etc…are doing a killer job of making good clever and clean metal. Good for those bands. Has anyone read the new SPIN Magazine??? HORRIBLE. I would rather listen to the djent movement before I subject myself to what else is going on in the music world.
And to defend LOG, i also think that emulating to some degree the same attitude as pantera is very complimentary. whether you realize it or not, phil had something to say in his lyrics, and pantera were cowboys/rednecks. so is LOG, but in a good way. They have something to say in their lyrics. Whatever side of the war argument youre on in the USA, randy makes it very clear what his opinion is, and he addresses actual issues instead of being another butt-core (you-mad-bro?-core) mouth breather like ivan moody and the like.
Randy and Greg (from DEP) should just sit around and jerk each other off. Cry babies.
Jerkoffcore.
Actually, I think that already exists… nevermind.
Why does it matter so much who knocked off who? If you like a band, that’s great, if not, don’t listen to them.
Those into “the genre currently known as Djent” should definitely check out SikTh. They were a really good Progressive Metal band from England who broke up in 2008. At least I’ve seen them live, but man it’s so bitter to see such an excellent band go ad undas. Here’s a good introductory song for those interested. Taken from their 2003 debut LP http://youtu.be/8gYdYMRIA8s (In case url’s on theprp are forbidden; the song in the youtube link is “Scent of the Obscene”)
Fuck yea dude. SikTh is a highly underrated band. Protest the Hero’s main influence right there. Hah, see what I mean?
Does Aliases remind anyone else of SikTh?
I’ve never liked Lamb Of God but nice name drop on Nick Cave.
Double-high-fuckin’-five. Blythe’s credibility just bumped up a notch in my books.
I agree with a lot of what he’s saying here. Though I don’t see a point getting pissed about it… unless it makes him write some kickass tunes, then sure.
“Djent” is ridiculous, as a term. I thought somebody was fucking with me when I heard it the first time, and then had to intergoogle it. Call it “sorta sounds like Meshuggah a little bit-metal” if you have to.
However I don’t agree with the lack of good metal out there – Intronaut, Devin Townsend, Hang the Bastard… bunch of good shit in different metal genres. He just needs to do some research. Frikkin’ Randy…
Yeah, anyone complaining they can’t find any good metal just isn’t looking. There is tons of great shit out there.
It seems a lot of the musicians we all know and love don’t try hard to expose themselves to new bands unless they tour with them. It’s hard to blame them considering music is their career and at some point they probably want a break from it. I once asked Todd from DFD years ago about what type of shit he’s into and he said, “Honestly, I haven’t liked anything that’s come out since System of a Down.”
I am…Blythcore!
Dub-step is infecting everything. And i think the good new electronic artists are onto something. If your open minded go to http://www.archnemesismusic.com/ and download their free EP. Its fucking great, came out last October and it still roams my stereo more often then it should.
It’s fucking Halloween music, electronic I’m on mushrooms fuck yeah style. It’s not dub-step either.
Dub-step is tween wave, and it’s shitting all over the good genres of music.
Yes, but good electronic music uses the elements of dub step to create awesomeness. Skrillex is my enemy. Challenge yourself and stream songs from the link I posted. This is where music is moving forward.
The ones you posted are decent. I actually downloaded the album and listened to it before I wrote the comment.
Damn I hate you but thanx. I can see how this “Archnemesis” kinda grabs ya.
Something kinda catchy about the samples/tone/whatever.
Randy Blythe is great and Lamb of God is a good band, but I only agree with the second half of what he said. That metal music is so overly subcategorized.
I don’t agree that every good music should be innovative. If you’re innovative, it usually means that you’re trying something that was never done before. And it’s not like it’s the 1960s. A lot of good music has been created over the years, and many things already have been done already. So it’s getting harder and harder to be innovative everyday, and if you focus too much on being a musical pioneer, you’re likely to end up mashing stuff up just to look creative, or create something that doesn’t even sound like music.
I see good music in only one aspect. Using the basic elements of music(good melodies, instrumentals, lyrics that mean something, etc.) correctly and doing it right. If you’re innovative and creating something new, and it sounds great at the same time, it’s great. But if you’re doing something that sounds a bit like other great bands that were before your time, and it still sounds awesome, that’s also good.
The only problem with today’s music is that every element is being overused to death. Stupid obvious breakdowns every minute, continuous double bass drums with no purpose, electronic noises used even where they don’t exactly belong, screaming and growling every single verse line just to look and sound macho, singing about abusive shit just to look cool, pop melodies in every chorus part of music that’s supposed to be heavy, etc.
The stupid trend that’s going on in today’s music just has to stop.
Simplicity will come back around, it always does. Right now I like to think of music as being in an “80s” phase: overproduced, too much treble, too technical, lots of technology for its own sake, flashy, and superficial. But then the “90s” came and did away with all that for a while, and music was more organic, stripped-down, raw, lo-fi, lots of bass, less cluttered and complex. I’m sure the pendulum will swing again soon.
Bingo. But what were the late 90s/early 2000s then? The bad rehash of the early ninetys? That era is confusing. Ballads, Chingy, Mandy Moore, John Mayer……….
I’m not reading through all the comments so I might be saying something someone already said. But I don’t think Randy (as much as I LOVE Lamb Of God) has any room to talk about “playing it safe.” Lamb Of God have been the same metal band their entire career. Yes there are some differences between records but really, have you ever heard a song by them you weren’t expecting? Probably not. My point is, it’s not the actual bands that make the classifications. It’s the fans. Some bands just roll with it. Take Periphery for example. Great on record and just as good live. They rolled with the whole “djent” thing just because they thought it was funny not because they felt like they invented a new type of metal or anything. So don’t blame the bands completely, you have to take into account the kids that give the music these ridiculous names. Like “crabcore.” You really think bands like Attack Attack sat down and said, “ok guys, let’s start a crabcore band…”? Nope. It was the dumb little kids who listen to that over-marketable metal that gave it that name because of the way one of the guys acted on stage. He looked like a crab. So, crabcore was born. I just think guys like Randy Blythe (and let me state again that I love LOG) need to sit down and think about whether they’re actually DOING the things they think need to be done in metal today. LOG WERE one of the pioneers of modern metal…. Key word being WERE. The music is great, but there’s nothing really revolutionary about it since Ashes of the Wake came out. Bottom line, practice what you preach, and if you say you only care about yourself and your band, then why are you going on rants about other bands and other people?
well said.
Funny you’re all ranting about the same thing. Sure LOG isn’t reinventing the wheel, but you’d all be lying to yourselves to say that you don’t BANG their music and scream along with every word. And it bothers me that anyone would judge someone they’ve never met. I’ve had a beer with Randy a while back in a dive bar and he was a solid dude; i can’t say that about everyone i’ve met or worked with in the music world or the 9-5. So before you berate someone for their life choices, sex, drugs, or rock n’ roll figure out who you are and what you stand for. And for the above post about who LOG are and what they’ve been, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, do yourself the personal favor and check out Burn The Priest. Then open your mouth.
Yeah, Lamb of God are not original, but they put on a pretty intense live performance. I saw them headlining a few years back with Children of Bodom, God Forbid, and Municipal Waste and they were crushing. I don’t own a single one of their albums nor do i listen to their style of Metal, but I do feel they have picked up the torch that Pantera dropped when they broke up.
That all being said, there are about 50 metal bands i’d rather listen to than them.
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