Spurs Music Forum

ERB Season 2: The Good ****

 

I know I might get ridiculed for saying this, but a piece of my childhood just died. Chester Bennington, lead singer of Linkin Park, has tragically taken his own life after apparently succumbing to a battle against depression.

The Hybrid Theory remains one of the greatest trend-setters in modern music, ushering in a new millennium with an entirely fresh genre that captivated moody, spotty teenagers like me for years thereafter. Reanimation followed as a collaboration between countless known and up n coming artists and is, to my mind, one of the most under-appreciated releases of the early 2000's. I started to lose interest after Meteora (average at best), although Thousand Suns and Living Things had some massive ballads that rekindled the love affair albeit briefly.

RIP Chez. Even though most of my peers on this forum won't have a fackin' clue what on earth I'm talking about, I'd like to thank you for the memories. Of acne and angst and girls and bumfluff and dial-up internet and yo-yos and 4-chord songs and shouting for no reason and Hoddle returning to his rightful kingdom and all the wonderful things that defined my teenage years

 

Why would you be ridiculed for that? I'm only aware of them as my daughter was fan for a while, but musically we love who we love. I would feel the same if it was Peter Gabriel or Roy Harper - even though they are getting to the natural causes age. And if it was Kate B..... nope can't even write it.

 

As someone that hated nu-metal and virtually every band it produced, I can't say that I agree with you!
I can relate to what you're saying though, especially with the recent death of Bennington's good friend, Chris Cornell.
No coincidence that he chose that man's birthday to end it on, I think.

As I said, not a fan by any means, but here's one that I didn't mind:

And one from his mate, too:

 

What's worrying from my perspective is that I am a muso (of sorts) with a pretty eclectic range of music knowledge, but I have never even heard of Bennington, Linkin Park or indeed, nu-metal......
But to all those who have, I'm sorry for your loss

 

I'll give you a pass on the third one as there was no such thing, it was a lazy label that NME coined to lump any band with downtuned guitars into one easy to understand clump - and they really were throwing the label on anything heavier than Toploader at the time, to the point they tried using the term to describe bands such as Tool just because Tool happened to release an album at the same time that Linkin Park, Slipknot etc etc were knocking on the mainstream's door.

What's really telling is that, even though 99% of the bands stuck with this label were from the US, nobody in the US even knew the term existed at the time, and it;s only been picked up a decade after the fact for similar lazy categorisation.

And before anyone asks...
Limp Bizkit and (hed)p.e. were rapcore
Deftones, Incubus, System of a Down and Korn were alt metal
Kid Rock was rap metal
Slipknot were ****ing ****

 

I know them!!!!

 

You have my sympathies. Truly the worst of a bad lot.
Apart from their (possibly unintentionally) hilarious cover of George Michael's Faith:

 

Not my cup of tea, but I share the sentiment.
Die young and be a true rock n roll hero

 

Internet whispers that both deaths (Cornell and Bennington) were murders. Both were abused as kids and Cornell at least was looking to bring to light a paedophile ring. Allegedly.

 

Music journalism has always had this lazy need to define terms for
music genres in order to pigeon-hole bands. This is also a form of
identity/snobbery that certain people enjoy.

Best in class are the dance music journos.
They come up with labels for genres, and then if they are still using
them today then often the music they label so is nothing like the
music they first labelled so a couple of years ago.

 

It's when the acts themselves say the subgenre they're being labelled with, such as (I believe) Portishead slating the invention of the trip hop label in the mid-90s, yet the term sticks because enough journalists have used it that it's basically drilled into people's minds.

Of course the obvious example of this is the use of the term indie, which was rendered meaningless the best part of thirty years ago when we were supposed to accept that The Las, Inspiral Carpets, The Happy Mondays and New Order were all the same thing as they were all dumped into the indie category...yet listening to them for, oh I don't know, ten seconds made it clear they were anything but.

 

Ok, it's infantile, but still...

 

Crap, epilepsy inducing video, but still good live:

 

And because it came up in my suggestions from the last song:

 

Many bands are clumped together because there are similarities in their sound to the untrained ear. All dance must sounds the same to me, but people who know their stuff can distinguish each artist from another.
Many artists are complex. They draw on many diverse influences, which result in many nuances in their sound which defy categorisation.
Popular music throws up little which is genuinely new or innovative this days. Most artists are influenced by music from the past and look to copy or re-work elements to create their own work. I like to hear those influences in the music I listen to. Categorisation of the music is largely irrelevant.
HBIC makes a great point - '80s indie spans acts as diverse as New Order, The Jesus And Mary Chain, The Smiths and The Cocteau Twins - and those were just British artists!