I think we should be more open about music in general

[Dominik Gräber]

I’ve seen this over and over again in the last years. Every band that changes their style or even slightly their musical direction gets hate from what seems to be even their most loyal fans.
For example with Linkin Parks latest album One More Light (which wasn’t bad at all imo, just WAY different).
I got to admit when the first songs came out I couldn’t get used to it either. But different music takes time to be appreciated.
All this happens as well to one of my all time favorite bands Bullet for my Valentine. They get immense hate on social media on their new songs just because they haven’t shown a solo in two songs and whatever.
Let’s see it like this. If you are eg. very much into thrashy, heavy riffs and songs and give nothing else a chance, you could easily argue that Avenged Sevenfolds “The Stage” is by far their worst album. But you miss SO MUCH with an attitude like this.
I myself struggle getting used to different styles, but I think we should give every music a chance, and even more every band that tries to evolve. Just my thought of the day

 

[Matt Wildman]

You are totally right dude. I hate it how people criticize bands for changing their musical style sometimes. It’s their music they have the right to shake things up a bit. And even if you don’t like it you should still respect it. I also struggle with adjusting to different musical styles. Especially with a7x. I’ll admit the stage isn’t my favorite album from them but I still respect the way they shook things up a bit with the style and everything of the whole album.

 

[Dominik Gräber]

Yes, I see how The Stage is an album that not everyone can get comfortable wiht, but it’s just a huge piece of art. It took me over a month to appreciate it.

 

[idssdi]

You areceived absolutely righth! Personally when I was like 14/15 I kinda was the same way but since then my taste has developed in a way that you can pretty much throw anything at me(besides screaming and techno) and the chance I’d kinda like it is pretty big!

 

[TheMighty Jambi]

Exactly right! I like to listen to almost everything. Of course I have my favorites but I like to take all kinds of music and stick it in my mind blender and then see what comes out when I make up my own stuff.

 

[Calvin Phillips]

how many people HATE parkway drives new album? lol I haven’t listened yet, but theres so much hate on it on facebook from their fans. lol ITS NOT METALCORE!!!!!

 

[Calvin Phillips]

The stage is by far my favourite album of theirs since waking the fallen. But I still love waking more.. the raw tone that syn uses on that album kills me everytime. I love it. But I love all their albums, they achieved every sound they wanted on every album I think.

 

[Filip Tomiša]

People will always complain on the internet no matter what. I understand why some people don’t like The Stage because it’s an album that you need to get used to and then you can understand why it’s fucking awesome.
People that hate on the new Parkway Drive album are the same people that used to hate IRE but now all of a sudden they like it, I mean it’s always the same, I’ve seen it too many times. I love the new album, it has great songs but I like IRE just a little bit more.
I love BFMV but to be honest I’m not that excited for the new album mainly because of the lyrics, to me they just sound repetitive. I feel like Matt said what he had to say in the first 2 or 3 albums and after that it just kinda got recycled. I still love the band but I’m just not that excited that’s all

 

[Dominik Gräber]

Yeah @filip Bullet never was really strong when it comes to lyrics. Just for me personally it is not too bad and I’m excited to hear with what sounds they come up next on Gravity.

 

[Calvin Phillips]

All my favourite bands did it so I’m not surprised parkway drive followed it too. After a while playing the same shit gets boring. I’m sure Syn can totally agree with us on that one lol. I’m gonna listen to the album today fully through.

 

[Mariler]

I think writing music is about creativity. If a musicians are always trying to please the audienar, they will never get a full development as artists and they have the right to change and try something new.
I like to listen to very different types of music, like soul,jazz, metal, alternative rock, classic spanish guitar music,…If you ask me about my preferences it will always be metal or rock of any kind. Anyway, I guess hearing other styles help me train my ear, adding a variety of sounds and this is a good thing when you play an instrument. I’ve never written a song but whe I improvise I can feel I have a wider repertoire to try to stay away from monotony

 

[Dominik Gräber]

You are right @mariler . A Band should not only try to make their fans happy and develop. At least if they feel like this is what they want.

 

[Sayonil Mitra]

So true. Although music taste varies from person to person, a band or artist should be allowed to experiment. I remember the Hate Linkin Park got after One More Light. I now consciously try to listen to as many different bands as possible. Another forum in this site is helping me a lot ( what are you currently listening to). We should actually be impressed by the diversity of our favourite bands.

 

[Jak Angelescu]

I agree 100%. I just think that people fear and despise what they’re not use to. They like being “comfortable”, hence why every single pop song and rap song sounds the same nowadays. Hell, it’s even getting like that for rock and metal too. I took some getting use to the Stage album but it wasn’t because it wasn’t like the White Album or anything. It just sounded really different to me and ‘off’. But I’ve come to learn a phrase called “letting your ear get use to something”. The more I listened to it, it became so brilliant that it’s actually close to being my favorite A7X album. I actually feel like ripping my hair out when people criticize Matt’s voice now. They say things like “I miss his screaming. He doesn’t sing like he use to.” I always say, “Well then start your own damn band and then you can scream your head off all you want to.”
I agree with them missing out on things because of being so narrow-minded. I personally feel Matt’s singing is the best on The Stage. His melodies over such ridiculously odd chord phrasings and stuff is unbelievable. Not to mention his voice on songs like Angels, Higher, and Exist are just sooooo soothing. I’ve never heard a singer (not to sound like a fangirl, I mean this in all sincerity), I’ve never listened to a singer where when they sing, I literally MELT. It’s not like a swooning effect, it literally is just relaxing.
People can’t sit still and focus these days. They can’t take five minutes out of their day and open their mind to different things and it’s quite sad, actually. Brilliant post, by the way.

 

[Dominik Gräber]

You are so right @jak . And I know what you described. I have quite some songs in my gigantic playlist that I ‘hated’ after I first listened to them. But you can really grow into certain music, styles, songs. Also, when I first heard the song ‘The Stage’ (mind that I had no idea/didn’t think about certain guitar techniques) I was like, oh another intro like HTTK, again. And ‘Matt sounds kinda whiny here’. But some things just need time. By now I consider The Stage an absolute Masterpiece (actually both, song and album)

 

[Brian Haner Sr.]

Art is very much like life. People change. Nobody wants to repeat what they have done. Even if you had a GREAT time in Jr High school (secondary school) – do you want to go back and do it again? Of course not. You want to explore and conquer new territory. Bands who draw from the same well over and over are destined to become “dated” and die out. Bands that change from album to album tend to stay around longer. I remember how many people hated The Beatles when they started experimenting (Revolver, etc), and how it seemed like EVERYBODY hated the black album by Metallica. A7X could not have began to attempt something like The Stage 15 years ago. They were simply different people. Different musicians. But if they had not moved forward and just kept trying to remake Sounding the 7th trumpet, NOBODY would know or care who they are. They would have disbanded in 2005.
I have released 10 albums in my life and I can tell you from experience – ALL you want to do as an artist is just represent who you are at that moment and time to the best of your ability. If you are trying to do anything else, you don’t stand a chance.
I promise you the next A7X album will be nothing like The Stage. What will it be? Nobody knows yet. Not even the band – because right now they are not the same artists they will be next year when they start writing it. (And I am assuming it will be next year. I don’t know that for a fact, so this is not an announcement. I’m just judging by past cycles).
Good thread!
Cheers!
PG

 

[idssdi]

@brian I love how you’really talking down the hype of a new record! Besides that you are absolutely right! Personally I wouldn’t write the same songs as I did a year or 2 years ago.

 

[Alec Lewis]

This is a state of mind that I have been trying to get into. I believe it makes a difference whether you play an instrument or not. Before my interest in guitar, I was very picky about my style and was more into Hard Rock and Metal that metalheads wouldn’t consider metal lol. As I started my journey into music I began to appreciate the guitar itself and not just the sound it was making. I would have never listened to gypsy jazz before playing guitar, and now i am starting to enjoy more types of music. I am even going to try out for my jazz band at school to finish off my senior year, and I have never been a fan of jazz before lol.

 

[Alec Lewis]

I also think one of the most important music lessons an advanced player can learn is to always keep learning and never be satisfied with where you are. I guarantee you that Syn is still practicing and learning things even at his level, which is partly the reason for the shift in A7X’s style in The Stage.

 

[Daniel Sobota]

This is a super interesting thread for me, so this is gonna be a really long post lol.
I have to be honest here, I’m of an opinion that bands/artists should always try different and new things, but when they do a drastic change that completely changes the band and strips them of all of their elements, especially if it’s an established band with 4+ records, I’m generally not a fan of that. Well, that actually depends whether the music on that totally different album is good, but in most cases it isn’t imo. I get called an “elitist” all over the interwebs because people don’t understand this opinion. I’m not going to dismiss the whole band and write “RIP *insert band name*” because they’ve made a record that I don’t like. It’s just that if I like a band so much and am so connected to them, I’m going to be harsher towards material that they put out. Interesting enough, when The Stage was released, I absolutely loved it. Wasn’t skipping a single track. But now, I think it’s just a slightly above average mainstream metal album, mainly because of the quality guitar and drum work, not really a fan of the vocals. And that’s fine, I don’t need to like the album as much as I did, I have 3 A7X albums that I hold in a superhigh regard and I’m gonna listen to them until the new album is out.
Speaking of bands like Linkin Park who did that drastic change I talked about, I guess I would have a harsher opinion towards it if it was 2009 when I was a massive LP fan. But over the years I stopped listening to them so I was able to go “ok, they made a super drastic change, but they’re not my thing anymore, so whatever”. The thing is that most people who bashed on that album weren’t massive LP fans anymore, because most people forget that pretty much every LP album after Meteora got massively shitted on.
Here’s the part that will get me “boo elitist” shouts. I would be massively disappointed if Avenged stopped playing heavy riffs, solos and double-bass drums. People can tell “oh they’re just trying different things by playing pop/EDM/reggae or whatever”. But that’s just not what Avenged is about. I love when they do experimentation, but still remain who they are. For example, the Danny Elfman-style orchestra in the Wicked End is absolutely wicked (yes, pun intended). But would it sound as epic and unique if it weren’t for those riffs, hard hitting drums and super fast leads that back it up? Probably not. It’s hard to explain my thoughts like this, because it can come off pretty wrong, explaining it in real life is better haha.
So yeah, I love when bands try different things but still remain true to what they are. And when you think about it, that’s the hardest thing to do. To balance it. It would be easy to do one thing more than the other and lose all the essence of what you were trying to do creatively as a songwriter. That’s why I like the albums that are total balance the best.