LOLDEAFHAVEN

[Iommic Pope]

aside from people saying "wow that's pretty awful" in a variety of ways the same way you do any other time you hear a pretty terrible band appropriating stuff from bands you like.

That's about where it ends for me.
But taking into account what SPACE said before, the piss and vinegar is totally understandable.

[goroth]

The black metal community has always been pretty stupid with labels and trueness. Entombed got a letter from Euronymous stating that they shouldn't be allowed to call themselves death metal because they played life metal...

[Fluffytime]

I was a metalhead teenager in norway in the nineties. I know the stupid. Trust me.

[rustywire]

The black metal community has always been pretty stupid with labels and trueness. Entombed got a letter from Euronymous stating that they shouldn't be allowed to call themselves death metal because they played life metal...

...a fella might get stabbed in the skull for saying some shit like that

[Blackened Soul]

Ok so I get they are hipstersomethingmetal, I get people find them boring, but do they sell a lot of albums? they have to be selling to get on those tours and get a thread about how hard they suck... I thought they were like a fad..

[Fluffytime]

Meh.

[PeteeBee]

I don't think the last album did all that well in the sales department, I think they're just riding the success of Sunbather.
I don't get the hate at all. They're obviously not core or whatever, but they're also not really trying to be I don't think? Maybe they're like a current korn in that they're bringing "heavy music" to the masses? I don't really care. I like it decently enough but never listen to it.

[frodog]

Black metal is antithetical to "the masses", hence Deafheaven's accessibility is seen as an affront by some. By how many or how deep it runs I couldn't say, but I think that's a simple way to put it.

[D.o.S.]

Uh I think the hate for me is that they were posited/hyped as a 'revolutionary/genre-expanding' black metal band by people who, and I think this is sort of the point of contention, don't actually listen to black metal... when they're actually just putting rehashed explosions in the sky leads over third-rate tremolo-picked riffs. It seems to be pretty transparent trend hopping (at least, to me) and it's also just not very, uh, good, but it also made it safe for the trend sailors to 'invade' black metal, if you will.

Now, you can say it's judgemental and sanctimonious and bullshit to complain about that, but it feels (again, to me) like there was definitely a reason why your average aspiring art student/journalist didn't give a shit about black metal until 'cool people' made it safe for them to like it. That shit bothers the hell out of me?

[PeteeBee]

Yeah I get that about the art student types jumping on board, Dos. And I had forgotten all the funny interviews about inventing new genres. That was pretty silly and I can see how it would incite the fire.

[SPACERITUAL]

Id like to just point out that this thread really wasn't supposed to be about my thoughts on defhaven or the current state of black metal in general, but how funny i though it was to see them get mercilessly ridiculed in a way i haven't really seen since papa roach was a really big deal.

[D.o.S.]

Papa Roach put out an album last year.

What?

[rustywire]

Uh I think the hate for me is that they were posited/hyped as a 'revolutionary/genre-expanding' black metal band by people who, and I think this is sort of the point of contention, don't actually listen to black metal... when they're actually just putting rehashed explosions in the sky leads over third-rate tremolo-picked riffs. It seems to be pretty transparent trend hopping (at least, to me) and it's also just not very, uh, good, but it also made it safe for the trend sailors to 'invade' black metal, if you will.

Now, you can say it's judgemental and sanctimonious and bullshit to complain about that, but it feels (again, to me) like there was definitely a reason why your average aspiring art student/journalist didn't give a shit about black metal until 'cool people' made it safe for them to like it. That shit bothers the hell out of me?

I get it. Culture vultures. Before 1998 hiphop wasn't "pop" and I rarely saw girls around school with rap in the walkman or car stereo. Esp JAP type girls. This was also in the NYC market, at a time when Hot 97 still regularly played records from its then 15-years-strong rap legacy. Street music.

Then Ghetto Superstar made it "OK" and suddenly the same preppy girls who might've called me wigger for drawing WU-TANG logos on....everything....were trying to talk to me about 2pac and Biggie. Because it became fashionable. Safe. TRL-approved.

It's not a case of the hipstery tude "I was into [it] before it was cool"
It's "oh so now it's cool because you're (superficially) all about [it] and therefore you've actually been cool all along, and 2cool4me but I'm no longer looked-at weird for liking music that *wasn't made for me*"
Rap had already been on mainstream radio & tv for 5+ years since Nuttin But A G Thang, but it took a big budget collaborative create-a-pop-song-for-a-movie-soundtrack with packaged r&b hook to fetishize a genre for mass (female) consumption. And that's precisely when it seemed to get canned & corny, homogenous.

[lost in music]

lol, I remember that moment. I haven't thought of that song in nearly 20 years probably.

Also SPACERITUAL, I'm sorry. It was half-hearted trolling and I didn't want to shit on anyone's culture or anything. I still think those videos are pure douchebaggery though.

[casecandy]

I dunno, I'm betting that the black metal scene is benefiting from the attention DH has brought to it.

DH could be a gateway into harder, uh, drugs.

Although TBH I think DH sound more like skramz with production values than it does earlier blackgaze like Ulver, Agalloch, etc.

Put another way: the vocals are skramz vocals, not BM vocals.

#GenreIsASocialConstruct