this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2025
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Unpopular Opinion

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They literally are not a metal band lol As a lifelong fan of all things in the metal genre I decided to try listening to them just to see what the fuss was about. I listed to most of 2 albums. One seemed to shift from new age to indie to something that sounded like the soundtrack to a movie, the other mostly sounded like electro pop music.

Both albums had short segments of sort of heavy nü metal sounding guitars kind of tacked on almost like an after thought. It seemed completely disjointed and the various parts didn't really fit together at all.

If you like this kind of music fine, I'm not going to tell people what to listen to. Some of it was actually pretty good here and there. I just don't understand this overwhelming need people seem to have to call them a "metal" band. Why would anyone want to call it that? They seem like one of those bands that would prefer not to be pigeonholed into a genre.

It's almost like if you had a band make an hour long album of classical piano music and the composer stopped every 10 minutes to recite some bland sanitized rap lyrics for 30 seconds and everyone decided it was the greatest hip hop record of the decade

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[–] overload@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Arguing about what is and isn't a genre is a bit pointless at the end of the day. Music is an evolving art form and bands can borrow from this that or the other genres to create an original sound.

This band clearly has some aspects of their sound that is idiomatic of metal, as well as a bunch of stuff that doesn't sound like metal.

It's fair of someone to call them a metal band if that's what they hear and connect to in the music.

[–] MrJameGumb@lemmy.world -1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Cool. So since genres are meaningless I can go write a country and western album tomorrow and if a handful of the songs have a drumbeat that sounds vaguely hip hop-ish I can market it as gangsta rap then... If anyone says "but Mr Gumb you're a white guy playing country music in your bedroom, that's not very gangsta" I can shriek at them about gatekeeping or condescendingly shame them for even attempting to assign a genre to what I do!

Wow, the future is amazing!!!

[–] overload@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I can see a troll post coming: "Sleep Token is not new age indie electro pop, and saying so is not "gatekeeping"."

Doesn't really matter if it's metal or not to me. I'd rather artists make stuff that they want to make. Otherwise all we're left with is the most generic metal/other genres that have to sound like everything else in the genre.

Surely that's a worse future for music.

[–] inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

My friend, you're describing Post Malone.

But more to the point, genres are in the ear of the beholder. Anyone can have a personal opinion about what type of music is X or isn't X, but that doesn't get to override another person saying they think X is Y. Music is inherently subjective, genres are fluid and fundamentally just labels we use to say "this sound reminds me of that sound". You can think a person or group is ridiculous but there is no objective truths here, it's truly just your opinion versus their opinions it's an inherently unwinable discussion for anyone.

Respectfully, this is a angsty teenage type of wasted energy. Purity testing art is just a no win situation, worry less about the words others use to describe art and focus more on the fact that you're all enjoying different parts of the same artist.

[–] overload@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Thanks, couldn't have said it better myself.

To add, there's so much overlap in musical techniques. If you hear half or double time drum changes in an electronic song the metal listener might think "oh this is a metal influence" while the jazz fan will say "oh nice, reminds me of double time swing in jazz".

The influence might have come to the artist from one genre or the other, but the listener decides what it reminds them of.

[–] MrJameGumb@lemmy.world 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Ah, I see you've chosen the "condescendingly shame people for acknowledging genres even exist" route. Well played 👍

That is the wrong genre classification for my post. I suppose I have no choice but make my own thread complaining how other opinions aren't as nuanced as my own opinion of my opinion.