Yet Another List

This one actually came to my attention last week but I didn't feel like covering another list.

http://new.music.yahoo.com/blogs/listoftheday/69730/the-25-best-heavy-metal-bands/

This is the Top 25 Metal Bands, at least according to Yahoo. Now Yahoo is notoriously well-known for their taste in metal music...What the fuck am I talking about? This is another place that should probably steer clear of such lists in the future.

Well at first, the writer begins by discussing the problems with classification of metal, which is interesting and is the first telltale sign that he is going to completely fuck this up. Sure enough. Onwards.

25. Meshuggah
I don't know how to feel about Meshuggah. Their early stuff is great, talking about my Contradictions Collapse + None combo-album, but on their later stuff they've seemingly forgotten how to play a real song, washing everything away in endless technical wankery. Their stuff nowadays is barely even metal anymore, losing the technical death/thrash feel of the early material and replacing it with a more chaotic, dissonant Slipknot-esque sound. There's the "S" word, now I've done it. Still, like I said, their early stuff is great.

24. Mercyful Fate
Ah, something I can agree with. Mercyful Fate should have been lumped with King Diamond since it's the same singer and basically same ideas behind the music. The only real difference is that Mercyful Fate is more geared towards independent song ideas on their albums and focus more on instrumentation while King Diamond creates concept albums and the music is focused on the vocals. Great bands both, and King Diamond is a genius.

23. Alice in Chains
AiC was always my favorite of the "grunge" bands of the early 90's which was a huge scene when I was in middle school. I was a bit of an outcast because they were often #3 on that list behind Nirvana and Pearl Jam, but I didn't care. Their music was darker and heavier. It was also just better. I got sick of hearing about Nirvana. AiC all the way. I am looking forward to their new album although Layne Staley is gone.

22. Uriah Heep
NFM. I am not overly familiar with this band, but I know they're a hard rock group from the 1970's that never really came close to metal.

21. Pantera
I've made my feelings on this band known. I love Cowboys from Hell. Almost everything else afterwards is overly simple crap. I don't know, I liked their heavier more extreme songs, but there weren't enough of them. The regular groove stuff is just kind of tedious to listen to.

20. Thin Lizzy
Not familiar enough with them to comment. Most of the stuff I have heard of theirs were covers from bands like Metallica, Dragonlord, Grave Digger, Skyclad, and the like. I've heard their classic tracks and enjoyed them well enough. Thin Lizzy is pretty notorious for getting considerably heavier later in their career.

19. Kyuss
Ah, stoner doom metal. Kyuss was pretty great and had a huge influence on a lot of bands. It's just too damn bad that they evolved into Queens of the Stone Age. Ah, tragedy.

18. Guns 'n Roses
NFM. The first utter failure on this list. It gets better, I promise.

17. Kiss
NFM. I think it's the costumes and stage show that lead people to believe this is a metal band. When it comes down to it, they were basically playing bubblegum pop with guitars. I bet if the Jonas Brothers put on corpse paint and demon outfits, spit fire and blood, and explosions, but played the same music, idiots would think they were metal too.

16. Dio
Present horns. Dio is a great choice for this list. I don't see a lot of people (read: idiots who don't know better, yet insist on making these terrible lists) who praise Dio's solo work. Sure he was influential in Black Sabbath and Rainbow, but he had a pretty solid solo career as well.

15. Robin Trower
NFM. I have no idea who this is.

14. Rush
Geddy Lee's vocals just bug the hell out of me. Particularly on "Limelight". For that reason, I cannot bring myself to give them another chance.

13. Spinal Tap
Ugh. Okay, the movie was funny as hell, one of my personal favorites (thanks, baby, for the gift), the album is reasonably enjoyable for its cheese factor (intentionally so), but for God's sake why is this band on this list?! Not being an actual band would seemingly disqualify them, one would think. Or if you're going to put them on the list, at least have the decency to put them at #11, for fuck's sake.

12. Deep Purple
One of the pioneers of the genre. I never really got into them.

11. Slayer
I love Slayer as much as the next metalhead. Unfortunately, their amazing early catalog is missed by most Slayer fans. Some people don't seem to realize how great they were BEFORE Reign in Blood. The band sounded like Metallica and Venom in a blender, it was incredible. I miss that Slayer.

10. Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden should be much higher, #3 or #2. An amazingly talented band.

9. Motorhead
I do enjoy Motorhead's brand of beer and sex fueled mayhem. An incredibly fun band to listen to. They wrote some great songs too, although a lot of their albums start to sound the same after awhile.

8. Aerosmith
NFM. What the fuck?! The author spends his entire synopsis trying to explain this choice, which still comes out an ill-conceived mess. Basically his explanation is that the band sounded like a lot of other metal bands, but he doesn't name names. This would be a convincing argument except for one little insignificant detail: if the band sounded like Aerosmith, it was not metal, PERIOD. I understand there was some confusion in those turbulent 1980's as to what was metal and what wasn't and every fucking band with a blonde lead singer, guitars, and a abundance of hairspray was thrown into the metal genre by fucking idiots who had no clue, but that did not make them metal. People can sit around and claim Nickelback is a metal band too (and have I might add) but that does not make them a metal band. Only the music can do so. Aerosmith played blues-heavy hard rock, not metal. Bands like Poison and White Lion and Great White were also hard rock bands. Ozzy said it best when he said something along the lines of the metal tag being applied too liberally and that Metallica was a metal band, but Poison was just an out-and-out pop band. Rant over.

7. Judas Priest
Judas Priest should also be higher. #3 or #2, whichever one Iron Maiden is not occupying.

6. Metallica
#6, really? I would have them at #4 personally. Only dropping behind Maiden and Priest because of their Load and Reload albums. This better be one hell of a Top 5.

5. Jimi Hendrix Experience
NFM. And we immediately fuck it up. Look, Hendrix was influential, anyone can see that. His music even influenced a lot of what would later become metal, but if we kept going back in time to find the metal influences and claim they were also metal, we would end up looking at The Beatles and blues musicians as well. It is for that reason that I draw the line at Black Sabbath, the first truly metal band in existence.

4. Van Halen
NFM. Oh my god. When was Van Halen ever considered anything other than just a hard rock band?

3. AC/DC
NFM. Three chords does not a metal band make.

2. Led Zeppelin
NFM. I made my feelings for this band clear in the vocalists list. I don't care for them and they are not a metal band. They may have had moments, perhaps even songs, but not enough to be a metal band.

1. Black Sabbath
Well, after fucking up the other four choices in the Top 5 they better get one right. Luckily it's the most important of all.