Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Random Thoughts: Songs I Would Like to Hear a Metal Band Play

My fiancee recently brought this to my attention and wanted me to write about it. Based on the technical proficiency of a lot of metal musicians, classical music could easily be transformed into metal. We got onto this topic recently and she mentioned how she would be interested in hearing Beethoven's 5th symphony performed by a metal band. I think it would work quite honestly. Can't you hear a group like Symphony X or Rhapsody of Fire attempting this? It could happen.

So, some other songs I would love to hear attempted by a metal band:

"The Devil Went Down to Georgia"
This could easily be done by a band replacing the fiddle with a guitar. It would lose a little something, but there are bands that could pull it off. We would need a band known for their speed, someone like Children of Bodom, early Blind Guardian, or Sonata Arctica to try this out.

"Bohemian Rhapsody"
This is an absolute classic song from the 1970's. This is an epic song, both in length and scope. Any power metal band should be able to pull this off. I would look for Kamelot to do it best.

"Thriller"
I thought about "Smooth Criminal". The Alien Ant Farm version was interesting, though it would be entertaining to hear a thrash metal band take it. But let's see arguably Michael Jackson's greatest song covered by a group. A death metal version would be truly frightening, and would keep with the zombie theme.

"Carmina Burana"
I have heard a couple of bands attempt this. This is my favorite piece of classical music. Nobody has ever really gotten it right though in the metal world. The best was the gothic metal band Aion. Again, a symphonic metal band would do this well.

3 comments:

  1. For Carmina Burana, I assume you mean the "O Fortuna" part of it. Therion did an excellent job on their 2000 album Deggial.

    For other classical metal stuff, you might want to check into Wolf Hoffmann's 1997 album Classical. It's not bad at all.

    As far as Michael Jackson--look into Raintime's (one of my favorite power metal bands) 2007 Flies & Lies, where they did a cover of "Beat It."

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  2. I didn't know Therion covered that. That would be worth checking out. I might have to check out that Raintime song too.

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  3. The Great Kat did a lot of covers of classical music, try Beethoven's 5th on the Beethoven on speed album. It's hilarious. Her version of Paganini's 24th caprice is also worth a listen.

    So many people in the hard rock/metal camp have done neo-classical.. Yngwie being the best example, he did Pachebel on his first solo album, there's a paganini concert on Live in Leningrad..

    Check out Racer X's `Scarified', it features a very nice piece by Bach. Paul Gilbert has done other pieces on later solo albums.

    `Flight of the bumblebee' has been done to death: The Great Kat, Manowar, Jennifer Batten..
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNQK9RpOloc

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