Metal Reviews

Who needs teh underground when you can just buy whatever pitchfork rates highly!?

What if the underground makes artistically pure music for nothing else but to make convey an idea through that music?

And if an underground band that is exceptionally good suddenly becomes interested in money and fame and magazine covers, they will probably see-out ASAP anyway and produce shit records for the rest of their careers.

A mainstream Burzum? Its impossible!!!

I think he is mainstream. There is hardly one black metal fan who says that Burzum is shit. So he is quite popular in the community and deservedly so, because he is simply one of the best.
Most of the underground makes artistically pure music for nothing else but to make convey an idea through that music. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they are good. Those who are good will get the chance to spread their ideas among a broader audience, those who aren't good won't.

Underground isn't the opposite of mainstream. I see underground as everything you can get only through self-distribution or obscure, highly specialized labels.
But not everything that you can buy in a record store is mainstream. It depends on the position. Elitists call Opeth or even Emperor mainstream but for the normal pop listener they are certainly not.

It certainly is. Digging the underground is an exciting journey and the reward is high when you succeed. On the other hand the time is missing to deal with the good stuff you already have. There are masterworks that offer something new after the 20th listening. In the same time I could have listened to the 20 latest hot underground tips of which 19 normally turn out to be flops. So what I have gained by waiting is the time that I have not wasted for third-class bands and music.

There is simply not enough time to listen to all good music and there is even less time to really know all good music.

If everyone had Open Mind's attitude you were right. There would be no chance to rise through word-of-mouth recommendation because everyone would be to lazy to listen to it.

I don't think so, because there are no generally binding laws by which it can be judged.
Well, there must be some unwritten laws at leat for Classical music. Mozart, Beethoven, Sibelius and Bruckner remain good no matter how much idiots tell the opposite. So it must be possible somehow but I have no idea how objective quality criteria for Metal could look like.

That is a truth, but since that is not the case, I can retract my argument. I'm a realist, that's why I don't vote at elections. A quick calculation makes me lack the spirit to overcome the little effort, but if everyone was like me, there would be no democracy. Luckely not everyone is like me.

The shitty thing about Young is that his best work was never released. I've read into it a bit and it seems that the true father of minimalism is Tony Conrad. He did some great stuff as well, although he was active for a very short period only to return to music recently. What do you think of him?


http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?a ... 301FD7193C
Check that by the way, awesome bootleg of some Eternal Music rehearsal. Both Conrad and Young playing there. Young is an excellent saxophonist and although Conrad doesn't master the violin drone here as well as he would later do, he pulls of a great underdrone for the music.

i don't care about underground or not, as long as i like the music. One thing about 'underground' disturbs me though. I'll take the Godspeed You!Black Emperor example. A Belgian radio station wanted to make a cd from a show they have, on which GY!BE is played a lot. They contact GY!BE, but they refuse. Why? Because the record label that wanted to sell the album of the radio show had done business with a major(read: commercial) record label in the past. This is, to be honest, some stupid ass reason to not be considerd commercial.

shut up

But, those who are good wont be becoming popular due to starting out with that goal. Then sometimes if they rise to the top and get a bit popular they sell out. See Satyricon.