Metal Reviews

When I was 14 I got exposed to metal, rock music, music outside of what my parents deemed "fit" for me. I really loved it. I remember my first album I really got into was Tool- Lateralus, I would listen to it all the time. I would listen to albums for months on end over and over. Then I got a computer in my room when I was 15 or 16 and I would download as much music as possible but I really started to get pretty ADD about listening to music and would never listen to albums all the way through because I was checking music out so much. So I did this for a couple years, I was on a lot of drugs. Me and my brother (Orion) would always go to the record store and buy new albums. We acquired over 300 albums in a few years time span. When I was 19 I went insane and sold all of my albums and deleted my entire music collection off of my hard drive which was over 150GB of music. I removed my computer from my room when I was 20 because I felt I would waste too much time on it and I also quit using my ipod because I didn't want to listen to music that much. I felt like listening to music was wasting my time and altering my thought process too much.

Now I am 21 and I find myself listening an album once every few weeks for a week or two on end. Listening to it all the way through several times, whether it's a new album or an old favorite that I have remembered. I kind of like doing it this way and don't like investing so much time in listening to lots of different music. Rather honing in my listening time to 1 or 2 albums at a time over a 2 week span or so. I am studying Audio Production at the local college in my city and I also feel this is more beneficial to me learning that trade, because if I do get a job helping produce music. I am not going to be listening to 12 albums a day. I am going to be listening to one to two songs a day over and over, so I better get used to it.

How are you doing?

Started off listening to Pop Music

Eventually started enjoying hard rock

Eventually started hitting the depths of obscurity for good metal bands

Eventually learned how pretty much all music is made structurally and learned to appreciate pretty much all rock music, but gravitating towards more gratifying genres.

Started listening to more pop music due to it's availability.

Have quit actively seeking out new acts due to the overwhelming backlog of quality music yet unheard. Eventually the good stuff will be sifted from the mediocre. It's not like the music is going anywhere.

I started listening to music by watching tv actually. At first I was into nu metal, mostly because there were so many of them at the time. I was only 11 or 12 years old when I started listening to music so I didn't invest much time in seeking out new bands. I thought Slipknot was the heaviest shit on earth, but when a friend of mine who was into black metal at the time put on an Emperor song I thought it was crap.
At the age of 16/17 that same friend (who has stopped listening to metal completely and listens to dnb and other shit these days) gave me a link to Endzeit of Heaven Shall Burn. That's the band that got me into harsh vocals. Since then I've been exploring all kinds of metal.
I've always bought albums and I still do. I download a lot (and I mean A LOT) though. I try to listen to albums as a whole as much as I can, but sometimes I'm just not in the mood for that.

These days I mainly listen to music when I'm walking my dog/travelling to school, in which case I'll almost always go for something that's catchy with good lyrics, or reading, in which case I listen to jazz or maybe instrumental metal.

I see kinda three phases in my music listening:

First, loving music but not knowing very much about it. Listened to a very slowly expanding group of musicians all the time. eg Rage Against the Machine, The Offspring, Sublime, Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, and Tool.

Second, discovering RYM/amazon and music downloading. Listened to a lot of crappy metal because it was obscure, abrasive, boundary pushing, original, technical, etc despite having no idea what those terms meant. There's a bunch of it I still love like The Dillinger Escape Plan and Disillusion, but listening to something like Ion Dissonance or Meshuggah I wonder if I even liked it back then.

Third, started playing music, which cut down on the time I have to actively listen to music by a fair chunk and made me a lot pickier. No more "oh this is cool except the vocals/production/drummer" excuses. It also brought me back to the habit of always going back to the same dozen or so favourite bands most of the time.

I was introduced to metal/rock at the 14-15 listening to Scorpions, Pink Floyd and Metallica. I started buying CD's at the age 19. I have over 800 CD's ranging from classical music, neo classical, dark folk, instrumental, ambient/electronica (down-tempo), minimalistic, metal and rock oriented music in general. There will never be a satisfaction in music as it is always a discovery. It is endless. Although, going back to the favourites is an old habit!

Your brother's name is Orion? Are your parents hippies, or just astronomer?

Anyway. I used to listen to whatever was popular. Just picked up CD's from other people, friends, got them second hand. Bought a few CD's from bands I had heard about but I never really knew anything about genres, it was always just "this band sounds kinda cool". Listened to a lot of poppier music.

Then I went through an electronic phase, trance, breakbeat, ambient electronic at night, etc. This lasted a year or two. Right now I still have some in my music collection but I don't listen to it nearly as obsessively as I used to. Around the same time I discovered Nine Inch Nails... Manson... Rammstein, and so on. Started listening to them. Bought my first Tool album, loved it. Rage Against the Machine, Rush, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple...

Then somewhere along the line I started getting more and more into different subgenres of metal, more extreme, more boundary pushing (to me). I think the first album of this deluge, the one that started it all for me, was probably Ensiferum's Iron. After that, it was Moonsorrow. Wintersun. Finntroll. Dimmu Borgir. So many more, I can't even begin to remember them all.

Now, I usually sit and listen to my old favorites for a week or so, until I get on MetalReviews and see something new that's been reviewed. If the review sounds interesting, I'll get the album. 2 times out of 10, I don't really listen to it more than a few times, 1 of those times I don't even finish the second song.

I think he means Orion from the forums. Which surprised me.

Through speakers?

with your ears?

Well, I prefer headphones, meself.

Same here, loud, with everything else blocked out.

I think that the majority of metal music should be listened to in the context of entire albums, and without distraction. A few albums here and there have very individual songs, which can be listened to individually. But for the most part, I believe you should experience the entire album as a whole. Also, downloading music is evil.

As long as my body is in motion somehow whether in a car or running, this is one of my favorite ways to listen to metal

Started listening to Heavy Metal in 1992 when I was 12.

As to how I listen to it:

1. At work with headphones. My productivity actually goes up.

2. Ironing clothes - it actually means I look forward to ironing.

3. In the car

4. Outside in my yard whilst having a beer.

It's always whole albums.

exactly, I actually move faster when I blast my Hour of Penance at work, too bad you could never convince an employer to let the listen to your tunes 24/7

My work is largely self directed and I generally work alone (I'm the finance guy for a mental health organisation) so I generally do listen to music all the time while I'm at work.

lucky

I find an album that I really like and just listen to it like crazy for like two weeks. When this happens I don't even really try to find any new music. I know that even if I find another killer album I won't listen to it, and I'll probably never pick it back up at a later time. When I am not obsessing over an album I just let shuffle take care of music listening needs. Also the majority of my music listening takes place while I am at the gym.

I could never just listen to one album at a time.

In fact I'll often by a new CD, put it in the rack and then listen to some old ones.

The new one gets put on when I'm in the mood for something new.

Of course certain bands ala Iron Maiden or Megadeth get cranked as soon as I'm close enough to a CD player. But even then I'll listen to it a couple of times at most.

Me too!!