Semi-Dayley dose of METAL

[anarky]

I decided to go through as much Black Sabbath, Ozzy, and Dio as possible, chronologically. I'm hearing a lot for the first time, and quite a bit that I'd listened to once or twice and dismissed as crap.

I'm in the middle of Dehumanizer, the brief 90s Sabbath reunion with Dio.

A few takeaways so far:

Ronnie James Dio is king. Not only is he the most talented singer to front BS, but there's not a bad note on any of his albums, with either BS or Dio. A few songs are a tad dated, but nothing subpar.

RONNIE JAMES DIO IS CREDITED AS PLAYING TRUMPET ON 60s BUBBLEGUM GIRL POP HIT "MY BOYFRIEND'S BACK"?!?!?

RJD's pre-Rainbow band, Elf, is a solid but unremarkable blues rock band. It's kinda shocking they didn't have at least one hit.

The number of connections with Deep Purple is insane. In addition to Dio coming from Rainbow (Ritchie Blackmore's side project), two DP lead singers fronted BS for exactly one album each. (And a third, David Coverdale, was reportedly considered to replace Dio until he re-formed a new version of Whitesnake.)

The two DP-fronted albums are both pretty good, with two of the worst covers.

I didn't realize there was one BS single prior to their debut album. It's not bad. But hardly essential.

Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die! get a bad rap. They're both great. Just absolutely not consistent with the earlier stuff. I'd say they're better than Sabotage. All three are drug-fueled messes. But Sabotage seems to be trying and failing to capture the earlier magic, whereas the other two experiment.

Tony Martin's tenure is actually rather good. I know Forbidden stinks, because I listened to it for the first time only a few months ago. But the earlier albums? No clue why they're not appreciated more. Just a pissed fandom because he wasn't Ozzy or Ronnie?

[anarky]

Because Bruce Dickinson is so fucking cool, they let a Brit sing the national anthem....

[anarky]

I've really been trying to discover good new metal, as well as old metal that escaped my notice.

In doing so, I've come to the conclusion that most 21st century American, Canadian, and English metal is shit. I hear and read tons of praise for Spiritbox and Sleep Token, and they both bore the fuck out of me. Maybe I'm just not listening to the right stuff they've done, but it's just generic dullsville.

Big surprise, the really good stuff is coming out of Germany, Scandinavia, and Asia, where they actually try new shit instead of rehashing fucking Limp Bizkit, who sucked ass the first time around. Those are certainly the only places where most metal bands are still singing about mythology, history, folklore, and the occult, the way Ronnie James Dio intended.

Also, I stand by what I've said for a quarter of a century now: I really hate the weird "constipated Hutt barking like a dog while passing a kidneystone the size of a small bus" vocals that have been so fucking common for the last several years. I can't tell you how many times I've heard something start, gotten really into it, and then some dumbass does their goddamned German Shepherd imitation. Give me someone, male or female (or, hell, nonbinary if there are any nonbinary metal singers) who can actually carry a fucking tune.

[anarky]

Master of Puppets is forty years old today.

Forty. 4-0.

It always boggles my mind on anniversaries like this to think of the equivalent time before the milestone. Like forty years ago was Master of Puppets. Forty years before Master of Puppets, almost to the day, on March 4, 1946, Frank Sinatra released his debut album. Looking at the hits of March 1946, I recognize a couple of names of musicians I've heard of but couldn't tell you a damned thing about. The only ones I actually know aside from Ol' Blue Eyes are Bing Crosby, the Andrews Sisters, and Louis Jordan. It'd be about seven more years before the first arguable rock song ("Rocket 88"), and even longer before rock music took hold. And around twenty years before anything even the most liberal definition would classify as metal.

[Tom Foolery]

I often do that while listening to the radio station that plays “oldies” which was exclusively playing 70s and 80s stuff, but has started throwing The Fugees, GooGoo Dolls, Spin Doctors, and Three Doors Down into the mix. Like, what?! THESE are the ‘timeless’ 90s songs you’ve decided to go with?

But I digress. Yeah, I’ll think that time gap. I also think about where my parents were and what they were listening to, or what they were “into” at the same age I am/was.

I recently found a box in their basement marked ‘karate’ and asked about it. It has their karate gis in it. Apparently they got on a martial arts kick for a few years and got pretty good at it. I did not know that about them.