adc wrote:why do people lose the ability to describe music informatively once theyre talking about rock or metal?
wihtout descending into a rant about shite journos, i'll just ask why say "will rip your fucking face off" when you could say something that might actually describe it?
Having one's face ripped off strikes me as eminently descriptive, particularly when a band's approach, as I can best figure out, is completely visceral.
My thinking is that sometimes really great bands just play fast, hard and loud, and it's pointless and ridiculously arch to talk about them in terms other than their ability to play fast, hard and loud. Furthermore, this simple, off-hand, kid-in-a-concert-T-shirt approach is certainly preferable to something along the lines of a "they kinda sound like Drive Like Jehu meets The Stooges" (which is true). Now there's your bad writing -- while probably helpful in terms of allowing a reader to approximate a band's general sound, it's totally unfair to the band, which neither triumphs like The Stooges nor sucks like Drive Like Jehu -- and should therefore be compared to neither one.
So indulge me -- if I write simply, and perhaps inadequately by your standards, let me nonethless continue to use phrases like "kick ass", "balls to the wall" and "fuck yeah" -- because sometimes the pure invigoration and sea change of mood elicited by certain great rock and metal bands, including Sweden's Trapdoor Fucking Exit, I am only able to capture and haltingly translate through use of my limited "shite journo" lexicon.
Cheers.
Brad