There is some truth to this. G5 basically quit because of Robb. Lips is still the nicest guy you could ever meet and does not fit this thread at all, but Robb (as great of a drummer as he is) seems like the success has gone to his head.



Despite the fact that Manowar is hugely influential and (as mentioned by somebody else) Joey is ridiculous about the way he views the band, that's part of their whole schtick. It always amazes me that people don't understand that. They never break character because otherwise their image doesn't work as well.

manowar is still nowhere near as influential as joey makes out though, and that's the point of this thread. i wouldn't be surprised if he actually believes manowar is directly responsible for almost everything that's happened in heavy metal since battle hymns. as for not breaking character, i don't believe that it's character anymore. i'm guessing that it WAS in the mid-80s, but joey at least genuinely believes it himself these days. THAT's the ridiculous part.

I actually agree with cronos that venom is more important than iron maiden. I mean venom was pretty much the band that laid down the groundwork for extreme metal. Iron maiden ofcourse was a very big band but what exactly was really new of what they did? They combined a few things that before that were not often seen together sure but if one traces down the history of most metal bands today you would lead it back to venom and not iron maiden.

I think Manowar counts. Whether it's marketing bullshit or genuine crazy talk is irrelevant at this point. The band's place in metal history is secure and undeniable on the strength and impact of its first four albums alone, but it's nowhere near as massive as what Joey has been screaming from every rooftop on Earth for the past two decades. So it's not wrong to say this band overestimates its importance.


If you listen to thrash, death and black, maybe. If you're into heavy, power, melodeath or melodic anything, really, it's rather the opposite, of course.

Yeah, that's why I mentioned he had some good points. I dunno though, I'm not sure if Venom were necessarily more influential than Maiden, and I'm not sure Maiden were more influential than Venom.

I call bullshit. Hellhammer was very influential to extreme metal and the fact that you find them shit is irrelevant to that. I don't think Tom ever overstimated its influence, mainly because of the fact that it influenced so fucking much of what came after

Marag, we already sorted out the Hellhammer issue on the previous page.

[quote="Zodijackyl"]Machine Head have achieved a remarkable amount of success with basically nothing to back it up. They were a terrible nu-metal band in the 90s who achieved some success on what everyone hates now, but they managed to avoid/shed the nu-metal label (despite this) and re-emerge as a metal band despite their more recent material sounding like a nu-metal song, a really long guitar solo, and a groove/thrash song all mixed together into one long mess. In the 90s, at least they had some sense of songwriting, then they started just trying everything with no sense of actually making it memorable or catchy, other than their nu-metal grooves.

Despite being absolutely fucking terrible, The Blackening was considered a comeback album. I don't know how it managed to be commercially successful with four songs that are around ten minutes, dragging on forever and having the least interesting extended guitar solos I've heard, but the only decent part of the album is the nu-metal. They're just not good at the rest of it. I like some bands that are considered similar too, and even those that I don't care for like Trivium, I understand the appeal to their music. The only thing I can come up with here is that nu-metal isn't cool anymore but a nu-metal song can be redeemed if there's a long guitar solo and a groove metal song all shoved into the same abomination, but it's boring and sounds like shit. At least All That Remains' new album has tons of melodic choruses.

Sure, they're commercially successful, and they act like it, but they fucking blow. They're terrible, they built their career on being an Ozzfest nu-metal band, and they somehow revived it by getting even worse. Nu-metal is kind of like original sin, you can never repent for this:

[/q


it seems like you are saying that Machine Head was just a nu metal band. Their 1st 2 albums (Burn My Eyes and The More Things Change) were Thrash/Groove style albums. they built a large following long before the whole nu metal stage in their careers. they did the shitty nu metal record because roadrunner forced it on them. they left the label because of this and made another thrash/groove album (Through The Ashes of Empires) on their own and it was so successful roadrunner re signed them. get your facts straight MH has had a large fan base since long before nu metal emerged. That fact is made clear here in their 1995 performance at Dynamo Open Air.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fdYJ3ldJvI

[/quote]*

any metal band who has any influence wont be felt for a couple years after they released there "classic" sound.

I'm quite a fan of Machine Head, but I actually found myself agreeing with this, especially with regards The Blackening. Supercharger and Through the Ashes... were both good albums, particularly the latter, but they've been quite average since then. After reading the rave reviews of The Blackening, I kept listening to it, thinking that I'd missed something, but slowly I realised that I had indeed heard it right, and the album was highly overrated.

Indeed. And Tom used to even slander Hellhammer in the 90's.

Most of these bands are completely random, are bad, and are imitating better bands but unsuccessfully.

There is one exception.

In a way, I feel tempted to say Mayhem. I do understand that they are basically the first bm band from Norway, but that aside, I think their only really good material came a bit too late to be called 'groundbreaking'. They got most of their fame before having a full length via controversy, with only a couple of demos (which sounds like shit) to back up their existence. When DMDS came out, most of norwegian black metal bands already had albums released and the 'norwegian' black metal sound was already known and defined - personally, I give the credits to Burzum, Darkthrone and Emperor for that (maybe Immortal too).

Now, where it comes the overestimation? in almost every possible interview given they call themselves 'the best', 'the elite' and so on and, while I can praise DMDS, 1 single album is not enough to feel so special. Maybe you can tell that Euro was the responsible for most of those guys to play black metal, but I see it as mostly as a personal influence and doing than the band's work.

Regarding thrash revival, I wonder if the new bands do have some degree of importance to begin with? what's the real contribution of, for example, Municipal Waste to the genre, to metal? besides rip-offing 80's thrash (and badly), I feel they do absolutely nothing but exist.

Emperor released an EP in '93 and a full-length a year later, the same year as DMDS. Mayhem, on the other hand, released the highly influental Deathcrush in '87, followed by Live In Leipzig in '93. The aforementioned was performed in '90, and it featured many tracks that would be released on DMDS.

Of course they were massively influental, and, I'm quite certain, more so than Emperor. If it's full-lengths that count, Emperor's only came a few months before Mayhem's.

If you think it's either Vektor, Exmortus, or Skeletonwitch, then I disagree. Those bands are far too removed from what is known as the thrash revival to even be taken into account. All three are great though.

I think I'm behind that too... the two bands have both got huge statures, but very different kinds of stature.

Iron Maiden are undisputedly huge - the best in their class, masters of their trade, you might say, but when it comes down to it, it's solid song-writing, prolific touring and an iconic status which did this, not ingenuity.

Venom are nowhere near as big, but did something which people hadn't done before. The way I see it, another band could have been Iron Maiden, but I'm less sure another band could have been Venom.

People probably saw 'Maiden coming... I doubt they saw Venom coming.

Interesting interview with Mike Scalzi & his thoughts on Anvil:

http://www.metalcrypt.com/pages/intervi ... ?intid=247

I don't think there's a band with importance or influence bigger than Venom, other than Black Sabbath obviously. There are few bands without whom some subgenres would look completely different, but without Venom the whole extreme metal movement wouldn't probably ever get so big.

On topic, Emperor, sure they've had amazing start, and great scenes like Polish one were influenced by them, but I don't see what's essential at all in their later material, and I'm not really sure what is the point of Ihsahn's artsy-fartsy solo career at all.

I also have nothing against pre2000s Immortal, but I can't really not get annoyed when I see them mentioned as classics of same caliber as Mayhem, Darkthrone, Burzum or Emperor. Neither their influence or quality of music itself can stand up to those bands, so the sole reason for their status is popularity?

The bandwagon-jumping is funny, because it seems like every other band gets bashed for it, but Machine Head gets credit for being around for a long time, despite being mediocre and going downhill from the start. Their early stuff was heavy for groove stuff at the time, but it's not very good.

The "importance" factor is mostly based off of the reception of The Blackening, some of which can be detailed here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Head_(band)#The_Blackening_.282007.E2.80.9410.29

They got a Grammy nomination, and nearly every mainstream metal publication gave a ridiculous amount of praise to an overwhelmingly mediocre album. More recently, they headlined several festivals (Soundwave, Bloodstock, and Wacken, according to Wikipedia, most likely co-headlines on multi-stage fests). Perhaps it's others, not them, but they get a lot more credit than they deserve.

While they didn't release the album until later, their standing among those bands wasn't purely social. They were playing some of the songs that were on DMDS in 1990-91, and they were heard by the people close to them - there's a 1990 demo with "Freezing Moon", the live tracks off of DotBH, and the crappy Liepzig versions. The excellent atmosphere of the album sealed the deal, but the setbacks in releasing the album did lend a lot of notoriety to it, as well as all of their peers.



They're a mediocre rethrash band who pioneered a much-imitated style of doing pretty much nothing new.

Like a few others, I think this thread has been a confusing mess. Take Machine Head, for instance. People may or may not like them, but there's actually no way these guys can be said to overestimate their own importance. Flynn is a very proud but very humble guy. These guys pay tribute to other bands that have influenced them in most of their interviews. Considering the critical and commercial success they've had, I think the guys in Machine Head are as down to earth as you can be.

The question isn't "which bands are important but shouldn't be", nor "which bands are not important, even though some metal fans think they are".

Bands don't "overestimate" anything anyway. A band isn't a person. It doesn't think. Megadeth thinks it is more important than it is? What's next? Megadeth likes long walks on the beach and enjoys watching basketball while sipping a Budweiser? Megadeth has taken a few pounds recently?

How about a simple fucking question like: Metal artists with an overinflated ego?

That has been done to death anyway. Adding the condition that said metal artist overestimates his/her work in music provides potentially interesting dichotomy of having enormous ego despite being little besides a trendhopper that got lucky, for example.

I agree though that the question shouldn't be which bands, but which musicians. We could also discuss people like Geoff Tate and Bobby Liebling who considerably exaggerate their input in their respective bands. Levasseur? According to Thibault, Levasseur didn't write nearly as much of None So Vile has is generally claimed, and the band's lack of success at delivering even nearly as great material ever after would provide reason to believe that there might be some truth to it.

On the other hand, apparently Levasseur claims that Thibault didn't have much involvement and couldn't play many of the songs on the album, so if he's telling the truth then it's Thibault who is overestimating his importance. At any rate I side with you due to the total shift away from well written songs and addictive grooves since Thibault was completely out of the picture.

I'll greatly agree with this, even though I like some of their releases. Albert Witchfinder had a HUGE ego.[/quote]
He also has a lot of mental problems (very very serious ones like schizophrenia). RB always had a larger than life/not quite serious attitude, Albert wrote overtly silly lyrics, so it's kinda ridiculous to take this little sticker seriously.

I don't think their importance is overestimated either, their influence on the whole Finnish doom scene is huge (check The Wandering Midget or Fall of the Idols for instance)[/quote]


haha also this sticker is on an album that features BABY pictures of the band on the inside. The band had a sense of humor, unlike most metal fans.

wow I fucked that quote up

not that it's metal, but steve lukather has said a couple of times (to paraphrase, exaggerate, etc) that he deserves credit for half the guitar riffs and licks written during the 80s, haha

Admittedly, I hadn't read many Machine Head interviews beyond a few where they were talking about playing their nu-metal stuff as a "fuck you" to anyone who didn't like it, and praising The Blackening for being innovative or something. Looking at some more, I didn't realize that they interacted with their fans online a lot, and they seem quite humble. Still an overrated band, but I guess they appreciate that they've been successful despite never putting out a good album.



Geoff Tate makes Axl Rose look humble. He's so full of himself that he preaches his delusions about the failure of his former bandmates, like nobody showing up to their shows and their destiny of failure, as well as claiming that Queensryche's shittiest albums were the fan favorites and the stuff that's actually good being irrelevant. The worst of his self-inflation was his breakdown of percentages of Queensryche's material that he wrote, where he considered lyrics to be 50% of each song. While he could put together a pretty good, genuinely honest appeal about his significance, he seems to be making a name for himself based on being the most delusional man in rock.

@vengefulgoat: 'Blizzard Beasts' says high. 'Pure Holocaust' won't even talk to you anymore.


No offense, dude, but you've got it fuckwards, there. A) Some band was inevitably going to be Venom. It's not like Motörhead records were only available in Mantas' living room. B) No one even knew what hit them when Maiden's debut hit the shelves.


Megadeth got into a catfight with that mean lady reporter who only got close to him to get Metallica's number.

Despite the fact that I really like Municipal Waste, I just have to point out how awesome this term is. How in god's name had I never heard it before right now?

If you think you are important because you create music or because you play someone elses music you are a moron, you also may not even be an artist, just some person who was negelected as a child and requires an enormous amount of attention to make up for it.

That beging Said

Dave Mustaine and Lars Ulrich are guilty of this, as is Kerry King.

Generally speaking, I'd like to think I'm pretty apologetic for guys making it as artists and being rich and whatever. I can accept it and it is what it is. I feel that way about anyone pimping their logo for money, whether it is Kiss, Iron Maiden, Dee Snyder, who cares, good for all of them getting rich thanks to fanboys. But when it comes to bands/artists that have completely out of whack viewpoints about how important they are as artists and as a cultural force, the chief songwriters of Metallica (Lars and James) perhaps top everyone, even vaunted egomaniacs like Geoff Tate, Joey DeMaio, or Paul Ledney.

To their credit, Metallica are rich, are famous, do sell a lot of tickets, so on, so forth. They also haven't released a solid, quality through-and-through album IMO for over 20 years, and I'm a Black Album apologist. But then again, as far as I'm concerned, neither has Iron Maiden, so that in and of itself doesn't make Metallica worse. It is the fact that their egos have run so rampant, they believe anything they do is genius, even absolutely horrible garbage like the Lulu record with Lou Reed, and that they believe that they are in fact unquestionably at the same cultural level as the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin (hint: they aren't) that astounds me.

That someone like Joey DeMaio thinks he is the most influential living man for heavy metal is ridiculous, but at least it is limited to heavy metal. Metallica essentially believe they are the most influential living rock band of any kind and perhaps the most important force in all of music today. That is a whole different level of crazy.

Would it be fair to put Trey Azagthoth/David Vincent in this category, in regards to Illud Divinum Insanus? They took their album of Rammstein-isms, lame electronics, and mediocre death metal and played it up as if it were a highly experimental game-changer of an album. And when people didn't fall for it, they got angry and defensive.

Obviously it's hard to overstate the importance of their early material, but they seem to think that their status in the death metal genre meant they were immune from criticism, and that came back to bite them when they fucked up.

I think they have never cared about criticism. They simply don't give a shit about it and that's a fact since, say, Altars. Hell, even when Blessed came out they received some kind of flak for the change in style and sound.

VON

Watch this video if you want to puke.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand third strike!

Where have "Metallica" said those things?

is it odd if i've never actually heard this von band? and am i missing out on anything?

Nope. The original demo isn't bad, but it isn't really at all anything you need to listen to.

In regards to that video, Venien actually sounds the most humble out of all of them. Which is disconcerting, considering none of them are really Von.

I'll re-elaborate: even if I do understand their importance, I think their egos nowadays are completely overblown, especially Necrobutcher's.



Not really. If you wanna listen some primitive and raw black metal done right, get some Blasphemy.



I think that has been said more by the media than the guys themselves. Still, they're the biggest thrash band ever (or the ones who made it bigger than anyone) and their influence is undeniable, so it's not that crazy to think like that.

The only one who said Metallica was the biggest heavy metal band at the day was Newsted, when he left the band.

There's a big difference between being the biggest thrash act and being "this generation's Rolling Stones" or whatever they have their publicists put out there. The Real Rolling Stones weren't opening for anyone 25 years into their career, and Metallica *did* open for the Rolling Stones. They also aren't superstars. Guys like Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Robert Plant, they were true "rock stars" in so much as they crossed over and became people that the general public outside their fanbase had interest in when it came to tabloid news and the like. No one cares who the members of Metallica sleep with, if they might be drinking, if they're generally working on a new project, etc. unless there's a presser filled with Lars' referring to himself and the band in the third person. They wanted to be. They oh-so-wanted to be. They still want to be, and their new movie for later this year (read the presser on that: HILARIOUS), Lulu, Orion Music Festival, all of that ties into them wanting to be a pantheon of rock and roll act. They did well, they made a lot of money, and so on, but they're never going to get where they want to go because they aren't good enough as songwriters, they did too much damage to themselves critically by chasing money, and so on. They're like the biggest act of a "post rock star" era where definitive personalities have been completely lacking in rock music or heavy metal. That isn't Metallica's fault but rather the logical progression of how things change and the limits to which that sort of music has been taken.

tl;dr version - nobody outside metallica's fanbase or potential fanbase of metal fans gives a shit about metallica so of course they aren't that level of a band, besides there haven't been real rock stars since the 80s other than axl rose and hey no one cares about him now either which says a lot about the path of guitar based music in the last 30 years