what happened to heavy music in the england?
 

we used to be the best at it, now we are crap.

japan or america probably, france, sweden and norway are all good too. there is some good heavy music in the england at the moment, but it's not like it used to be.

well to my knowledge there just isn't that much of it about, not in london anyway. what i mean is that there are no good new young bands playing heavy music, there are plenty of old guys doing it though.

Shouldn't that be 'What happened to a lot of good rock music played by young people in Britain'?Unless we talk about the more electronic fringes of music,it seems to me that a lot of youngsters forgot how to rock out in general.

yeah, and the electronic fringes are so fickle and prone to fads and genre based tribalism. there's no almost no cross over between any of the various electronic styles, even though they are all so closely related, and clubs are so segregated in their musical styles.

I think that British youth probably forgot how to rock out some time in the mid-80's, under the influence of Morrissey, and not even grunge was able to alter that. The kids seem to want to be rock animals (witness all the kids on the High Street wearing rock band logos on their hoodies), but the ones who want to make music all seem to want to be derivative of Brit-Pop.

The Smiths begat The Stone Roses begat Oasis begat too many simpering indie bands to mention. Making music seems to be a career option these days, not an art form.

To me the young British musician seems all too often stuck into the hedonistic and aesthetic aspects of making music that inevitably have serious repurcussions on the finished product if music skills are not backing all those things up.Sad but true.

what i mean is that every few years a new style pops up and it's amazing for a while but these scenes cut themselves off from everything else, and then just start to regurgitate themselves endlessly. like drum n bass did and grime looks set to do.

I saw a clutch of quite heavy bands the other week. They were mostly of the stoner rock persuasion but they were quite heavy.

this is true, you don't seem to get young english musicians who are actually prepared to put any work in. and i think the club scene is ultimately detrimental to the progress of music.

Well said sonicl.

In response to who is making the best heavy music, I'd say Japan>US>Europe in general.

I chose Japan (other than the obvious reason of them just having more quality groups and artists) because they seem to have been making great noise/heavy/excellent music for a long time, I mean really a long time. the artists are prolific (granted most of the artisits in the ''heavy'' genre are) and seem to spin many side projects and what not.

were they good?

Birmingham is, of course, the exception to the rule, and continues to be a haven for makers of heavy music.

OT - No, Morrissey isn't going to be our Eurovision entry, the BBC didn't want him. They do, however, seem to want the guy who used to sing in The Darkness. Which in turn brings us back on topic.

They were quite good, yes. I don't know what they would have sounded like on record but it was nice to see live, if a tad generic. The bands were these:



Space in the 50s were a bit rubbish and Infants were more of a spazzy Arab on Radar type thing but the other two bands were quite heavy. Manatees only played about 20-25 minutes but were really good. They had all three members bashing drums at the end which was ace.

I was just chatting to someone a few weeks ago about how being spot on about the critical development of music in general can really affect the way you play music because you'll risk analizing things way too much when it comes to performing.I see it as pre-emptying things before you do them rather than while you're doing them.

I've seen Capricorns (myspace.com/capricornsoflondon), who were pretty excellent, and Una Corda(myspace.com/unacorda), who were okay but a bunch of wankers. Both of them were instrumental metal bands, although Una Corda veered quite a bit towards post-rock from time to time.

Did you see Capricorns at The Underworld?I saw them there a few years ago when they had this metal all-dayer but i assumed they were American and pretty good they were too.

I did, yes. They were supporting Jesu, and were much more interesting than the headliners.

I was going to mention The Underworld as another haven of UK heavy music actually.

I saw a spectacular performance by Oxbow in there.They were gigantic, maaaannnn!!

You should of named the thread 'what happened to 'good' heavy music in england', at the moment theres 'too many' young metalcore bands around and its starting to get tedious

Electric Wizard should be bringing out a new one this year, wonder if it'll be any good.

I don't know, but I think Electric Wizard have made some of the finest heavy stuff I've heard in the last 10 years of so. Great live as well.
Orange Goblin are fun to see live, but not all that original.

Well said and very true.

I bring this up to people every now and then when it seems relevant to the situation: When I was in school, and this isn't even going back 10 years, to be a musician was somewhat of an outcast thing to be apart of. People were always so shocked to find out you played an instrument and there were only a handful, if that, more like 2 at the most, bands. Nowadays, it's the complete opposite. It's like teens are expected by their peers and just about everyone to be in a band or play an instrument - it's like it's a given. I'm speaking purely about Australia, of course. After I finished school I basically went straight into a sound engineering course where we were struggeling to get a class - where as I know people who do the course now, and there's too many people doing the course, there's numerous classes. I used to get asked if there wasn't any better way I should be spending my time other than music, now kids are being told music is a viable way of making a living. It's all quite ironic and crazy. It's good and it's bad. It's good because music is being taken serously and there is more venues to play at, but thisd also means every kid who plays, which is a word you could use loosely, thinks they're a musician. There's a big difference betweena musician and someone who just fools around on an instrument.

I partly blame the internet, and more importantly Myspace, for this.

I've thought about this quite a bit. As someone who played in a band in the '80s-90s that have since been described as part of a 'noise' scene, I do wonder what happened to it.

I suppose Britain is as trend-driven as ever and that 'noise' simply hasn't been 'trendy' for a good while now. Also, when I was playing, the 'noise' scene was still pretty much tied to the indie/punk thing but, by the early 90s had drifted largely into the regions of Free Jazz, Electronica and Metal, which largely alienated those like myself who remain at heart 'rock n roll' types.

By moving on, Noise in Britain gained a lot but (IMO) in doing so also entered something of its own cultural cul-de-sac.

tomahawk siren

Yes. I went to a gig last night and the queue was being flyer-ed by three guys promoting their band's myspace site. Pre-myspace they'd have been three mates playing for kicks in a local pub and they'd have considered that enough, now they see themselves as worthy of the attention of people who are going to see an internationally-touring band.

good god! the presumption! hang em I say. :)

young english music has been in the doldrums for longer than myspace has been popular.

electric wizard are too established to count

IMHO, and I've had many conversations about this over the last few months, it's all about the money these days.
Britain is caught up in a kind of celebrity wannabe hysteria. Everyone under the age of 25 seems to think that they have the right to be rich and famous, and they don't care how they do it. ( yeah I know it's a generalisation, but I'm a 'grumpy old man' - get over it!)
The record companies seem to have gained back all the ground they had to give up after the Punk phenomenon of the mid 70's, when artistic control was wrested back by the artists.
The record companies set the formula for success nowadays, hence the proliferation of 'clone' bands, and no talent girl groups who dress like porn stars and aim their music at the teenage audience. It reeks.

The record companies need another kick up the arse, a la 1976. Bands need to base their success on original ideas and talent, not how much they sound like the 'last big thing'.
Creativity needs to be nurtured and encouraged and at the moment it's being stifled by bling and the cult of celebrity.

Rant over - now go out and make some noise!!

I couldn't have put it better myself

I'm pretty sure Anaal Nathrakh is from Britain. They are a metal act, which doesn't necessarily count, but they are also the heaviest most rip-you-a-new-one thing I've ever heard in the genre.

http://myspace.com/anaalnathrakh

I like what Myspace has done for music. I don't like a lot of the "music" on it, but meh. It does a better job than a listening station in a shitty chain cd store.

yeah, when i was started this thread i was thinking about anaal nathrakh, there's also benighted leams and emit, but a mere three bands do not a bright future for the nation make

The Doom scene is about about the only place you'll find much good 'heavy' music in Britain these days. And even then you have to wade through acres of sub-Sabbath/Kyuss/Monster Magnet wannabes.