Were the 2000's the worst era for hard rock?

[ashstralia]

i've got a theory...

the entire decade kinda sucked artistically in general because the explosion of information available 24/7 also resulted in a commensurate dumbing down.
everything is there at the click of the mouse, a lot of the populace goes 'yeah, this'll do' rather than spending time and effort to find the cool gems within the chaff.
media of course, love the lowest common denominator.

now, i know there were some great songs/movies/books. but you had to SEARCH IT OUT.. like us old farts did b.i.t.d.

i'm ranting, but i have a strong feeling that it's the internet's fault. now that we've all had 10 or 15 years to deal with it, maybe we're realising it's just a useful tool.
the amount of people on here desperate for vinyl confirms my belief that analogue music media won't ever die. (i hope!).

oh yeah; september 11 2001 didn't help either.

[DONNIEP]

I absolutely agree with you Vain. Gary DID convince Ed to play the classic songs. And Gary didn't ever piss all over what came before him...God, I'm trying so hard to come up with something good to say about Gary's stage presence or the songs...and I got nothing. Ah, it's not even important. You are right - Gary never did, and never has, shit on Dave's legacy. Good god, that was so hard for me...I really think I need a drink now

[K-tuna]

Gary wasn't all that bad at all. IMHO. Look at those concert vids. he was solid.

Read the interviews and the guitar mags at the time. Ed was really fed up with Slammy constantly writing love songs and felt pigeon holed into that type thing. the problem was he kinda let the pendulum swing to far the other direction in trying to be too serious.

I listened to III the other day... Mike Post just didnt mix that album well at all. and should've told Gary to ease on the caffine and not shout EVERYTHING. He can sing , but he went WAYYYY out there on III.

Extreme was heavily VH ( and Queen) influenced, and all bets should've seen Gary as a better fit than PAYGAR,...but wow did it go bad.

sorry to interupt.

[binnie]

I'd answer the question like this:

'Yes, the 2000s were a low point for HARD ROCK (i.e. good time, blues based party music); but they were a sensational time for heavy music - metal never looked so healthy'.

I'm fascinated by the notion that Slipknot and System of A Down don't have lyrical skills......

[ashstralia]

i couldn't play any of it on my autoharp.

[Yount]

i've got a theory...

the entire decade kinda sucked artistically in general because the explosion of information available 24/7 also resulted in a commensurate dumbing down.

I agree with this theory! Information overload bewilders the average person into submission, and thus the charts are filled with cheddar, the smell of acceptance! I simply cannot voice my opinions or discuss music anymore because I will almost always twist some knickers.

[Dave's Bitch]

Oh yes it was a terrible decade for hard rock.There were a few great bits for me personally.I loved Paul Stanley's Live to Win and Kiss Sonic Boom,Also i really enjoyed Chinese Democracy.There was also Motley Crue Red,White & crue and Saints of Los Angeles. Aside from that nothing really great for me

I would second Binnie though,A very good decade for Metal,Some great stuff came out.Few of my fav's are Exodus shovel headed kill machine,The last three Megadeth albums,Judas Priest Angel of Retribution and Nostradamus and Saxon Into the Labyrinth

All those albums melt some serious face

[binnie]

Add into that:

Dimmu Borgia
Mastodon
Opeth
The Dillinger Escape Plan
Goatwhore
Soilent Green
Machine Head 'The Blackening' & 'Through the Ashes of Empires'
Testament 'The Formation of Damnation'
Every Time I Die (if you can't party to THAT, you're insane)
The Bronx
Clutch (ditto Every Time I Die)
Meshuggah
Down 'III'


And that's just off the top of my head. Heavy music had a rejuvenation after Nu Metal....

[Dave's Bitch]

Testament 'The Formation of Damnation'

[Seshmeister]

I know this sounds cliche...but I dropped out of current popular music in the early '90s. Back then I stuck my classic Van Halen CDs in the CD changer and said fuck the rest of this shit. I only learned of Slam Dunk because I heard it on the local "classic rock" station (not just the song, but an actual interview with Dave..while I was sitting in the car at the ATM). This was before I was on the internet all the damn time But seriously, I'm sure there were some really great bands in the 2000's, but I never heard them. And maybe I missed something - did any of it sound like Van Halen? I can only think of one band...and the Punks don't really count..but they should!

The only difference between your story and mine is we don't have drive thru ATM's here.

[Seshmeister]

There's some slight value to korn.

Their drummer.

[binnie]

The first Korn album was a game changer. No-one had made heavy music like that before.

After that, it was the law of diminishing marginal returns for a while. Their more recent albums get panned, but they're actually more interesting now they've broken out of their own mold.

[hotsummerknight]

steel panther is the best band to come out in the last 10 years

[Angel]

I stopped listening to mainstream shit a long time ago. I search out the Indies now... there's some good rocking bands out there, you just have to dig to find them.

[Unchainme]

I'm fascinated by the notion that Slipknot and System of A Down don't have lyrical skills......

I love ya binnie, but here's what I'm talking about:

If Green Day’s vile American Idiot built political commentary out of Lego, Mezmerize snaps it together out of Duplo (you know, that double-sized unswallowable Lego for toddlers and retarded kids). The album’s first single, B.Y.O.B., is the kind of scathing indictment of the military industrial complex that’s usually reserved for lofty literary media like bumper stickers and picket signs. Yes, we know the war is bullshit. Everyone knows the war is bullshit, even the rednecks and Republicans that pretend it isn’t bullshit. We all love to make fun of conservative politicians for speaking in platitudes, but how about lyrics like “why don’t presidents fight the war / why do they always send the poor”? Wow, slam-dunk. Now do the one about the Air Force holding a bake sale. What’s worse, the video for the song centers on the most insipid of egotistical metal clichés: the band playing to a bunch of invigorated youths as fascist police try to smash up their concert. Sorry, morons, your jackboot martyrdom is not forthcoming. You have to be hurtful to the system before you get squelched, and as it stands, you’re still funneling money to Republicans (more on that later).

B.Y.O.B. is dumb, but the rest of the album doesn’t fare much better. “Radio/Video” is The Replacements’ “Seen Your Video,” a mere twenty years too late. This song, along with “Violent Pornography,” really illustrates System of a Down’s distaste for mainstream pop culture, to the extent that impressionable young listeners might forget that System of a Down are turning the exact same tricks as any other whores on Earth. Listen to this, teenager: The Sony Corporation is just shilling System of a Down’s rebellion to extract money from the demographic who doesn’t buy Destiny’s Child records (both artists are beholden to Sony’s Columbia Records). Regardless of System of a Down’s clumsy political posturing, they are an integral part of the system of extracting money from stupid teenagers (you) and giving it to old, rich white Republicans. Am I one of those awful idiots who hates all major-label music because of this? No, of course not, those guys are complete pussies. I just like pointing it out to youth-addled stoners who think they’re supporting something alternative.

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/your-band-sucks/system-down.php