I was curious. Being the open-minded kind of guy that I am, I decided to check out some of the racist, misogynist and homophobic music we can find under the “grindcore” label:

So I came to this conclusion: It’s just as shitty, if not shittier than your run-of-the-mill leftist/vegan/antifa grindcore. I doubt anyone takes it seriously, and if they do, they should probably reconsider their lives.

Why? Because they don’t actually believe in what they’re saying, and they fail to realize that your political opinions matter less than your music. Otherwise the belief in their opinion would shine through in the music, and it might be a little bit good…

A lot of people like to make bands to play shows and entertain people, but they don’t take the music seriously at all. They probably don’t know shit about music. If you want to entertain people, making shocking, offensive noise is the next best thing to do in terms of entertaining people, next to actually making thought-out songs.

Now, they’ve already pushed sonic offensiveness to the extreme, now they need to be ideologically offensive in order to get shows from audiences of tough guys who think their political opinions matter outside the realm of actual politics. (HEY, this applies just as much to vegan antifa grindcore as it does racist nazi grindcore!)

Now, I ask, why are extremist right wing ideology and prejudice statements so offensive? It’s really dumb, at best. But hardly offensive.

The next time you get offended like a fundie Christian would get offended at the notion of evolution, take a step back and THINK about whether you’ve been brainwashed, and whether you should roll your eyes and laugh instead of bitching and moaning!

It’s just like you’re going out of your way to destroy every little ant in the world after you found an ant trail going into your bag of organic banana chips in the cupboard.

Don’t be such a fundie Christian and get hung up on a person who acts like a nazi. Or whatever you think is a nazi or some other adjective.

Relax, roll your eyes and keep on spreading good ideas!

RIAA Radar

I’ve seen it a thousand times,and probably you too: a new underground band comes out and if its mildly good it gets promoted to the four winds, sometimes even “deserving” cult or legendary status at only a few months of releasing the first demo. As having success with a band is easier than it has ever been, a local scene can fill itself with hordes upon hordes of new acts expecting its fifteen minutes under the sun, most of them crap because of their motivation.

Some see the amount of bands coming out nowadays as a good thing, but for the more observing, the current state of affairs is tragic: more bands don’t necessarily mean more bands of superior quality.

For those believing that metal is dead because there aren’t any good bands coming out in recent years, it must be said that is not entirely true – there are new bands releasing pretty good music considering their amateurishness, which means they are often far ahead from the herd. Not great nor classic stuff, but music with potential to become excellent, given some time, work and effort. Usually, you can catch them on MySpace and other music channels.

The problem with relentless promotion of the type already explained is that if mediocre stuff can be easily promoted nowadays, the music with potential can too, and that can be perjudicial in the long term for those bands, as an early bout of success in the scene can terminate its potential for further growth. I’ve also seen it. It’s like the scenesters, in non-violent way, clip a band’s wings before it learns to fly by giving the band what they want before they deserve it – recognition.

~ Too much indiscriminate band support is negative and can eventually kill the underground

I’m very inclined to agree. In local bands, why is it that even the mediocre get so much praise and support?

There’s just so much focus on selling a band and its image that it takes precedence over the music quality itself, and anyone can be a star – even in underground music. Then the scene becomes more important than the music.

Because of this, everyone wants to join their friends in being local rockstars. The deafening noise of the thousands of 2-day record hack-bands drowns out all of the good ones, and we never get to listen to those.

This could be a blessing in disguise though: there’s probably an amazing grindcore or death metal band out there that we haven’t heard of yet and doesn’t get any recognition, we just have to keep on searching for it.

What makes grindcore what it is?

“‘These kids on MySpace and Headbanger’s Ball with the lame breakdown death metal bands really need to quit calling that crap grindcore — it’s offensive,’ chides bassist James Delgado of Dallas grinders Kill the Client about this most grating of pet peeves. And he’s right, you know.” – Scott Alisoglu, “Kill the Client: The Art of Grinding,” Metal Maniacs, February 2009, vol. 26, no. 2, p. 92.

vivalaranter attempts to dissolve the confusion of death metal and grindcore with metalcore and deathcore:

The point he makes about grindcore is that it doesn’t contain any faux and random bits for the sake of “complexity” and “depth”.

Grindcore is simple and straightforward, and doesn’t weaken itself to try and dazzle us and our friends at parties with guitar squeaks and pig squeals.

Now, in posting this, I’m not encouraging a battle between TRUE/FALSE GRINDCAWR because there’s really no point. This is what angsty teens bicker about with each other on band forums. There’s really no such thing as “true grindcore”, because that is irrelevant to what makes the music, but there is such a thing as false and bad music.

By figuring out what kind of music doesn’t do anything for us, all we have left is the music that DOES do something for us just from listening to it — this has little to do with the people who listen to it or the kinds of hairstyles or clothes or album art the band members have — I suppose the music that can do this is what you would call your “true grindcore”.

What we should learn from this is what we really want out of the music we listen to.

Do we want good sound? Anyone can do this with the right studio producer and equipment. Good sound is important sometimes, but did Carcass need it?

Do we want the best technicality? Anyone with the time to go to Berklee School of Music can learn to play guitar like Yngwie Malmsteen, but theywon’t necessarily learn learn to put powerful music together like Carcass or Ludwig van Beethoven.

Do we want the best image? For the most part, grindcore imagery is very consistent. This is where death metal got their imagery from. This isn’t what we listen to the music for… Is it?

The truth is that “good grindcore” tends to have a very sturdy musical “structure”. It’s easy to follow, but the way it works itself out is heavy and powerful.

As a closing example, I give you Carcass:

This site will include the history, origins and motives behind grindcore as a genre, key musicians and bands, and up-and-coming musicians.

We’ll strive to keep everything as simple as possible, but maximize the information we can give you to help you stay informed.

Stay tuned!