@@synkraut9633 Just met a guy here in Germany. Claims to know them well. Eh, I don't know. I've seen them in Qubec, Spain, Mexico and have about three more shows lined up. Can't F'ing wait.
@@synkraut9633 Who would have thought they weren't? WIth those kinds of stage shows and extremely Butch Leathergay image? People that insane are usually nice folks. Like black metal people, usually some of the most polite, friendly and tolerant people. This will sound weird to some, but: If true bastard racist shithead psycho people had tried something gimmicky like Rammstein, it would turn out tasteless and vulgar. Many might see Rammstein as that, but they do more of a /tasteful/ vulgarity (if you're not a 60 year old shut-in conservative). The others would be just nazi punk bands with gimmicks -- the artist's sentiments always kinda show in their art..
Im deutsch: ich hasse kindern. When i discovered what it was about. Where have you been all my life till lindemann. A child kicked my seatback from Billund to somewhere over franco german border so...
Rick's failed to take into account the way marketers abuse language. Calling this metal because that's how it's been branded is like calling The Simpsons the same show it was in the 1990s - the title's been stolen and stuck on something completely different, that's all.
@@Ambervanrooijen still, it's interesting how people who supposedly doesn't like pop are listening to distorted pop (i really likes that way to say it)
Just like every other genre, 95% of metal is made by technically competent but utterly tasteless and unimaginative instrumentalists, and 95% of metal fans wouldn't know a decent piece of music if you tabbed it out on a bat and hit them with it, so you end up with eye-gougingly cheesy, derivative, formulaic, over-produced, sacarine bilge water like the above getting all the attention while all the good stuff flies under the radar. It was ever thus.
Lyric: I hate children. Metal 2021? Black Sabbath: Megalomania. Metal.1975 Lyrics. I hide myself inside the shadows of shame, The silent symphonies were playing their games. My body echoed to the dreams of my soul, Inside is something that I could not control. Maybe the real problem is illiteracy.
@@jitblues Maybe you're not familiar with all of Rammtein's and Lindemann's individual work, both music and poetry? If you enjoy German literary tradition, some darkness, and sarcasm, they're a treat. Though I love it as well, not everything in life is about British over the hills and far away romanticism.
I’m not a big fan of modern metal, but Rammstein gets me every time. Till’s attitude is perfect for the genre in my opinion, it’s smart AF but also self aware enough to not take themselves too seriously. Every time I hear Rammstein I’m completely on board from the get go. Had the same response to this little snippet of his solo project. I’m also just a big fan of industrial anything (that’s good).
I love how Rick is always respectful with everything he's listening to and keeps his criticism on the most "technical" side of the song, which is production and recording stuff. Music critics have a lot to learn from him
@@jeffm5991 Same reason critics exist for anything else. Somewhere along the way most people decided they needed to defer to somebody else's opinions on whether or not they should like something. Relying on your own taste requires you to take responsibility for it and stand by it, so if someone criticizes you for it, you can't just say "wull it's in (insert site here)'s top 10 albums of the year so.."
@@ossiehalvorson7702 so wouldn’t those critics be speaking in terms of their own taste and literally owning up to it making criticism to defer to people who have similar interests to them?
@@ceelothatmane9421 You had me in the first half and lost me in the second. They're trendsetters, meaning people who are interested in pop culture (including music) have common interests because they're looking to the trendsetters to tell them what their interests should be. You can see it everywhere. Fashion companies like Gucci are literally built around that same concept. If they can control the trends, they can control public interest.
@ConManliness that's how people back in the day learned when there were no tabs or other things to learn from, they just had to figure it out by ear and that's how you stumble across things that sound cool on the guitar
I love Americans listen to Rammstein and lindemann not knowing the playing and double meaning of his lyrics… Sadly there’s enough Germans not getting it in english songs either 🙈
@@timvonr2802 I'm not German but read through the lyrics as I sit here (haven't heard the record yet) and got a laugh and an aaw, it is very relatable. If I got it, that is, I can like understand written or spoken German and get 90% of the jist and deduce the words I don't know from context, but don't ask me to speak, because you'll awe at the pronunciation then laugh heartily at the horrible grammar I did run it through Google Translate for fun though, just to make sure I didn't completely misinterpret everything about the lyrics and I have to ask you, if I'm correct in interpreting "Ich näher' mich der Klagereihe" as NOT meaning "I'm getting closer to the series of lawsuits" like Google would have it? I thought more like "I'm getting close to the Wailing Wall (like in Jerusalem)" "Immer lauter dasch näher' mich der Klagereihe Geschreie" right afterwards is like "louder and louder the closer I get, the screams of that wailing wall intensifies" (poetic freedom here sorry) So self-doubt here; do I know German well enough to understand the point here or should I listen to Google Translate lol
The thing that makes me facepalm every time on most of these songs are the straight up pop choruses. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with pop, but the only difference between most of these choruses and a Taylor Swift song is simply TIMBRE. It's "metal" because the guitars are distorted, but it's all the same chord progressions, and all the same melodic tricks. I feel dismay because of the diversity and inventiveness of different genres being lost and homogenized. So many today think of this as metal because of screaming and/or slightly raspy vocals and heavy guitars. Timbre does not make a genre or a style.
Exactly! Add to it the theatrics and that is enough for the average listener to call it metal. And if you point this out, you are automatically an elitist.
THIS! This is the mullet of metal: Heavy in the verse, uplifting rock anthem in the chorus. EVERY. FUCKING. TIME! Memphis May Fire and Black Veil Brides had SO much potential until the Breaking Benjamin, anthemesque chorus kicked in.
I'll be polite and say that the majority was lackluster sounding drek.. There's a reason why there is such a vast underground of Metal bands, sounds, and scenes that do their best to avoid this.
I am surprised at how pop the singing is, even in the screaming songs when they sing. Metal has changed. Seems like a lot of metal bands these days need to get better sound engineers.
@@slamdangles yea, and at the same time not, i do agree on the fact that this is not metal, in facts it’s hard rock ahah, the thing it lacks, is the ol school pull, like a good headbanger riff, but unless you’re already a big band like metallica or slipknot or any other well known band, it’s really hard to get air time in radios, but yea this ain’t metal. the best one in this was till, but again, he is already famous, and he has proper musical knowledge..
@@AffordableGuitars The mixing issues that Beartooth has are all too common with many many acts these days. Compressed and boosted until there's no discernible dynamic range.
@@hochhaul A lot of these just sounded as you mentioned far too compressed and produced. Can barely hear the instruments just a general feel of bass and a singer, metal without guitars that can be heard... Ok sure.
The funny thing about this list is. Some people would hear these songs and think that they are too heavy and some people would say they sound weak. I personally feel like a lot of this stuff sounds weak, the singers sound like they’re 13 and whoever mixed the songs didn’t eq anything. However everyone likes different things so if this is your thing then go somewhere and love it.
The majority sound like a college band "fast hit" and "catchy", but by most of them sounding similar/same nothing "stands out" tbh, almost like all of those are a "30 seconds to Mars" song
Blown away how quickly you pick things up Rick, you’ve got a great ear and clearly know your way around the fret board and in different tunings. And omg! So refreshing to hear what you said about most of the guitars mixes and lack of mids/ the guitars getting lost. It’s my biggest problem with new age recording and mixing, and you nailed the truth about the lack of dynamics. Cheers Rick🍻🤘, they don’t make ‘em like they used to.
Most top "metal" is actually what I call "pop-as-metal" where the arrangements are exactly that of mainstream pop but just played with hard rock instrumentation. Blah.
This is true of all the genres, especially Country, which is pop/rap with a token fiddle or steel guitar thrown in for aesthetics. Pretty soon we'll reach a musical Singularity.
This shouldn't really be a surprise. This is a list of the most popular metal songs, aka the songs that appeal to the widest variety of people that happen to listen to metal. So obviously it's going to sound very poppy and mainstream.
Treat yourself. Check out Japans hard rock/metal bands. About 15 years ago Japans government decided to stress the arts as much as engineering and made learning an instrument a requirement in school. The results have been spectacular.
true! but not only hard rock and metal their electronic music is very cool to especially stuffs like sakuzyo xi etc. and yeah they have a billion off underground circles that composes great music like demetori etc. I still feel like some off their hard rock is abit generic to when u dig deeper into it its alot off octave chord strumming usually i mean it's different from ours usually but when you listen to it enough you start kinda recognising alot off patterns in their music to.
@@LakriTs9 I just think in general the chord progressions Japanese rock/metal bands use are a lot more interesting than what we generally use in the west
Sharon den Adel from Within Temptation is badass singer. It’s a Dutch band rocking since the 90’s. I love more their first albums, but, overall, it’s a great band, with so much killer songs in their repertoire.
@@kdm71291 Honestly most of those edgy crap sounds like someone chopped up a generic distroted guitar sample pack changed some EQ and called it a day, doesn't sound like actual guitar play. And by now it has been done to death.
I feel like all the "mainstream metal" choruses have pretty much sounded the same for the past 20 years now. It was fun for a couple years, but jeez...
Yeah the four chord "power" chorus is pretty bland. The staple metalcore riffs -- if you can call them that -- aren't anything to write home about. 0-1 breakdowns have all replaced cool solos of the past. all the concessions to pop music mentality and punk musicianship leaves for pretty bland musicality. No offense to Rick's ability, but if he can figure your song out in under 5 seconds, it's probably not very interesting. Maybe it's well arranged or whatever, but the individual pieces are all pretty simple these days.
I really like the critisism you have on these songs. I'd love if you made a video on 10 metal songs you think are really great and explain why. That would be an awesome video !
These lists are specifically made for record labels and marketing companies to pay out for Spotify or whoever created such list to put their artists new release on it. The bigger and more popular the list, the shittier the music gets. Remember that whole Drake debacle? His face became a cover for like 3/4 of these playlists, even if they had nothing to do with his genre of music (top pop songs, top country, top young, top old, top sad, top gay, top trans, top national socialistic Black metal, didn't matter, drakes face was the face of the week and his song was nr 1). Just an example of marketing executives overdoing it a little.
People like to throw the term metal around a lot, but anyone who actually listens to metal knows that a lot of this stuff isnt metal. Honestly ive never heard any of these songs
Agreed. It's just pop with distored guitars. 3rd song is the first song I would qualify as metal (not very good, but that's just another thing), but the song by the Black Veil Brides finally had a decent metal riff, but we're already halfway there...Well the good news is #1 is decent metalband from my country ;-)
Ricks guitar playing actually sounds better than the studio productions!!! Thank you Rick for sharing your knowledge and talent with the world! Love your channel!! I’ve watched at least 100 videos!!
Rick you’re a genius! I am 52 and open to listen to new things but after listening to this I always end up appreciating more Metal and Hardcore from the 80’s and 90’s Metallica, Pantera, Fear Factory, Pro Pain, Maiden, Biohazard, Sepultura with Max Cavalera, Type O Negative, Kreator, Death Angel, Judas Priest, Fight, Anthrax, Carcass
@@anemaldemomusic8182 check out some newer bands like Spiritbox, Oceans of Slumber, Blood Youth, Eidola, Tetrach, Make them Suffer... lot's of cool new stuff out there! :)
Reminds me of the song Centuries by Fall Out Boy especially when he sings indestructible. Also i thought this song was going to be a cover of the song Indestructible by Disturbed
Compare the indeciperable garbage to something like Engel by Rammstein. People banging on instruments vs musicians. No offense to anyone that likes Beartooth, you do you, but I have very different standards. Till is so talented and his Rammstein shows were insane. Take Beartooths I Was Alive. It is better, but really it lets the vocals come through and the vocals are fantastic, but the rest of the band is just a smear of noise, he needs to just upgrade them with real talent.
The thing that keeps me interested in metal since decades is complex and surprising song structures like older Opeth stuff or Dillinger escape plan for example. As a lot others already said, this is just pop garbage with distorted guitars.
I remember when I first came across Dilinger Escape Plan. I thought to myself, why didn't anyone else turn me on to this....nobody else I knew was hip to them. Same with The Contortionist. I then proceeded to tell everyone about them wether they were into it or not.
Dillinger is mathcore with punk influence i would say. Great band suggestions in this thread, I would add Mastodon, Meshuggah and Sikth to that list as well - highly technical without the "look how fast i can go" ego, just pure music...i'm sure you've all heard them but check them out if not!
wow that memphis may fire song really had a lot going for it! the chord progression, the half time, cool drum fills, and a wicked transition to the interlude-hook riff!
I've been listening to Spotify for a couple of months and it is really kind of bad. The way it chooses its mixes just ends up repeating the same stuff over and over endlessly, so I'm guessing the "top" stuff is just things that people get in their lists that isn't bad enough to remove but endlessly gets played.
I so agree with you. My roommate was showing me some screamo bands he is really found of. Bring me the horizons or something like that. I said to him, you know this is really just pop music with distorted guitars, at least the choruses. Just as generic, even more generic than pop music. Since the top pop musician often aims to be a little bit edgy, to stand out from all the other thousands of songs.
@@Atlas65 bmth has a huge ass discography spanning across multiple genres. Listen to Chelsea smile, diamonds aren't forever; and tell me if that ain't metal
Mostly quite weak, almost pop played on heavy sounding guitars. Lindemann and Fear Factory were cool but then the Lindemann song sounds like Rammstein 20 years ago and Fear Factory haven't really changed their sound in 30 years. There is some amazing new metal. Chelsea Wolfe & Converge's new album is an absolute masterpiece, incredible from start to finish. Gojira's new album is just brilliant, the whole band are on an amazing level of talent yet have combined the technical brilliance with superb songs rather than fall in to the trap of technically brilliant but ultimately dull music that so many others have done.
@@newagain9964 there's plenty of real and good metal these days, it just isn't as mainstream. Trivium: In the Court Of The Dragon Rivers Of Nihil: The Work Jinjer: Wallflower Twelve Foot Ninja: Vengeance Between The Buried And Me: Colors 2 Arch Enemy has dropped some great singles lately Just a few of the bands I'm listening to right now Oh yeah, Be'lakor: Coherence
When it comes to this genre, I think Ricks followers should collectively curate a list for him to check out rather than whatever Spotify puts together. As Rick knows, there is so much to impressed by in this genre if you know where to look.
Does it really matter? I've literally never heard Rick say he didn't like a song in the top 10 of ANY genre when he makes these videos. He may criticize the production, but NEVER the song. Ever. I don't know if he just likes whatever's popular or he knows you get more thumbs up by saying you like everything. (Look at any song "response" channel on RUclips if you want proof of this.)
I would love to hear his thoughts of Borknagar - Up North. I feel it's not a complex song, but there's some captivating strangeness to it that I can't really figure out.
Agreed, however to me the point of these videos is to remind ourselves how the music industry has hit rock bottom, and we need to do everything we can to not sound like this bubblegum garbage.
Its amazing how the tracks sound when Rick plays along, I know the tracks arent a direct input to our speakers; but you can tell what he means by a flat EQ curve.
I get what you're saying, but the real test to me is if it sounds good. Doesn't matter if it's real or not to me. A lot of this doesn't sound good, regardless.
@@ErickMcNerney yea 100% i think that electronic drums can sound amazing and better than real drums in certain scenarios (ofc its case to case and depends on what the song calls for). I think that the only problem is when people try to emulate real drums out of sheer laziness to record real ones and so the song completely loses its feel.
@@ErickMcNerney I agree thst most do not sound good and I think part of the reason is the fake drums. A drum machine has no soul. It is why I like live recordings better.
@@ErickMcNerney the digital stuff would be great if they didn’t just copy paste everything, the real drums sound better simply because real drummers can put their own creativity into the music mistakes and all
as the guy who always lurking lastfm for new music - I'd say that "top"-oriented music ALWAYS the weakest and blandest among all other music. Even lame localbands mostly better and more inventive
Till Lindemann has such a peculiar voice and phrasing, and his lyrics - which I believe he all writes himself - are some other kind of ornately skewed poetry. Being a native German speaker and not a Rock or Metal guy myself at all I am still fascinated by the aesthetic quality he manages to deliver incessantly over the decades.
My dad's grandparents' families originally came to the US around the late 18th century. They passed down the language for a number of generations with my grandfather, his siblings, and great grandmother still speaking German daily when I was growing up. That tradition of passing on the language sadly ended when my grandfather divorced my grandmother, so my German is woefully lacking, but I do remember and understand enough to have developed a profound appreciation for the tongue in cheek way that Till has of incorporating puns, slang, and twists of German idioms into his lyrics. Add in the unique characteristics of his voice, cadence and timbre that you mentioned... It's a unique combination of things that truly make him stand out.
That's actually probably Fear Factory's fault... they were the ones that started that, although they came at it from a metal perspective instead of the pop perspective. Linkin Park made it a "pop" thing to do and now we can't get away from it. the Screamo interlude trend has a similar story, as does the rap interlude. for a while it was the thing to do for every song to have either a Screamo segment or a rap segment, and usually they're bring in someone from those genres to do it as a way of cross promoting... kind of like the hip-hop trend of "featuring" another artist (beats by some studio engineer who did it for $5 so he could overlay his advertising clip every 6 minutes)
This trend is like 20 years old. Melodic or djent intro. Djenty riffs, clean vocals, and power chords in chorus. Solos without soul only technical mess, and showing off. Everything blended in a horrible mix and here we go new shitty song that sound exactly the same.
@@IanLoughead Yeah, even Within Temptation, who have a female singer, but she sounds just like the rest here. I mean, on occasion I like a good pop song with distorted guitars, but not if they all sound the fucking same.
When Fear Factory released their first few albums, their style was considered a bit rare and extreme. But now they are mainstream because today all the metal music sounds industrial and brutal :) :)
If you know nothing about metal now. Watch this video and you'll know even less. This music is what is know in the industry as " bullshit" ," garbage" , " retarded" along with many more I'm sure you get the point love.🤘
I'm surprised he doesn't say anything about how almost every song has the exact same minor 6th chord transition for the chorus. Between that and him getting excited for "ooh half time!" at about 8:30 is basically the bingo card of pop metal chorus tropes of the last 15 years.
Talk about terrible mixing, Gojira is on top of this problem. Especially vocals, are mixing god fucking awful. Such a good band and production value on they singles are tragic.
I'm way past the target demographic for these artists/songs, but I still think you're dead solid perfectly on point about most of the poorly mixed guitars. There seems to be bias against clarity and effective frequency management/saturation until Bullet for my Valentine. Anyway, if the cacophony makes 1M people happy, I'm happy for them.
It will always make me smile knowing that when modern metalcore/proggy/scene metal stuff comes up, Rick genuinely vibes with it hard. I'm so used to boomers just not "getting it" and it seems like my man just genuinely loves new music.
But yeah this metal is wayyy too cheesey for me. It's so hyper produced and formulaic, like it was written by labels instead of the bands (for the most part) just like most pop music
@@TheKnobCalledTone. Not MCR, MCR had that rawness, dark lyrics and aggressive sound to their songs back in the day and they were not even metal. These bands have none, these bands are just pop artists who just found out about drop C tuning and distortion.
I’ll go out on a limb and say the more pop-sounding “metal” has the same generic pop vocals that isn’t distinct from the rest. Idk, just my opinion… kind of sounds like a “I’m going through a phase” metal lol.
True, but there's always a generation of teenagers going through a phase, and they deserve new music to be excited about too. Yeh, it's a bit crap, but that doesn't matter to a kid who's decided they identify with its emotional content
Many people thinks than AC/DC riffs are the most "metal" and "heavy" thing in music, and now they come and say to actual metal well produced "pop with distorsion", oldest metal sounds like country music with distorsion and no one cares, just because is "classic" stuff, I respet so much classic metal and modern metal because sounds savage and have many good melodies on there, every decade has his greatest things on metal, and that's what I always supported
i miss Linkin Park so much though. i know people have their opinions on everything after Meteora, but its crazy to think we probably would have had another album by now if Chester were still here. RIP
The overcompression is the most annoying issue with so many modern metal productions... pisses me off when an otherwise nice track gets completely ruined by stupid crap like that.
@@destroyer28100 I must be hearing it a lot differently. To me the drums and guitars sound really compressed. But I'm definitely more into a raw, in-your-face production style than is popular right now. For me, Northlane has amazing songs that aren't helped by the production
Cool to see Pain on the map again. Till Lindemann is brilliant . . Within Temptation are also amazing. Lots of great tunes and artists here. Awesome video. Rick. I love your content.
Metal: Iron Maiden Prog: Dream Theater Thrash: Pre-Black Metallica Punk: Black Flag/Rollins Band S-Tier Un-quantifiables: Soundgarden, Tool, Rage Against the Machine, System of a Down Not-so-guilty pleasure: Ghost
The problem I have with all these "metal" bands on this list is that they all sounds like imagine dragons but with heavy guitars, & the drum samples don't even a LITTLE real, it's so clippy and high pitched you can barely distinguish what's a snare and what's a kick drum, on top of that its total Synth overload all the time while all the song structures are the same. Your point about the productions being totally flat with no dynamics is very true aswell, and the vocals are SO loud all the other instrument just pale in comparison. The reason they're not metal is cause they aren't riff-based and the chords all sounds so mainstream-pop
I've loved Within Temptation since forever! I also have to ask, in the verse in Pains song, did anyone else hear a little bit of Rockin in the Free World??? 🤔
I never understood why metal bands scoop mids. When I crank the low mid growl and high mid bite, it creates a MONSTER guitar and bass tone, you can really hear the aggression with pronounced midrange. Scooping it just leaves you with a soft carpet. And this isn’t just a modern phenomenon. I started playing music 20 years ago (almost to the month) with metal heads who loved all sorts of thrash and industrial, even though I wasn’t a big metal head. But it blew my mind even back then, that almost every metal fan scooped their mids, meanwhile I was more into punk at the time but I was able to create for more crushing guitar and bass tones just because I was open to the full spectrum of the EQ.
Depends on the mix, the amps used, and mics/EQ at the amp head; for example, scooping your mids on a solid state amp head sounds massively different compared to a tube head, even with the same microphone on your cabinet. And if you scoop at the source, you shouldn't be scooping in the mix. A good reference for this is Pantera's "Reinventing the Steel" releases (the original, done by Dimebag and Vinnie Paul; and the remaster done by Terry Date [who did their other records previously compared to, say, "Vulgar Display of Power." Dimebag, especially when I started playing guitar in the early 00s, was THE scooped-mids tone chase for all the players; he ran a solid-state Randall head and Marshall cabs on Vulgar, and switched to a Krank Rev-1 head on Steel. The original mix on that record is fucking horrid, but the remaster breathes some life into those songs. Why? Because Terry Date doesn't scoop the mids in the mix, at the very, absolute least.
Solence is really nice, but in my days and age we called this "Alternative Rock". I'm still progressing Rick's video, but my bets are already on 90% of the songs being metalcore, which is just soooooooo boring. Pop melodies, pop harmonies, pop song structures (verse, bridge, chorus, rinse, repeat) in pseudo metal disguise, and 95% of the bands just sound alike.
Man I love how this guy is open to like every genre, he doesn’t dismiss any type of music just because he likes some genre more. He picks out everything good and bad in the songs disregarding any stigma
So cool. It's like he discovers these things as a child without any bias. I remember when I was really young, I listened to everything. But then I started liking Metal and all of a sudden it wasn't "cool" any more to bring up in a conversation what a great singer Freddy Mercury was as an example. I noticed myself gravitating more towards people who had an open mind music wise and who did appreciate multiple genres. I will never let what other people think deter me from discovering something new any more.
the only thing that bugs me about this video is he says Memphis May Fire and Black Veil Brides are using scooped mids for their guitar tones when it's very clear they aren't. both songs are overflowing with mids.
It’s because he’s a producer and sound engineer. He looks at it from a productions side as well as from the musician side, which is a totally different perspective, so he’s less concerned with what the music is about when doing these types of evaluations than he is about evaluating the production and sound. I used to do some video production and when I watch tv and movies I often view them with a totally different eye than the rest of my family and friends. They’re watching the story and actors, I’m watch cameras angles and how a scene was put together. Same thing.
I don't know. Til Lindemann is the only thing I got out of this entire Top 10. Maybe historians are right, maybe Kurt Cobain took the future of rock and roll with him. Stupid argument when you consider from Kurt's murder came Foo Fighters. So that argument is most likely dead now.
Peter Tägtgren's band Pain is actually really good and a departure from his death metal stuff with Hypocrisy. he's also been producing other bands for decades.
For a fun exercise, if you watch TV with commercials, keep your instrument on your lap and when the commercials come on try and figure each one's music by the end of each commercial. It helps with ear training.
About good recording by Lindemann: that is not just "dude from Rammstein", that's group of two, and the second one is P.Tagtgren - dude from Pain/Hypocrisy, often referred as "best damn tech on european metal scene", so ...
Thankfully there is a lot of great metal no one knows about, that isn't on this chart. On another note, though I am not a musician, I am amazed at how quickly Rick picks up these songs and can play them virtually note for note after only one listen.
@@edmarmatos4044 Exactly! Metal is FAR from dead and I explore amazing new bands every single week, just not in the main local radio or a big top 10 Spotify playlist.
Nah it’s probably an intentional sound. First off, it’s crushed because they have the whole mix turned way up on volume so there isn’t any dynamic range, which is what is popular. Then you have the fact that the music is probably getting consumed on headphones with a bass heavy response curve because that’s what is popular so you boost the top end to compete. Finally you have Spotify compressing the music for streaming so you lose even more clarity. The result is a flat sound.
I was a metal/hardcore drummer for the majority of my 32 years of playing, I no longer play in original metal bands for this very reason....everything sounds the same and every engineer wants plug in stock drum sounds today, I couldn't stand it anymore!! When you got excited hearing the "real drums" on Till Lindeman's song I had the exact same reaction, but of course they would be real, he's cut from the same old school cloth as us!
Rick, you will have to do a review of Floor Jansen. She is one of the best vocalists out there at the moment. Watch the Nightwish Wembley gig and specifically Ghost Love Score. Awesome.
Glad to see Lindemann get some love; I really like them. The lead guy from Pain is the other half of the core of Lindemann. Always appreciate this channel's work; such a genuine, knowledgeable guy.
Exactly what I dislike in "modern" metal as an "old school" metalhead: often formulaic songs, heavy use of samples, overcompressed-crushed sound, heavy scooping in mids, virtually no guitar solos - near-indistinguishable productions from each other. Apart from a few exceptions, if someone said these songs are from the same band just with guests singers, no one would doubt it. I kinda feel the "default modern" sound took over from the sound crafting process and it's just robbing the music.
Till Lindemann: "I hate kids"
Rick: "Nice!"
I don't have any friends because they are ashamed of the videos I upload. Are they really that bad, dear f
I know several people who are close to the Rammstein guys and - who would have thought - they are really nice dudes
@@synkraut9633 Just met a guy here in Germany. Claims to know them well. Eh, I don't know. I've seen them in Qubec, Spain, Mexico and have about three more shows lined up. Can't F'ing wait.
@@synkraut9633 Who would have thought they weren't? WIth those kinds of stage shows and extremely Butch Leathergay image? People that insane are usually nice folks. Like black metal people, usually some of the most polite, friendly and tolerant people.
This will sound weird to some, but: If true bastard racist shithead psycho people had tried something gimmicky like Rammstein, it would turn out tasteless and vulgar. Many might see Rammstein as that, but they do more of a /tasteful/ vulgarity (if you're not a 60 year old shut-in conservative). The others would be just nazi punk bands with gimmicks -- the artist's sentiments always kinda show in their art..
Im deutsch: ich hasse kindern.
When i discovered what it was about.
Where have you been all my life till lindemann.
A child kicked my seatback from Billund to somewhere over franco german border so...
Most of these “metal” songs sound like late 2000’s pop rock
#1 on this list is a straight-up pop song that happens to have a distorted guitar
Every "Metal" band nowadays be sounding like Fall Out Boy
Rick's failed to take into account the way marketers abuse language.
Calling this metal because that's how it's been branded is like calling The Simpsons the same show it was in the 1990s - the title's been stolen and stuck on something completely different, that's all.
Degrading off course. Rock is dead
@@mrrob516 exactly, all these whiny emo voices are so punchable
Lindemann: "Ich hasse Kinnndeeeeeer!"
Rick: "Nice!"
As a German that was kind of funny
I hate childrens!
Hahaha, exakt der Moment, an dem ich in die Kommentare gesprungen bin :D
Maybe Rick also has a deep aversion to young humans :)
“I hate children” 😂😂😂😂😂
As a Swedish guy speaking Rammsteinian it was quite fun.
Child; "I want metal".
Mum; "We have metal at home".
summarizing:
Technology has improved, recording and mixing has diminished.
Songrwriting is dead and metal now is distorted pop.
It's the same with good quality pop music. You won't find it in the (popular) charts ;)
Plenty of amazing (metal)bands out there. Trust me.
Don't jinx it brutta
@@Ambervanrooijen still, it's interesting how people who supposedly doesn't like pop are listening to distorted pop (i really likes that way to say it)
I think I agree with that assessment.
Just like every other genre, 95% of metal is made by technically competent but utterly tasteless and unimaginative instrumentalists, and 95% of metal fans wouldn't know a decent piece of music if you tabbed it out on a bat and hit them with it, so you end up with eye-gougingly cheesy, derivative, formulaic, over-produced, sacarine bilge water like the above getting all the attention while all the good stuff flies under the radar. It was ever thus.
Till: "ICH HASSE KIINDEEER!!!"
Rick: Nice
Lyric: I hate children. Metal 2021?
Black Sabbath: Megalomania. Metal.1975
Lyrics.
I hide myself inside the shadows of shame,
The silent symphonies were playing their games.
My body echoed to the dreams of my soul,
Inside is something that I could not control.
Maybe the real problem is illiteracy.
@@jitblues you need to read Till Lindemann and Rammstein lyrics my man.
@@jitblues Maybe you're not familiar with all of Rammtein's and Lindemann's individual work, both music and poetry? If you enjoy German literary tradition, some darkness, and sarcasm, they're a treat. Though I love it as well, not everything in life is about British over the hills and far away romanticism.
I’m not a big fan of modern metal, but Rammstein gets me every time. Till’s attitude is perfect for the genre in my opinion, it’s smart AF but also self aware enough to not take themselves too seriously. Every time I hear Rammstein I’m completely on board from the get go. Had the same response to this little snippet of his solo project. I’m also just a big fan of industrial anything (that’s good).
@@jitblues Ah yes, the band who rhymed "masses" with "masses" in War Pigs, such masterful lyrics
I love how Rick is always respectful with everything he's listening to and keeps his criticism on the most "technical" side of the song, which is production and recording stuff. Music critics have a lot to learn from him
You should watch vocal coaches on RUclips. They're always so technical and open.
I'm not sure why music critics exist.
@@jeffm5991 Same reason critics exist for anything else. Somewhere along the way most people decided they needed to defer to somebody else's opinions on whether or not they should like something.
Relying on your own taste requires you to take responsibility for it and stand by it, so if someone criticizes you for it, you can't just say "wull it's in (insert site here)'s top 10 albums of the year so.."
@@ossiehalvorson7702 so wouldn’t those critics be speaking in terms of their own taste and literally owning up to it making criticism to defer to people who have similar interests to them?
@@ceelothatmane9421 You had me in the first half and lost me in the second. They're trendsetters, meaning people who are interested in pop culture (including music) have common interests because they're looking to the trendsetters to tell them what their interests should be.
You can see it everywhere. Fashion companies like Gucci are literally built around that same concept. If they can control the trends, they can control public interest.
Rick during that Beartooth song is all of us guitarists every time we hear a song while holding a guitar.
Pretty much.. muting, finding the fret, note tasting.. lookin all crazy
@ConManliness that's how people back in the day learned when there were no tabs or other things to learn from, they just had to figure it out by ear and that's how you stumble across things that sound cool on the guitar
10:55 Till Lindemann: "I HATE CHIIIILDREN!"
Rick Beato: "Nice!"
😂😂😂😂😂
Haha, that gave me an unexpected chuckle.
I love Americans listen to Rammstein and lindemann not knowing the playing and double meaning of his lyrics…
Sadly there’s enough Germans not getting it in english songs either 🙈
Can't wait for Rick's deep-dive into "Ich Tu Dir Weh".
@@timvonr2802 I still chuckle at Till's masterful punning with haben/hassen when going from German to English for "Du Hast"
@@timvonr2802 I'm not German but read through the lyrics as I sit here (haven't heard the record yet) and got a laugh and an aaw, it is very relatable. If I got it, that is, I can like understand written or spoken German and get 90% of the jist and deduce the words I don't know from context, but don't ask me to speak, because you'll awe at the pronunciation then laugh heartily at the horrible grammar
I did run it through Google Translate for fun though, just to make sure I didn't completely misinterpret everything about the lyrics
and I have to ask you, if I'm correct in interpreting "Ich näher' mich der Klagereihe" as NOT meaning "I'm getting closer to the series of lawsuits" like Google would have it?
I thought more like "I'm getting close to the Wailing Wall (like in Jerusalem)"
"Immer lauter dasch näher' mich der Klagereihe Geschreie" right afterwards is like "louder and louder the closer I get, the screams of that wailing wall intensifies" (poetic freedom here sorry)
So self-doubt here; do I know German well enough to understand the point here or should I listen to Google Translate lol
The thing that makes me facepalm every time on most of these songs are the straight up pop choruses. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with pop, but the only difference between most of these choruses and a Taylor Swift song is simply TIMBRE. It's "metal" because the guitars are distorted, but it's all the same chord progressions, and all the same melodic tricks. I feel dismay because of the diversity and inventiveness of different genres being lost and homogenized. So many today think of this as metal because of screaming and/or slightly raspy vocals and heavy guitars. Timbre does not make a genre or a style.
Well said.
Absolutely true. It's like "pop goes punk" covers
Exactly! Add to it the theatrics and that is enough for the average listener to call it metal. And if you point this out, you are automatically an elitist.
THIS! This is the mullet of metal: Heavy in the verse, uplifting rock anthem in the chorus. EVERY. FUCKING. TIME!
Memphis May Fire and Black Veil Brides had SO much potential until the Breaking Benjamin, anthemesque chorus kicked in.
You nailed it
Congratulations Beartooth. You made Beato wince several times.
Whiny emo vocals tend to do that to most people
Can we just appreciate Ricks talent for how quickly he knows how to play a tune he’s hearing first time by ear
Makes me so jealous
I think it’s more how basic the song is, because a lot of these are really easy to play along to because it’s just 4 chords throughout the whole song
He even knows what guitar to pick before even listening to the song ;)
@@GutekZ 😹
Always
I'll be polite and say that the majority was lackluster sounding drek.. There's a reason why there is such a vast underground of Metal bands, sounds, and scenes that do their best to avoid this.
@@badgasaurus4211 Like being a Kraft factory.
I tend to find it seasonal - summer is often a weak chart.
rick, cover discordance axis lol
Definitely👍
Hear hear. Butt rock posing as metal.
Scooped mids, flat hypercompression, didn’t know we were back in early 00s metalcore.
was just about to say, this all sounds like the music i listened to in high school 20 years ago
@General Pershing the mids are turned down
@General Pershing mids dialed down to nothing.
@Crispin I was hearing the same thing. Made me laugh. What has happened to metal?! 😆
@General Pershing it’s when you make a delicious ice cream cone full of mids. Scoop the mids as the cool kids say.
This is why I still listen to 80s thrash.
I am surprised at how pop the singing is, even in the screaming songs when they sing. Metal has changed. Seems like a lot of metal bands these days need to get better sound engineers.
This aint metal...metal hasn't changed.
this is flat out NOT metal, but radio rock.
@@slamdangles yea, and at the same time not, i do agree on the fact that this is not metal, in facts it’s hard rock ahah, the thing it
lacks, is the ol school pull, like a good headbanger riff, but unless you’re already a big band like metallica or slipknot or any other well known band, it’s really hard to get air time in radios, but yea this ain’t metal. the best one in this was till, but again, he is already famous, and he has proper musical knowledge..
It’s what I hated about Linkin Park.
@@slamdangles if this is radio rock, then radio rock sure has changed a lot! so either one has had to change. probably both did.
When Rick hammering on the guitar trying to figure out the songs sounds better than the actual songs.
On the Beartooth song,
Rick: "And the drum fill has no impact."
Me: "There was a drum fill?"
Lol. I swear I was like, 'what drum fill'
Exactly!
All the Beartooth mixes are like this...shame really, cause the songs are so strong.
@@AffordableGuitars The mixing issues that Beartooth has are all too common with many many acts these days. Compressed and boosted until there's no discernible dynamic range.
@@hochhaul A lot of these just sounded as you mentioned far too compressed and produced. Can barely hear the instruments just a general feel of bass and a singer, metal without guitars that can be heard... Ok sure.
haha loving this!! I can definitely attest to the fact that the waveform of our song "Indestructible" looks like a big fat sausage! haha
All the best
Heja Norrköping
Not much metal here, except Till and Bullets...
Great song, very well done. Completely different class that the rest of the pack.
The song is great! Congrats! I agree with Rick, there is some room to improve the dynamics there but far from spoiling anythig, keep rocking!
I'm not trying to be rude, but who the hell did you guys blow to get on a metal chart?
Just speaking German you're already doing metal.
I used to think that being a huge fan of rammstein but I think Russian has taken its place
@@charliewenthe4411 Lmao, I guess you decided that by just hearing Slaughter to Prevail. Beyond this band Russian is not that metal, trust me
@@Glasshexagon Neither is German beyond Rammstein
@@ilikeyourname4807 *laughs in Oomph/Megaherz/Einsturzende Neubauten*
The funny thing about this list is. Some people would hear these songs and think that they are too heavy and some people would say they sound weak. I personally feel like a lot of this stuff sounds weak, the singers sound like they’re 13 and whoever mixed the songs didn’t eq anything. However everyone likes different things so if this is your thing then go somewhere and love it.
they're all bad
The majority sound like a college band "fast hit" and "catchy", but by most of them sounding similar/same nothing "stands out" tbh, almost like all of those are a "30 seconds to Mars" song
they sound like imagine dragons with distortion guitar
it's not even that the concept of the songs is that bad, the mixing and the sound is just bad.
@@psd993 no these songs are bad, not just the mix
I love how Respectful he always is to hot garbage lol
That’s because Rick is a class act.
Hot Garbage - nice band name
Even though it wasn't my style, the Memphis May Fire was decent
"Hi I'm Rick Beato, and today's song is Explosive Diarrhea"
@@JasCeeGee they work hard in marketing and production but not that much in writing music
Why tf almost all "metal" bands in this chart sound like fall out boy lmao
Pop punk emo metal /shrug
Cuz Fall Out Boy stopped using actual instruments at some point
Cuz Emo poprock sells 😂😂 and the industry wants that
To 10 year old girls!
Is that the band with the stinky hat guy!
Blown away how quickly you pick things up Rick, you’ve got a great ear and clearly know your way around the fret board and in different tunings. And omg! So refreshing to hear what you said about most of the guitars mixes and lack of mids/ the guitars getting lost. It’s my biggest problem with new age recording and mixing, and you nailed the truth about the lack of dynamics. Cheers Rick🍻🤘, they don’t make ‘em like they used to.
Man... I would never call this stuff metal
An old man once said, "Money is king and Your Metal isn't real Metal anyway Son!" Old man
Well this bullet song is metal, some are more rock-ish
You might not call it metal but play it to the majority of the world and they would.
the new bfmv stuff is pretty metal tbh
you'd never call fear factory metal? Get out!
Most top "metal" is actually what I call "pop-as-metal" where the arrangements are exactly that of mainstream pop but just played with hard rock instrumentation. Blah.
That's how it's always been. Go listen to a priest, maiden, or sabbath song. Verse chorus verse chorus etc. Metal fans are such clowns
This is true of all the genres, especially Country, which is pop/rap with a token fiddle or steel guitar thrown in for aesthetics. Pretty soon we'll reach a musical Singularity.
The instrumentation sounds like the same band and they just got some person from an Emo band to sing over the top.
This shouldn't really be a surprise. This is a list of the most popular metal songs, aka the songs that appeal to the widest variety of people that happen to listen to metal. So obviously it's going to sound very poppy and mainstream.
BLAH!
Treat yourself. Check out Japans hard rock/metal bands. About 15 years ago Japans government decided to stress the arts as much as engineering and made learning an instrument a requirement in school. The results have been spectacular.
I kinda like band-maid, but that may not be entirely about the music!
I think Japan has the best and worst metal rn.
true! but not only hard rock and metal their electronic music is very cool to especially stuffs like sakuzyo xi etc. and yeah they have a billion off underground circles that composes great music like demetori etc. I still feel like some off their hard rock is abit generic to when u dig deeper into it its alot off octave chord strumming usually i mean it's different from ours usually but when you listen to it enough you start kinda recognising alot off patterns in their music to.
@@LakriTs9 I just think in general the chord progressions Japanese rock/metal bands use are a lot more interesting than what we generally use in the west
Sithu aye displays it perfectly
Sharon den Adel from Within Temptation is badass singer. It’s a Dutch band rocking since the 90’s. I love more their first albums, but, overall, it’s a great band, with so much killer songs in their repertoire.
Till/Rammstein have had some amazing production values in the last 5 years.
Every chorus is like it’s from a single producer that just makes emo chorus. As in the same guy, who knows like 4 and a half chord progressions
And the same guy on growls/screams.
midi pack world
It all sounds so very "formulated"......like '80s hair metal but without the pleasantness and fun, haha!
@@kdm71291 Honestly most of those edgy crap sounds like someone chopped up a generic distroted guitar sample pack changed some EQ and called it a day, doesn't sound like actual guitar play. And by now it has been done to death.
@@DJGodaryD86 Yup. It bores me to hear this type of music on the radio. Also the drums and the bass sound very similar from song to song.
I feel like all the "mainstream metal" choruses have pretty much sounded the same for the past 20 years now. It was fun for a couple years, but jeez...
Disturbed started this 20 years ago i would say
Yeah the four chord "power" chorus is pretty bland. The staple metalcore riffs -- if you can call them that -- aren't anything to write home about. 0-1 breakdowns have all replaced cool solos of the past. all the concessions to pop music mentality and punk musicianship leaves for pretty bland musicality. No offense to Rick's ability, but if he can figure your song out in under 5 seconds, it's probably not very interesting. Maybe it's well arranged or whatever, but the individual pieces are all pretty simple these days.
@@TheDSasterX I don't think complexity necessarily translates to better music though. Rick probably can figure out every song in under 5 seconds.
I first came to associate this sound with low-income, quick-to-fight, rural white kids (often tweakers) in the Midwest about 20 years ago.
True.
I really like the critisism you have on these songs. I'd love if you made a video on 10 metal songs you think are really great and explain why. That would be an awesome video !
Agreed. It would also be a very LOOOOOOOONG video lol
I would class this as radio friendly rock, not metal but that's just me.
These lists are specifically made for record labels and marketing companies to pay out for Spotify or whoever created such list to put their artists new release on it. The bigger and more popular the list, the shittier the music gets. Remember that whole Drake debacle? His face became a cover for like 3/4 of these playlists, even if they had nothing to do with his genre of music (top pop songs, top country, top young, top old, top sad, top gay, top trans, top national socialistic Black metal, didn't matter, drakes face was the face of the week and his song was nr 1). Just an example of marketing executives overdoing it a little.
@@aw2584 “top national Socialist Black Metal”
Lmao… my pfp is seething
@@kaydgaming boflll
Perfect
Yeah, me too. Cept for fear factory and Till and the number two, I guess.
I see the definition of “metal” is pretty loose these days. Half of these sound like pop rock.
I’m pretty sure stabbing westward was heavier than this 20 years ago.
Just like “wanyk”
Lots of pop punk/punk influence too.
People like to throw the term metal around a lot, but anyone who actually listens to metal knows that a lot of this stuff isnt metal. Honestly ive never heard any of these songs
Agreed. It's just pop with distored guitars. 3rd song is the first song I would qualify as metal (not very good, but that's just another thing), but the song by the Black Veil Brides finally had a decent metal riff, but we're already halfway there...Well the good news is #1 is decent metalband from my country ;-)
I would love to see Rick do a Rammstein song for his "what makes this song great" series.
yes
Sepultura !!
I've asked him to before - I hope he does it!
Du hast
Freuer frei
Ricks guitar playing actually sounds better than the studio productions!!! Thank you Rick for sharing your knowledge and talent with the world! Love your channel!! I’ve watched at least 100 videos!!
Rick you’re a genius! I am 52 and open to listen to new things but after listening to this I always end up appreciating more Metal and Hardcore from the 80’s and 90’s Metallica, Pantera, Fear Factory, Pro Pain, Maiden, Biohazard, Sepultura with Max Cavalera, Type O Negative, Kreator, Death Angel, Judas Priest, Fight, Anthrax, Carcass
There is a vast richness of metal being made right now and none of it was on this list.
^^this^^
@@anemaldemomusic8182 Nightwish, Eternal Champion, Opeth, Powerwolf, Ayreon
@@anemaldemomusic8182 spiritbox, alluvial, bad wolves
@@anemaldemomusic8182 check out some newer bands like Spiritbox, Oceans of Slumber, Blood Youth, Eidola, Tetrach, Make them Suffer... lot's of cool new stuff out there! :)
I was just thinking most (not all) of the metal I like is from the 80s and if this is what metal is now it sucks.
First song: "Indestructible." Second song: indecipherable.
Reminds me of the song Centuries by Fall Out Boy especially when he sings indestructible. Also i thought this song was going to be a cover of the song Indestructible by Disturbed
Beartooth has some great stuff. I wish it would have been a different song.
Some of these songs are really bad mixes. Drums and guitars get crushed in the mix.
The mix on the pain song was so much better.
Compare the indeciperable garbage to something like Engel by Rammstein. People banging on instruments vs musicians. No offense to anyone that likes Beartooth, you do you, but I have very different standards. Till is so talented and his Rammstein shows were insane. Take Beartooths I Was Alive. It is better, but really it lets the vocals come through and the vocals are fantastic, but the rest of the band is just a smear of noise, he needs to just upgrade them with real talent.
The thing that keeps me interested in metal since decades is complex and surprising song structures like older Opeth stuff or Dillinger escape plan for example. As a lot others already said, this is just pop garbage with distorted guitars.
I remember when I first came across Dilinger Escape Plan. I thought to myself, why didn't anyone else turn me on to this....nobody else I knew was hip to them. Same with The Contortionist. I then proceeded to tell everyone about them wether they were into it or not.
Isn’t Dillinger more punkcore?
This sounds like thrash metal trying to be industrial
listened to Gojira Art of Dying and Pray
go listen and let me know if you haven't
Dillinger is mathcore with punk influence i would say. Great band suggestions in this thread, I would add Mastodon, Meshuggah and Sikth to that list as well - highly technical without the "look how fast i can go" ego, just pure music...i'm sure you've all heard them but check them out if not!
wow that memphis may fire song really had a lot going for it! the chord progression, the half time, cool drum fills, and a wicked transition to the interlude-hook riff!
Methinks Spotify gets too much credit for deciding what the “top” is.
Totally agree :)
He's pretty quick to clarify that it's Spotifys top list
Tbh I don´t think it even says that anywhere. It´s just spotifys main metal list.
I've been listening to Spotify for a couple of months and it is really kind of bad. The way it chooses its mixes just ends up repeating the same stuff over and over endlessly, so I'm guessing the "top" stuff is just things that people get in their lists that isn't bad enough to remove but endlessly gets played.
Not if you make your own decisions.
This is just pop with fuzz guitars lol.
I so agree with you. My roommate was showing me some screamo bands he is really found of. Bring me the horizons or something like that. I said to him, you know this is really just pop music with distorted guitars, at least the choruses. Just as generic, even more generic than pop music. Since the top pop musician often aims to be a little bit edgy, to stand out from all the other thousands of songs.
@@Atlas65 bmth has a huge ass discography spanning across multiple genres. Listen to Chelsea smile, diamonds aren't forever; and tell me if that ain't metal
I basically said the same thing, and most of these boy-band style vocals died out in the early 2000s
@@tanzu7 also bmth invented all the stuff these bands copy from
Sounds like beiber with distorted guitar
So the big question is why has Rick never reacted to Devin Townsend?
Mostly quite weak, almost pop played on heavy sounding guitars. Lindemann and Fear Factory were cool but then the Lindemann song sounds like Rammstein 20 years ago and Fear Factory haven't really changed their sound in 30 years.
There is some amazing new metal. Chelsea Wolfe & Converge's new album is an absolute masterpiece, incredible from start to finish. Gojira's new album is just brilliant, the whole band are on an amazing level of talent yet have combined the technical brilliance with superb songs rather than fall in to the trap of technically brilliant but ultimately dull music that so many others have done.
Yeah. There isn’t much real metal these days. And even then, most of it is not good.
Almost pop? Almost?
also Exodus with there Persona Non Greta
@@newagain9964 ever heard of SION or maybe spiritbox?
@@newagain9964 there's plenty of real and good metal these days, it just isn't as mainstream.
Trivium: In the Court Of The Dragon
Rivers Of Nihil: The Work
Jinjer: Wallflower
Twelve Foot Ninja: Vengeance
Between The Buried And Me: Colors 2
Arch Enemy has dropped some great singles lately
Just a few of the bands I'm listening to right now
Oh yeah, Be'lakor: Coherence
When it comes to this genre, I think Ricks followers should collectively curate a list for him to check out rather than whatever Spotify puts together. As Rick knows, there is so much to impressed by in this genre if you know where to look.
Hahaha I’d force fairies wear boots in there just cos haha
Does it really matter? I've literally never heard Rick say he didn't like a song in the top 10 of ANY genre when he makes these videos. He may criticize the production, but NEVER the song. Ever. I don't know if he just likes whatever's popular or he knows you get more thumbs up by saying you like everything. (Look at any song "response" channel on RUclips if you want proof of this.)
I would love to hear his thoughts of Borknagar - Up North. I feel it's not a complex song, but there's some captivating strangeness to it that I can't really figure out.
Agreed, however to me the point of these videos is to remind ourselves how the music industry has hit rock bottom, and we need to do everything we can to not sound like this bubblegum garbage.
YES!
I love when the intros scare Rick. Hilarious.
I think Rick has his monitors cranked, and he plays into the genuine shock of the first big hit just a little.
Absolutely, and also when he realises that's it's dross on a couple of those tracks. Very funny Rick. 👌
Rick knows that the algo loves reaction shots, all YT thumbnails are now exaggerated facial expressions.
Its amazing how the tracks sound when Rick plays along, I know the tracks arent a direct input to our speakers; but you can tell what he means by a flat EQ curve.
That reaction when Till Lindemanns song hits in. haha. Rick is the best!
Would love to see Rick do a “What Makes This Song Great” - Opeth
I was just thinking the same...
@@robertgrubb9508 Of course the problem is figuring which one. 🤔
Heir Apparent would be awesome.
Cups of eternity
Drapery falls!
Sad state of affairs when "REAL DRUMS" gets Rick excited.
Especially because we're talking about Metal here.
I get what you're saying, but the real test to me is if it sounds good. Doesn't matter if it's real or not to me. A lot of this doesn't sound good, regardless.
@@ErickMcNerney yea 100% i think that electronic drums can sound amazing and better than real drums in certain scenarios (ofc its case to case and depends on what the song calls for). I think that the only problem is when people try to emulate real drums out of sheer laziness to record real ones and so the song completely loses its feel.
@@ErickMcNerney I agree thst most do not sound good and I think part of the reason is the fake drums. A drum machine has no soul. It is why I like live recordings better.
@@ErickMcNerney the digital stuff would be great if they didn’t just copy paste everything, the real drums sound better simply because real drummers can put their own creativity into the music mistakes and all
Till provides wisdom and unmatched integrity in his voice and words. He is the real thing for others to desperately immitate.
These metal charts are basically a “here’s your weekly who to avoid list”
as the guy who always lurking lastfm for new music - I'd say that "top"-oriented music ALWAYS the weakest and blandest among all other music. Even lame localbands mostly better and more inventive
I agree
You dissin Till?
Yeah... no. There's Till. There's Fear Factory. Not everything popular is automatically bad.
I agree, except Till and Fear Factory are amazing as always.
Till Lindemann has such a peculiar voice and phrasing, and his lyrics - which I believe he all writes himself - are some other kind of ornately skewed poetry. Being a native German speaker and not a Rock or Metal guy myself at all I am still fascinated by the aesthetic quality he manages to deliver incessantly over the decades.
He writes all of them. He also published a book of like a hundred poems He wrote.
@@jail2634 interesting got a link.
My dad's grandparents' families originally came to the US around the late 18th century. They passed down the language for a number of generations with my grandfather, his siblings, and great grandmother still speaking German daily when I was growing up. That tradition of passing on the language sadly ended when my grandfather divorced my grandmother, so my German is woefully lacking, but I do remember and understand enough to have developed a profound appreciation for the tongue in cheek way that Till has of incorporating puns, slang, and twists of German idioms into his lyrics. Add in the unique characteristics of his voice, cadence and timbre that you mentioned... It's a unique combination of things that truly make him stand out.
Hail the German people!
@@frankalfar search Amazon for "In stillen Nächten" for the german original, or "In Quiet Nights" for the english translation
I gave the video a thumbs up, not because the songs were any good, but because Rick is such a bad ass figuring them out in seconds.
Dude I love this song and I wouldn't know about it if it weren't for you
that trend of trying to sound really tough and heavy in the intro and verse - then comes a super predictable melodic pop-chorus…
That's actually probably Fear Factory's fault... they were the ones that started that, although they came at it from a metal perspective instead of the pop perspective. Linkin Park made it a "pop" thing to do and now we can't get away from it. the Screamo interlude trend has a similar story, as does the rap interlude. for a while it was the thing to do for every song to have either a Screamo segment or a rap segment, and usually they're bring in someone from those genres to do it as a way of cross promoting... kind of like the hip-hop trend of "featuring" another artist (beats by some studio engineer who did it for $5 so he could overlay his advertising clip every 6 minutes)
Yeah I think it's moving on from the trend of cookie monster verses into a melodic chorus lol. Most of these songs didn't really sound metal tbh.
This trend is like 20 years old.
Melodic or djent intro. Djenty riffs, clean vocals, and power chords in chorus. Solos without soul only technical mess, and showing off. Everything blended in a horrible mix and here we go new shitty song that sound exactly the same.
Even metal has become super formulaic. Not my genre tho, last thing that I found fun was Ever Forthright
It's a trend that really pisses me off, because it's as manufactured as BTS. What's weird is that a lot of the verses are actually decent.
With the exception of Till and FF, you could have told me that all these were songs from the same band and I would have believed you.
Exactly!!!!
The singers sounds like the same person
@@IanLoughead Yeah, even Within Temptation, who have a female singer, but she sounds just like the rest here. I mean, on occasion I like a good pop song with distorted guitars, but not if they all sound the fucking same.
And Pain. Remember Peter Tagtgren is a legend.
They all sound fall out boy. Garbage.
When Fear Factory released their first few albums, their style was considered a bit rare and extreme. But now they are mainstream because today all the metal music sounds industrial and brutal :) :)
I know nothing at all about metal, just wanted to say that Rick has GREAT hair 😂
If you know nothing about metal now. Watch this video and you'll know even less. This music is what is know in the industry as " bullshit" ," garbage" , " retarded" along with many more I'm sure you get the point love.🤘
Listen to Current of Death by Holy Moses. That's metal.
@@lazyjsrelaxathon1179 tbh i love the new bullet stuff
Outside of Rick's parts, a lot of this sounded like I was listening to $5 speakers.
Looks like it's not in HD on Spotify. And the HD on Spotify is not lossless.
There's so much great metal music being made today; too bad none of it is in the top 10.
Ich hasse Kinder is definitely an exception in my opinion
Taste is subjective but it certainly isn't Leviathan
That's because none of them will be Pantera nor Metallica. Originality like that is hard to come by.
Like what?
@@nickagero exactly
I'm surprised he doesn't say anything about how almost every song has the exact same minor 6th chord transition for the chorus. Between that and him getting excited for "ooh half time!" at about 8:30 is basically the bingo card of pop metal chorus tropes of the last 15 years.
Your sound is really cool , I love it !
It is so clear and heavy in same time
Needs more Gojira
Always more Gojira!!!!!
And Jinjer!
@@neobh yes! I almost said them too
Talk about terrible mixing, Gojira is on top of this problem. Especially vocals, are mixing god fucking awful. Such a good band and production value on they singles are tragic.
@@KONSACZ Still better than 98% of this "new" metal
These songs make breaking Benjamin sound like obituary.
Now there’s a band, old school Tampa DM legends, still laying it down!!
Love Obituary.
For real tho😂
I'm way past the target demographic for these artists/songs, but I still think you're dead solid perfectly on point about most of the poorly mixed guitars. There seems to be bias against clarity and effective frequency management/saturation until Bullet for my Valentine. Anyway, if the cacophony makes 1M people happy, I'm happy for them.
It will always make me smile knowing that when modern metalcore/proggy/scene metal stuff comes up, Rick genuinely vibes with it hard. I'm so used to boomers just not "getting it" and it seems like my man just genuinely loves new music.
Remember kids, just because something is popular, doesn't mean it's good.
Amen
Exactly, I couldn't even make it through one song. You kids get off my yard.
@@dougk359
take their knees out with the .12 gauge before they leave!!
@Damon Ashley
triggered snowflake?? 😆
Touché
But yeah this metal is wayyy too cheesey for me. It's so hyper produced and formulaic, like it was written by labels instead of the bands (for the most part) just like most pop music
I would rather listen to rehearsal tapes then anything in this top 10
Half of them sound like My Chemical Romance and the other half sound like Hinder. All of these songs suck ass.
@@TheKnobCalledTone. Not MCR, MCR had that rawness, dark lyrics and aggressive sound to their songs back in the day and they were not even metal. These bands have none, these bands are just pop artists who just found out about drop C tuning and distortion.
@@TheKnobCalledTone. Till and FF were good. Can't say much for the rest, most of it was garbage.
Like Load by Metallica?, nah, these songs sounds and feels better than that album, nothing saves that album, even when is doing for an iconic band
With the exception of Fear Factory these all sound like pop with some distorted power chords and sometimes riffs.
I love watching his response to the first blast! Rick seems to be surprised when it hits!
Modern metal is like Bro-country with "heavy" guitars.
Or sounds like every 2014 pop punk covers
None of this is metal
@@trevor5834 that’s what I was thinking too. Pop punk tuned to drop C
@@naujelbr i was boutta say the same thing lol.
Nicely stated. To me it's mostly just pop with distortion. Generic riffs and/or Linkin Park "influenced."
I’ll go out on a limb and say the more pop-sounding “metal” has the same generic pop vocals that isn’t distinct from the rest. Idk, just my opinion… kind of sounds like a “I’m going through a phase” metal lol.
Just terrible, simple, and predictable choruses.
Phase Metal lmao
Frankly sound like metal arrangements of pop songs.
Well, I suppose not every new metal band is Tool or Metallica.
True, but there's always a generation of teenagers going through a phase, and they deserve new music to be excited about too. Yeh, it's a bit crap, but that doesn't matter to a kid who's decided they identify with its emotional content
Your ability to identify keys and notes and everything is just incredible.
Many people thinks than AC/DC riffs are the most "metal" and "heavy" thing in music, and now they come and say to actual metal well produced "pop with distorsion", oldest metal sounds like country music with distorsion and no one cares, just because is "classic" stuff, I respet so much classic metal and modern metal because sounds savage and have many good melodies on there, every decade has his greatest things on metal, and that's what I always supported
So much of this stuff has a "wannabe Linkin park ending up like Nickelback" vibe to it.
That is a great summation of the state of affairs
🤔
Nickel Park? Lincoln Back?
Yeah... that's accurate
i miss Linkin Park so much though. i know people have their opinions on everything after Meteora, but its crazy to think we probably would have had another album by now if Chester were still here. RIP
Came here looking for this comment, my thoughts exactly.
The overcompression is the most annoying issue with so many modern metal productions... pisses me off when an otherwise nice track gets completely ruined by stupid crap like that.
Bingo. #9 whoever the hell they are was completely flat, no range.
so much modern metal has the worst production and its totally turned me off from a few bands just because I didn't like their mixes
Yeah I love a lot of Northlane. But the production sounds like garbage because of the compression
@@davidmiles3018 I love the new stuff Northlane has been putting out probably because of Nollys production
@@destroyer28100 I must be hearing it a lot differently. To me the drums and guitars sound really compressed. But I'm definitely more into a raw, in-your-face production style than is popular right now. For me, Northlane has amazing songs that aren't helped by the production
Cool to see Pain on the map again. Till Lindemann is brilliant . . Within Temptation are also amazing. Lots of great tunes and artists here. Awesome video. Rick. I love your content.
Metal: Iron Maiden
Prog: Dream Theater
Thrash: Pre-Black Metallica
Punk: Black Flag/Rollins Band
S-Tier Un-quantifiables: Soundgarden, Tool, Rage Against the Machine, System of a Down
Not-so-guilty pleasure: Ghost
The problem I have with all these "metal" bands on this list is that they all sounds like imagine dragons but with heavy guitars, & the drum samples don't even a LITTLE real, it's so clippy and high pitched you can barely distinguish what's a snare and what's a kick drum, on top of that its total Synth overload all the time while all the song structures are the same.
Your point about the productions being totally flat with no dynamics is very true aswell, and the vocals are SO loud all the other instrument just pale in comparison.
The reason they're not metal is cause they aren't riff-based and the chords all sounds so mainstream-pop
i get your point but a few of them still kick ass in my opinion.....i love the new stuff bfmv dropped
for spotify standards maybe "extreme metal" would actually be more interesting.
I truly doubt it.
People would still put poppy metal on the list despite its name -_-
I can't help but want to sing some Neil Young over "Party in my head" from Pain. Keep on Rockin' Rick. Merry Christmas from Boise, ID.
I've loved Within Temptation since forever! I also have to ask, in the verse in Pains song, did anyone else hear a little bit of Rockin in the Free World??? 🤔
I just discovered them this year via my favorite Cover Artist, Dan Vasc. I fell in love with the song called Faster. I hope he covers even more.
Your channel has gotten me back into the guitar. Was obsessed 10+ years ago. Excited to get my calluses back.
I never understood why metal bands scoop mids. When I crank the low mid growl and high mid bite, it creates a MONSTER guitar and bass tone, you can really hear the aggression with pronounced midrange. Scooping it just leaves you with a soft carpet. And this isn’t just a modern phenomenon. I started playing music 20 years ago (almost to the month) with metal heads who loved all sorts of thrash and industrial, even though I wasn’t a big metal head. But it blew my mind even back then, that almost every metal fan scooped their mids, meanwhile I was more into punk at the time but I was able to create for more crushing guitar and bass tones just because I was open to the full spectrum of the EQ.
One of my favorite bassists in modern-ish metal is Ryan Martinie from Mudvayne. Has his mids high and it sounds beastly.
Modern acts in most genres are copy cats to a fault. Everyone copies the leading act.
go and listen to butchered at birth by cannibal corpse, it might be your last chance to realize how crushing your midrange tone ISNT
Depends on the mix, the amps used, and mics/EQ at the amp head; for example, scooping your mids on a solid state amp head sounds massively different compared to a tube head, even with the same microphone on your cabinet. And if you scoop at the source, you shouldn't be scooping in the mix.
A good reference for this is Pantera's "Reinventing the Steel" releases (the original, done by Dimebag and Vinnie Paul; and the remaster done by Terry Date [who did their other records previously compared to, say, "Vulgar Display of Power." Dimebag, especially when I started playing guitar in the early 00s, was THE scooped-mids tone chase for all the players; he ran a solid-state Randall head and Marshall cabs on Vulgar, and switched to a Krank Rev-1 head on Steel.
The original mix on that record is fucking horrid, but the remaster breathes some life into those songs. Why? Because Terry Date doesn't scoop the mids in the mix, at the very, absolute least.
Pantera scooped their mids almost 30 years ago.
Within Temptation and especially Sharon Den Adel (lead singer) are great! She`s such a good singer.
Dude, that Tele though that 6505 sounded awesome! Theres no way I could make that setup sound that good!
Solence is really nice, but in my days and age we called this "Alternative Rock". I'm still progressing Rick's video, but my bets are already on 90% of the songs being metalcore, which is just soooooooo boring. Pop melodies, pop harmonies, pop song structures (verse, bridge, chorus, rinse, repeat) in pseudo metal disguise, and 95% of the bands just sound alike.
Modern metal is just pop with drop tunings and distortion.
Was hoping something like Vortex by Jinjer would be on this..
🤭
Yep. Almost all the vocalists sound like that on this list, and then the played out grizzly bear thing.
Just lame ass songs
And...with the exception of a few, most sound like the same, whiny 90s alt rock voices. blah!
Man I love how this guy is open to like every genre, he doesn’t dismiss any type of music just because he likes some genre more.
He picks out everything good and bad in the songs disregarding any stigma
That's because he's a good musician. A good musician sees the value in the simple and in the complex, in the innovative and in the traditional.
Figuring out the basic chord progressions is showing the bad.
So cool. It's like he discovers these things as a child without any bias. I remember when I was really young, I listened to everything. But then I started liking Metal and all of a sudden it wasn't "cool" any more to bring up in a conversation what a great singer Freddy Mercury was as an example. I noticed myself gravitating more towards people who had an open mind music wise and who did appreciate multiple genres. I will never let what other people think deter me from discovering something new any more.
the only thing that bugs me about this video is he says Memphis May Fire and Black Veil Brides are using scooped mids for their guitar tones when it's very clear they aren't. both songs are overflowing with mids.
It’s because he’s a producer and sound engineer. He looks at it from a productions side as well as from the musician side, which is a totally different perspective, so he’s less concerned with what the music is about when doing these types of evaluations than he is about evaluating the production and sound. I used to do some video production and when I watch tv and movies I often view them with a totally different eye than the rest of my family and friends. They’re watching the story and actors, I’m watch cameras angles and how a scene was put together. Same thing.
I don't know. Til Lindemann is the only thing I got out of this entire Top 10. Maybe historians are right, maybe Kurt Cobain took the future of rock and roll with him. Stupid argument when you consider from Kurt's murder came Foo Fighters. So that argument is most likely dead now.
Look up Zeal and Ardor
@@schopenhauer5427 amazing band, Stranger Fruit album is a masterpiece
Peter Tägtgren's band Pain is actually really good and a departure from his death metal stuff with Hypocrisy. he's also been producing other bands for decades.
@@JeffBarberDigideus Yeah, he's a legend. He is one of the extra busy guys of metal. Like Dan Swano or Devin Townsend, for example.
Foo Fighters don't hold a candle to Nirvana or any good rock band.
Rick, thank you for always being so positive.
Can we all take a moment to appreciate the fact Rick takes 8 seconds to figure out what takes me 3 hours to begin playing?
It takes me longer to find tabs
For a fun exercise, if you watch TV with commercials, keep your instrument on your lap and when the commercials come on try and figure each one's music by the end of each commercial. It helps with ear training.
Best part of the video. Watching Rick pick these songs apart in 60 seconds.
"Keep it majesty, it's all in my head". "Really? With one hearing only?".
Why are you trying to begin playing this rubbish?
What a great compilation of Emo-pop song. Still waiting for the metal one though.
About good recording by Lindemann: that is not just "dude from Rammstein", that's group of two, and the second one is P.Tagtgren - dude from Pain/Hypocrisy, often referred as "best damn tech on european metal scene", so ...
Thankfully there is a lot of great metal no one knows about, that isn't on this chart. On another note, though I am not a musician, I am amazed at how quickly Rick picks up these songs and can play them virtually note for note after only one listen.
Yes!! there are still bands trying to come with their own sound, but we don't find them on the main channels!!
@@edmarmatos4044 Exactly! Metal is FAR from dead and I explore amazing new bands every single week, just not in the main local radio or a big top 10 Spotify playlist.
"Guitars almost indiscipherable" 😂 Sound engineer dies inside.
Nah it’s probably an intentional sound. First off, it’s crushed because they have the whole mix turned way up on volume so there isn’t any dynamic range, which is what is popular. Then you have the fact that the music is probably getting consumed on headphones with a bass heavy response curve because that’s what is popular so you boost the top end to compete. Finally you have Spotify compressing the music for streaming so you lose even more clarity. The result is a flat sound.
I was a metal/hardcore drummer for the majority of my 32 years of playing, I no longer play in original metal bands for this very reason....everything sounds the same and every engineer wants plug in stock drum sounds today, I couldn't stand it anymore!! When you got excited hearing the "real drums" on Till Lindeman's song I had the exact same reaction, but of course they would be real, he's cut from the same old school cloth as us!
Rammstein / Lindeman live is such an experience. The show, performance, music. They actually pull it off and will blow your mind
@@sleepymarauder4178 I saw Rammstein when they first came to the U.S. on the 1st family values tour with Korn, Deftones, orgy and others. Great show!
Check out Ulcerate. Amazing drumming that isn’t overly processed or canned.
Rick, you will have to do a review of Floor Jansen. She is one of the best vocalists out there at the moment. Watch the Nightwish Wembley gig and specifically Ghost Love Score. Awesome.
Glad to see Lindemann get some love; I really like them.
The lead guy from Pain is the other half of the core of Lindemann.
Always appreciate this channel's work; such a genuine, knowledgeable guy.
Exactly what I dislike in "modern" metal as an "old school" metalhead: often formulaic songs, heavy use of samples, overcompressed-crushed sound, heavy scooping in mids, virtually no guitar solos - near-indistinguishable productions from each other. Apart from a few exceptions, if someone said these songs are from the same band just with guests singers, no one would doubt it. I kinda feel the "default modern" sound took over from the sound crafting process and it's just robbing the music.
No musicianship. I like the HU better than these bands.
All the singers sound the same så you could say its the same band and singer.
They sound like pop songs.
@@chethammer and that says it all. You have to dig and you will find something new I gues. Until then HU it is