The Shadar-kai are NEVER going to be the next drow

[Derro]

I should point out that I say grunge is not metal because I really do like grunge.

Actually...

If you have seen the definitive documentary Metal: A Headbanger's Journey grunge is considered a sub-genre of metal. There is a flow-chart that shows the development of metal as a genre from it's inception in the '60s by the likes of Iron Butterfly and Cream all the way to the nu-metal and orchestral black metal of today. If you are a fan of any genre of metal from Led Zeppelin to Dimmu Borgir to Ratt I highly recommend this movie.

Even before the production of this movie grunge was largely considered an amalgam of heavy metal, punk rock, and indie rock.

Music is another feather in my geek hat so my apologies if this comes off as anything other than informative.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Not at all. Music geekism is the best geekism.
Will have to track down the show.

 

[Darrin Drader]

Even before the production of this movie grunge was largely considered an amalgam of heavy metal, punk rock, and indie rock.

See, I always saw it as a fusion of punk and indie rock. The reason I exclude metal is because it seems to be the antithesis of what metal had traditionally been. It was not about gravity defying guitar solos, looking pretty, singing pretty, or even making sense half the time. It was very introspective and political, which are two things metal typically is not. I also think there were a number of bands that were considered grunge because of when they emerged or where they emerged from. For example, I would really not consider Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Sound Garden, and Stone Temple Pilots all the same type of music. Pearl Jam definitely had its punk roots, but it sounded more like fuzzier classic rock. Radiohead was just plain mislabeled as we can see today by their status as the modern day Pink Floyd (listening to OK Computer as I type this). I do have to admit that I can see certain metal elements in Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. STP, on the other hand started out sounding like a Pearl Jam knockoff but transformed into something unique and wonderful - not truly grunge, not pop, not metal, but memorable and wonderful (they just reunited by the way - W00t!)

Anyway, rambling here. To get to the heart of what grunge is, I think you have to look at the seminal grunge band, which is Nirvana. I consider them almost pure punk which broke the rules by including melody. But I suppose that since it is so difficult to categorize, it makes some amount of sense for some (including Dave Grohl) to just group it in with metal, even if I don't completely agree with it.

 

[Derro]

Anyway, rambling here. To get to the heart of what grunge is, I think you have to look at the seminal grunge band, which is Nirvana. I consider them almost pure punk which broke the rules by including melody. But I suppose that since it is so difficult to categorize, it makes some amount of sense for some (including Dave Grohl) to just group it in with metal, even if I don't completely agree with it.

I don't want to thread-jack here so if this continues maybe we should do it somewhere else. However I'd like to address that Nirvana statement. I don't think it is entirely accurate to call them the seminal grunge band. They are undoubtedly the most successful and recognized band of the grunge genre but they were descended from bands like the Melvins (Cobain's favorite band), Mudhoney, Green River and Motherlovebone (who reformed as Pearl Jam), TAD, and the Screaming Trees.

All of these bands had a real DIY sensibility inherited from punk but lacked for the most part the sensationalism of both punk and metal and maintained a lower key attitude more in line with indie-rock. Metal was cited as an influence mainly because the music was often as abrasive as metal but with more technical proficiency than punk. And the long hair. Grunge was as much about attitude as sound. And location. If you were from Seattle, Olympia, or Tacoma you were a grunge band like it or not.

All in all it is a debatable point at best. Music is music, what it's called just makes it easier to find at the record store.

 

[Darrin Drader]

I don't want to thread-jack here so if this continues maybe we should do it somewhere else.

I think its good that here we are, about 13 years after grunge more or less transformed into something else entirely and we're still trying to define it. For a genre that disliked labels and groupings, I think that this is fitting. I am grunge and I believe I always will be though I never had the hair or the tats, and its been a long, long while since I've worn flannel.

I agree that this thread has gotten completely hijacked, so to get it back on track, I'll urge this to be the last post on the subject.

 

[S'mon]

In the interests of honestly.

George RR Martin was publishing in the mid-late '70s? Githyanki first appeared in White Dwarf magazine around 1978 AIR, before being collated in Fiend Folio years later.

 

[Clavis]

I actually LOL'd because while totally crass, it really did manage to capture the feel for each of those subgenres. ALTHOUGH! GRUNGE! IS! NOT! METAL!

Ok, let's get something straight. There was no such music as "Grunge" before the media needed a label to put on the Seattle metal scene. Before "Smells Like Teen Spirit" broke big on MTV, who know who was listening to Pearl Jam (and before that Mother Love Bone), Soundgarden, Nirvana, etc? Metalheads, especially metalheads who were also expanding their tastes into old punk. Wearing flannel was something metalheads were doing in the late 80s/ early 90s, beacuse it was cheap. Seattle metalheads wore flannel because its f'ing cold in Seattle.

OK, rant's over. It's just that I remember being told how this music I had been listening to, that we all referred to as metal, was suddenly something called "Grunge". I also remember the week that all the metal sl*ts suddenly lost their black LA gears, ripped t-shirts, acid washed jeans and big hair, and all started dressing like lesbian truck drivers.

Oh, and the Shadar-Kai are totally NOT METAL. Ta-da, back on topic!

 

[Darrin Drader]

Ok, let's get something straight. There was no such music as "Grunge" before the media needed a label to put on the Seattle metal scene. Before "Smells Like Teen Spirit" broke big on MTV, who know who was listening to Pearl Jam (and before that Mother Love Bone), Soundgarden, Nirvana, etc? Metalheads, especially metalheads who were also expanding their tastes into old punk. Wearing flannel was something metalheads were doing in the late 80s/ early 90s, beacuse it was cheap. Seattle metalheads wore flannel because its f'ing cold in Seattle.

OK, rant's over. It's just that I remember being told how this music I had been listening to, that we all referred to as metal, was suddenly something called "Grunge". I also remember the week that all the metal sl*ts suddenly lost their black LA gears, ripped t-shirts, acid washed jeans and big hair, and all started dressing like lesbian truck drivers.

Were you actually live in Seattle? Because when I saw Alice in Chains and Soundgarden in concert back in 1989, neither me or my friends were in any way into metal at the time. In fact, we had a pretty healthy dislike of about 90% of the metal that was popular back then. We lived in Pullman WA, just over the mountains from Seattle, and to us, they fit perfectly in with the college and alternative rock scene which was usually composed of some local bands as well as some that came in from Seattle. As an aside, I actually enjoyed one of our local bands more than Soundgarden when they played here and their guitarist actually went on to play with someone somewhat large, I think Mud Honey - but not positive.

As for the flannel thing, there were a lot of us wearing it before Nirvana broke, not because it was cheap or metal, but because we liked it. Eh, it was a strange time and there were a lot of emerging trends that piggybacked on other things in different areas.

And no, the Shadar-Kai are certainly not metal. Maybe emo, but not metal.

 

[danzig138]

I have always enjoyed that joke. Humor does not have to be gentle and polite to be amusing.

No, but it should be at least kind of funny, and that wasn't. That was stupid. Stupid and funny can be good; stupid and unfunny isn't.


And while I'm probably in a minority, I'm still waiting for a cool villain race, because the Drow and Gith aren't. The Gith could be, but the Drow have never been very interesting. Mind Flayers should be, but I think they lack an appropriate volume of material. But I did miss a bunch of 2nd Edition books, so maybe I missed something there. I do remember a pretty cool MF article in Dragon from way back, but I don't know that anything was ever built on that.

 

[Gryffyn]

George RR Martin was publishing in the mid-late '70s?

I'm catching this out of context, but his career was indeed active then. He won a Hugo in 1975. I'm pretty sure he was gaming back then, too....