"No new songs!" "No new songs!"
. . .
“Do you want to hear a new song?”
These are the most feared words at any metal concert.
(However, I have yet to hear anyone yell out, “No!” in response.)
A corollary to metal’s “I prefer their old stuff” stance is “I disfavor their new stuff”. Hence the resistance to hearing such stuff live, hence the outcry upon Iron Maiden’s insistence during their recent tour on (gasp!) playing music not 30 years old.
If a band is not creatively relevant to you now, why pay to see them?
“Because they’ll play the old songs”, you might reply.
“But the old songs are on the old albums – which you have”, I might reply.
“But I want to hear the old songs really loud on potentially dodgy PA systems alongside 20,000 other people willing to pay for overpriced beer and t-shirts”, you might reply.
“Then you go do that”, I might reply.
. . .
I am not a new song-fearing metalhead, or a non-hit-song-fearing one. Sure, I’d probably be pissed if I saw Slayer and they only played deep cuts from the Paul Bostaph-era records. (Actually, that might be morbidly fascinating.) But Slayer, like most bands, know which side of their bread is buttered. They will finish their set with “Angel of Death”, and everyone will go home happy. Given this framework of familiarity, a new song might be interesting, if only to see a Slayer crowd stand still for once.
One thing I’ve never understood is how people leave concerts complaining that bands didn’t play certain songs. (Well, I would understand if the band were Europe and the song were “The Final Countdown”. As far as I’m concerned, Europe is “The Final Countdown”, and a Europe set without that song would be as if Europe had not even showed up. Which it needn’t really do. Everyone going to see Europe is there to hear “The Final Countdown”, and is just patiently waiting through the set until that magic song. (Magic moment, really, i.e., the keyboard intro. Does anyone even care about the rest of the song?) Thus, the band might as well skip any pretense of a set and give the crowd what it wants (the keyboard intro) and then go home.) You have the albums; you can listen to their songs at any time. So why the fanatical attachment to the familiar?
. . .
Europe – “The Final Countdown” (just the intro)
. . .
That I understand, actually. My understanding comes from listening to music while working out. “Loud and aggressive” isn’t enough for me in that context. If something is loud and aggressive and bad, my mind will rebel, my body will shut down, no weights will be lifted, and no sweat will be sweated. So I need good music for working out. That means that I do not listen to new music then. Like anything, really, 99% of new music is bad. Working out is not the time to be sifting through that 99%. It is the time to get it on to what works.
Maybe metalheads feel the same way about live music. If something is loud and aggressive – but new – the mind will rebel, the body will shut down, the beer will feel flat, and the wallet will feel lightened. These are lean times, after all. Every dollar pays for a minute that had better be maximized!
. . .
Drum 'n' bass bragging rights, i.e., a dubplate
. . .
A marked contrast to this mentality is drum ‘n’ bass, which (at least until I stopped DJ’ing it, 2003) is all about “new stuff only”. Drum ‘n’ bass is a constant arms race for DJ’s to play the freshest, newest tunes. I’ve seen drum ‘n’ bass crowds stand around with their arms crossed, just waiting to hear something new. (I know because I was one of those assholes myself.) Back when DJ’s used turntables, the gold standard of “new stuff” was the dubplate, the acetate disc on which tunes were pressed before they came out on vinyl. To this day, drum ‘n’ bass DJ playlists often feature song titles followed by the suffix “(dub)”, which indicates that (a) DJ’s have tunes before their release dates, and (b) they want to brag about that to the world.
Drum ‘n’ bass’ dubplate obsession comes from dancehall reggae, in which soundsystems “clash” with the newest tunes in order to get the best crowd response. That’s the historical explanation – but it’s an inadequate psychological explanation. Why are crowd expectations different between metal and drum ‘n’ bass? The desired ends are the same: to go out, lose one’s sobriety, and listen to music at unreasonable volumes. But why are the means completely opposite? In metal, the crowds only want to hear what they know. In drum ‘n’ bass, the crowds only want to hear what they don’t know. All this has nothing to do with the actual quality of the music.
Since I sadly don’t get out to hear as much non-metal music as I’d like, I’m curious about other genres. Hip-hop is hits-oriented, so I’d guess that hip-hop crowds don’t want to hear new stuff. Country, too, maybe? But jazz, which is often about reinterpretation – maybe that’s about hearing new takes on the old? I know that techno crowds like to hear old stuff, because that’s when their hands rise above shoulder level – but I also know that techno crowds are often probably too fucked up to care. The happiest crowds are probably Motörhead’s. The new Motörhead song sounds like the old one, and every metalhead and drum ‘n’ bass fan in the crowd goes home happy.
. . .
Your old articles were better.
People want to hear old songs they’re intimate with because the intimacy’s the point. It’s a great test of the consistency of the band and of their conviction and drive. As the occultists say, if you put stock in a belief and make it a bridge it will support you, if you stop believing, it’s going to collpase under your feet. The rationalist reverse is that you should believe in what is reliably found to work first. Bands don’t tend to fare well when they are so rational, so bands that play their hits when they no longer believe in them because “the fans want those songs, so I guess they must be good” are going to suffer.
If I’ve been hearing Iron Maiden for 15 years, then when the band is on stage and they play “Number of the Beast” passionately and convincingly, if I can feel the hairs on my neck stand up, if the energy in the venue changes, then the band is good and I made a good choice to be there and can participate (privately — Heavy Metal concerts are strange) in the summoning of the strange entity that is ‘Iron Maiden’.
If the band plays new songs which I haven’t yet internalized (because internalization – unlike digestion that is a daily circle – takes years) then I cannot tell if what I am witnessing is a summoning or if it’s just good craftsmanship on display. It might be interesting, it might even be immediately attractive if it’s a catchy song, but I can play new Heavy Metal songs in my room too, I don’t need to hear their debut live, amongst drunk belligerent smelly longhairs. I’m there for the intimacy, the inner adventure, not for spectacle.
Heavy Metal is not a pursuit of freshness and the culturally ‘vital’ (whatever that is). If it was perhaps in the 70’s, that’s done, it’s an old form now. If people persist it is in the pursuit of the ageless and primordial potency in it. I’ll hear the new song – if it’s good – in my room enough until it becomes an old song. Old as time itself. Until it feels as if I always knew it.
As an aside, your point of view is interesting, as always, but it raises issues for me that have little to do with the topic of the article and more to do with my perception of you, the writer. The best thing about Invisible Oranges is also the worst: the outsider view on Heavy Metal. This is written in a way that suggests to me that you don’t really understand how Heavy Metal works for – I theorize – the more faithful part of its audience, or if the qualifier offends, the part of the audience I’m most familiar with and count myself in their number. You liken it to hip hop and dance music and extrapolate and contrast but there could be made a case that through these dialectics you miss the essence of it which has to do with the classicist pretension of it, the appeal to timelessness, the darkly mystical conceit that there is an entity above and beyond the humans that toil to bring it out. There’s only so much you can gain by thinking about what Heavy Metal isn’t, you’ll have to determine for yourself what Heavy Metal is. Please don’t take this as discouragement, I enjoy reading you and thinking about stuff, I just get the feeling that with each new article you seem to be increasing your distance from Heavy Metal. Is it an omen, your talk of drum and bass?
Could this difference be because drum ‘n’ bass typically has a fairly simple and constant beat (from what I’ve heard, which is only mainstream stuff). Hence any drum ‘n’ bass song is danceable to even on the first listen. By comparison metal, especially extreme metal, tends to be fairly unpredictable and hence harder to get into within a single listen.
As for why people don’t say no to new songs (assuming you mean brand new ones, not just a recent album): no one assumes it will suck. Most people get excited when a band they like is making a new album, even if there’s a good chance it won’t be as good as the bands previous best. Probably a similar situation here.
Maybe I’m totally off base here, but couldn’t this just be a issue of young people vs. old people? I’d imagine the majority of the crowd at old bands like Iron Maiden, Slayer etc. is comprised of people in their 40’s who just don’t like much new music to begin with, while younger people love the novelty.
So what I mean is I’m not sure it has something to do with metal itself except for the fact that metal is old, and while it also speaks to a younger audience, it has the capacity more than hip-hop or drum n bass to gather older people.
I find the sonic properties of metal gigs are often such that you need to know what’s being played in order to correctly hear what is being played. Your ears catch enough sonic detail to fit against the pattern of the music held in your mind, and you therefore feel as though you heard the whole thing. In contrast, when you hear a song you don’t know, you cannot make up for the information that you were unable to hear by audible means only; the result lacks the tonal and compositional subtlety that you would like to hear and is therefore not as ‘good’ as the songs that you know.
I can’t speak for d’n'b, but I suppose it is possible that the finer details of distorted riffs and drum patterns are not necessary for proper enjoyment of the audience?
Helm, that last paragraph is a nice concise vignette of “Helm vs. IO”, now into its, what, fourth year? Still going strong
To answer the question, ‘no, I don’t want to hear a new song, unless I am out buying beer and/or taking a leak, in which case, please feel free to play all the new stuff.’
I like new bands. I like old bands too. I like new music and I like old music. But frankly, no matter what Iron Maiden writes (or has written for the past 8 years or so), nothing will get me as excited as “Trooper” or “Wasted Years”. Absolutely nothing. Sad but true.
To Europe’s credit, they may be cursed by The Final Countdown, a totally horrible and cheesy cock rock album, but i remember enjoying Wings of Tomorrow quite a bit when I was in my early teens. They sounded like a classic hard rock band form the 70’s without a cock up their butts. I’d recommend it with no shame.
Good points.
I really think the vast majority of people doesn’t really want to listen something new, even among metalheads. Black metal may have been the most extreme and different genre, but once established, it becomes standarized. It has to be trve kult, every single album similar to the previous one in order to be accepted.
Most people go to a gig to jump, shout and headbang. That’s easier to do if you know the songs.
I myself like to be surprised. But I confess I’m also disappointed when they don’t play my favorite. Don’t ask me why, I just want to hear them live. A good mix of old and new is best for me.
I can’t say I have ever seen anyone groan at the mention of a new song. I can’t really recall a situation I felt that way either. If the band didn’t mention it was a new song, depending on the band, I doubt too many people would even notice they had never heard that song and then instantly forget it. Besides that, the rules and attributes of underground metal/extreme music are completely different from those of mainstream music of any kind. However, an underground hip hop artist(for example) would most likely experience a similar reaction to the mention of a new song as the undergrond metal/extreme artist: everyone cheers, enjoys the song for the most part, and forgets about it. Like Helm said, you really can’t fully absorb a song until you have it “in your room.” Once its in your hands and ears at home you are free without distraction to decide if the old shit truly is better than the new shit.
@Helm
I think there’s a crucial difference between an “outsider view on Heavy Metal” and a “critical view on Heavy Metal.” Of course criticism takes many forms, so while for you, it would seem that a criticism of Heavy Metal which examines its patterns and significance as one musical culture among many is invalid, for many others (including myself) musical criticism is the form, and Heavy Metal the chosen content.
if by ‘new song’ you mean ’something off the album you just released,’ i’m typically happy to hear it…a) b/c im curious as to how a song will translate live, and b) b/c if i hadnt liked it on the album upon the first few listens, hearing it in a live context helps.
if you mean ‘new song that will has not yet been released,’ i generally dont want to hear it. i need numerous listens for something to sink in, and i’d rather have that happen on my own time then when i’m ready to rock out.
i remember being at donington monsters of rock festival, august 26th 1995 when metallica were headlining where they played ‘2X4′ and ‘devils dance’ a full 10 months before release date and and there had been rumours of them playing new stuff so i was very interested, nay, excited to hear what this ‘greasy’ new sound would be like and the gut-wrenching disappointment i felt upon hearing that southern boogie rock is still sickening to this day- i wouldn’t say it ruined the gig but it was a definite turning point in my appreciation of them
conversely, i remember seeing queens of the stone age a couple of months before they released ‘rated r’ at the camden underworld and being blown away by unheard songs off that album, thinking nothing they wrote could top the debut but, for that night at least, i was wrong
so, obviously, i reckon it can work both ways- i’d be happy enough to go see maiden or exodus and have them only play songs from this century- it might be a tad bizarre for them to COMPLETELY ignore their earlier stuff but, for me, they can get away with it- it’s all about what you personally like, like so many arguments about music
I recently saw Tombs play a small pizza place and they played all new songs and it was fantastic. As long as the band is good live and you can ‘get’ or ‘feel’ the music, I think it’s OK. I can confidently say that their new record next year will be better than Winter Hours based on the 5 songs I heard and I loved Winter Hours. Guess the premise of this post just depends on the band.
I could kinda go both ways on this. A while back, I saw a Mastodon gig at a small club, and they opened the set with about 6 songs from the then-unreleased “Leviathan.” No one complained about a lack of ‘intimacy’ or ‘conviction’ — it was awesome.
Then again, if done wrong, the ‘new song’ thing could suck (see Metallica ‘95 example above).
So i guess it comes down to “I’m alright with hearing your new songs live, as long as they don’t suck.”
I think Shep is onto something. D&B often has a “form” in which new sounds & melodies are placed, allowing listeners to quickly contextualize and understand the song. Thus, they can experience new things with enough context to properly appreciate it almost immediately. As you mentioned, Cosmo, jazz soloing functions on a similar premise.
However, it takes a few listens to process something like “they rest an extra bar before the chorus the second time around” or to internalize a melody enough to appreciate variations on it. As such, the tension and release that makes a song exciting is rendered moot by, not only the difficulty in anticipating based upon one listen, but also the fact that it’s often hard to tell what’s going on musically in a live setting.
Psytrance djs in the late 90’s were only taken seriously if most of their set consisted of DAT material, i.e. not released yet. Folks would get irritated if they recognized too much of the music. The exception being “live P.A.”, where artists would do their best approximation of a live set. Only then were the hits okay, so long as they sufficiently updated from the vinyl/cd versions.
I agree with Matt Vogt. For example, when I’m not that familiar with Behemoth’s last album, so when I saw them play, while enjoyable, I didn’t quite enjoy it as much as when I saw Nile play. I’m much more familiar with the entirety of Nile’s catalog. Familiarity helps, even though you can enjoy completely new bands.
What this might mean is that people with only superficial interest in a band (they only know the hits) might not get much out of the deeper cuts, and so only want to hear the ones they know.
Dan,
“I think there’s a crucial difference between an “outsider view on Heavy Metal” and a “critical view on Heavy Metal.””
I agree. Also you can criticize something because you get it and there’s issues with what it is for you, and you can criticize it without getting it, because it isn’t what you thought it’d be. The criticism might be valid even in the latter case, but most often is a result of, and feeds back into, that one is not getting it. To get something to a degree where their criticism stems from understanding and not ignorance, one has to do a lot of work.
The great thing with IO is that when Cosmo doesn’t get something, he opens the forum for a honest discussion for everyone to chime in. This is the best thing about coming into something from the outside. However some of the pieces (more recently) seem to belie a lack of good faith in the question to begin with. Like this article, or ‘Why do you like At the Gates?’ and others. There’s still good discussions going on in the comments but there is still the question of good faith and effort paid. The implication here for example that metalheads resent the new and only want to listen to the hits is pretty insulting most of all because that’s the depth the piece went to and decided to rest on before opening the stage to commentators.
“Of course criticism takes many forms, so while for you, it would seem that a criticism of Heavy Metal which examines its patterns and significance as one musical culture among many is invalid”
I do not find this invalid, I’d just like to see more effort being put into answering these questions, not just presenting them as questions and saying ‘here you go, metal journalism!’, really.
@Matt, I resent the implication that I’ve been antagonizing IO for the how many years I’ve been in the comment space. I think I was one of the very first commentators here and the reason I’ve sticked with it was and is because I find a lot of merit in IO’s approach. Most of the time if I don’t have anything constructive to say, I say nothing. If I ever decide that I dislike IO, I’ll stop coming and writing altogether.
@Helm: sorry, I didn’t mean to imply antagonism on your part! I find that your approach to metal is often at odds with the majority thinking at IO (which should logically take after Cosmo’s, after all), and it is both interesting and broadening to have your commentary included here.
The observation that you’ve been doing this for years is a compliment
Dance scenes value the cutting-edge stuff, sure, but they cherish their classics, too, as all the old-school sets being played attest.
One difference of metal and dance music is that listening to a metal album at home and seeing the band playing live are two different experiences. To get the most of the gig you usually have to be familiar to the songs, but certain bands are so good at it that they overcome this limitation. When I saw Tsjuder, I don’t think the audience knew their albums very well, but were blown away all the same, such a scorching performance.
The natural setting for a typical EDM track is big sound system where you can hear (and feel) details that are lost in home stereos or desktop PCs. In a metal show you get a louder and rougher rendition of the album which you contrast against the studio sounds you have in your head. On the dancefloor, the record is the instrument, its sounds blooming in full force.
As Helms likes to say, a band can serve as a vehicle for an ancient, timeless entity. In a similar, but different way, a skilled DJ set can trigger spiritual experiences, collective consciusness-altering bursts of energy (rave theorists like to namecheck Deleuze&Guattari and their body-without-organs).
The case Cosmo presents doesn’t necessarily apply to all bands. The Path Less Traveled Record, who mentioned Tombs playing all new stuff, well, they only have a few releases, so that’s kind of different, I think. Not to dismiss what you said, of course. Bands who are newer or younger likely will play newer stuff because they don’t have the large back catalog. Whether it’s fair or not, those bands also are perceived as still artistically relevant and of the same age as much of the normal record-buying public, and it would probably result in something of a backlash if a newer band DIDN’T play a lot of new stuff.
Maiden, or Slayer, or Metallica, they have storied histories and people who feel strongly one way or another about specific periods in the band’s existence, hence probably have a preference from which period the band draws when playing live.
I don’t mind hearing new stuff, but I think for me it depends on who I’m seeing and how many times I’ve seen a band. Maiden, for instance, I’ve seen numerous times. I passed on seeing them their most recent visit to my town because I saw the setlist they performed in towns prior, and it drew heavily from “Life and Death” and “Dance of Death,” two albums I don’t enjoy after years of trying to adapt to them. They played some older hits I’ve heard them play a ton of times, so it wasn’t worth parting with the money. But I don’t begrudge them playing the songs, and had I gone anyway, I would have been interested in hearing songs that didn’t move me on the album to see if they had a different feel live. I wasn’t wild about them playing “Life and Death” front to back a few years ago, and I wouldn’t have gone to that show, but again, it’s their right as artists who still create new music to put it out there. I guess I just prefer the classic template of a few new cuts, a few deep cuts, and the hits. But I’d imagine Maiden gets tired of playing some of the old cuts.
Also, if any band completely avoided or ignored their latest album, then I’d wonder what the merit is of even buying the thing. If the band is embarrassed to play songs from it, shouldn’t I be wary of buying it? I think it’s fine if bands want to forge ahead and keep making music, and I respect Maiden especially for being so aggressive with it. I think they know the risks, and we as ticket buyers should know them too. And as Cosmo mentioned about Slayer, you know you’re at least getting “Angel of Death,” but maybe not “Dead Skin Mask” or something. If you see Metallica (though personally, I’d never see them again due to lack of interest), you’ll get “Master of Puppets,” but maybe not “The Thing That Should Not Be.” Maiden always gives you “Number,” and their encore is typically all classics, but maybe you don’t get “Rime.” But yeah, if the new cuts bother you too much, go get a beer.
I think Fisting Andrew Golota touched on something interesting… to me there’s a certain situation where a new song can be pretty incredible in a live context, though not necessarily from a “legacy” act like Iron Maiden. What I’m talking about is when you’ve got a band who are at their creative peak and really coming into their own with each new song that they write.
Back in the late ’90s, I was lucky enough to be thoroughly entrenched in the Boston metalcore scene (before that become a dirty word), and some of the best shows I’ve ever seen came from that time period. You’d have a band like Isis literally discovering themselves as they presented their new material to an audience… and it absolutely killed. Hearing the Red Sea material before it came out, after only knowing the Mosquito Control EP, those songs were so fucking heavy and mindblowing it was ridiculous. But even more than that, when they finally made the shift away from the tedium of the Celestial material and started playing the Oceanic stuff live it was one of the most exhilarating things to behold live. (I also stand by the assertion that the Oceanic songs worked 10 times better live, at least in those early days, than they ever did on record). For a band like that, one who’s actively evolving and making a huge effort to progress with each release, seeing new material live can be quite profound.
Cave In shows from this period were similar… the whole shift from Until Your Heart Stops to the Creative Eclipses material. And then they went away for a few months to write Jupiter and only to resurface with a whole new set of new tunes and an insane cover of Dazed and Confused… it was nuts.
However, Iron Maiden have made one thing clear throughout their career… evolution is not their strength. They will stay true to their core sound, and churn out material that more or less does the same thing, for better or worse. They’re an interesting band because at this stage in their career, they’re a “legacy act”, but it’s interesting because they’re unwilling to accept that, and actively resist it. Which would be admirable if their new material had the same fire and drive as their best work, but generally speaking it doesn’t seem to. I haven’t heard their latest, but the last few were pretty weak in comparison to their classic material. I’m not saying they should simply roll over and trot out the hits and do away with new material, but most acts in this position are able to find some kind of compromise.
The only band I can think of doing a similar thing to such a frustrating extent is the Sisters of Mercy… their shows at this stage are torturous. Andrew Eldritch stubbornly refuses to play ANY of the hits, or any prime material, for that matter. Last time I saw them I think there was one song off Floodland, a couple throwaway tracks off Vision Thing and about 90% new material from the album he never plans to release. That’s a band living in a fantasy world… overall I think this is an issue that depends purely on the band, and what their new material brings to the table.
Some really nice, nuanced responses here to my jackhammer of a question – along with some really nice avatars! If you want a cool image in the square next to your name, go to http://gravatar.com, and you can set one up for free.
Wash Jones – That’s a great point about Iron Maiden. I felt that tension last night when I saw Testament, Megadeth, and Slayer. Megadeth and Slayer now are probably much more excited to play their newer material, but it’s obviously weaker next to their classic stuff live.
I saw Slayer last year at Mayhem fest and felt that same tension. Their latest album had just dropped (or was about to, i forget) so they played Psychopathy Red and a few other new songs. The crowd was fairly receptive… but the key is to play a balanced set, it seems. Iron Maiden are probably asking too much of their oldster fans by presenting them with 90% new stuff. And honestly… if I only get one Maiden hit, why does it have to be Number of the Beast? Bust out Hallowed Be Thy Name or something we all haven’t heard 10 million times before.
I think matt vogt raised a good point about a live setting not being the best venue for showcasing new tuness. Apart from potential sound issues, you often have to contend with limited visibility, people slamming into you, beers flying–maybe the reason some of us are there in the first place for sure, but inhibit you from hearing the nuance that distinguishes the great from the good. If the tunes are strong they will stand up but even solid material, if unfamiliar, can make it hard to keep focused for 45 minutes.
I don’t mind bands playing new shit, IF ITS GOOD new shit! For example, when I saw Anthrax on the Among The Living tour, that was some good new shit. They opened with the lead track, and that was awesome. They had taken their music to the next level, and that was some next level shit.
Unfortunately, not every band can do that every time. Go all next level on ya. Iron Maiden can do this I think, but they don’t. Maybe they just can’t. I think next level shit is a younger man’s game. This came up before on here I believe, talking about band’s classic albums and how many they have in their discography, and of course, Maiden was a major part of the discussion.
Mastodon can do this, but how long until they’ve reached their peak? It happens to everybody. Such is life. I will still pay to see the live experience because, as Helm says, I have internalized the shit and it is mine amongst a million.
The article is interesting and raises good points but here’s where it falls short for me:
New bands.
I think the inverse dub connection is a fascinating one and holds up merit up to the exact point that anyone who has gone to see live music remembers the first time they saw a band they _didn’t_ know and found themselves blown away.
For me, this was the reaction I had to Nothingface when they opened for Ministry some 8 years ago (or so.) I had never heard of the opener and they were the band I was sitting through or standing in line to get beer during and they just hooked me. Two years ago, Tombs had a similar impact on me when they opened for Pelican (although I’d heard of Tombs, I hadn’t heard their music.) I cannot be the only person who this has happened to.
So what does that say, in comparison to both points in the article-that we just want to hear the old stuff, or that the culture of drum & bass is inverted?
I don’t know. Maybe just that humans are weird?