I’m writing this entry to prove my mother wrong, and for any other fellow music lovers who are having this argument with their parents.
She is convinced that metal is “just a bunch of screaming and yelling and noise!” Yes, she would be the expert on that, wouldn’t she? I find this truly entertaining, since she’s never actually sat down and listened to an entire album of metal music in her life. I, on the other hand, have listened to countless albums in the metal genre, and can conclude this: some metal genres contain nothing but screaming, but most of them don’t.
That Noisy Metal
You want constant screaming? Then listen to the genres I don’t like: death metal, grindcore, mathcore, metalcore, doom metal, sludge metal, and black metal (bah, the list goes on). My favorite genres are alternative metal, nu metal, symphonic metal, and progressive metal.
But why the assumption that it’s all yelling? Because many of them contain screaming. It’s easy to blanket an entire thing with a label when it, in fact, makes up about 1/4 of the whole thing. You can either take my word for it, or see the math I’m about to show to prove it. I’d recommend you simply take my word for it, since most people (especially women who think they’re right) refuse to look at any actual proven logic when it doesn’t support their claim.
The Math
An average metal album contains 3 really aggressive songs, 2 soft ballad-like songs, and the rest are sort of a mix. If we took an average song and analyzed it, here are the parts that make up a song:
- Intro
- Verse
- Prechorus
- Chorus
- Interlude
- Verse
- Prechorus
- Chorus X2
- Interlude
- Bridge
- Prechorus
- ChorusX2
- Outtro
So that’s 13 parts of a song. Let’s immediately throw out the intro, interludes, and outtro, because they’re nothing but music. There are now 9 parts remaining. The bridge almost always has screaming, so let’s keep that in the scream pile.
Now, what of the verses, prechoruses, and choruses? Well, typically, if a song has screaming, it can go one of 2 ways.
A. the verse has the screaming, the prechorus has the singing, and the chorus has the singing
B. the verse has the singing, and the prechorus has the screaming while the chorus has a mix between singing and screaming.
So, let’s add it up.
Situation A:
1 = verse 1
2 = verse 2
3 = bridge
or Situation B:
1 = prechorus
1.5 = chorus
2.5 = prechorus
3.5 = chorus (X2 mind you)
4.5 = bridge
5.5 = prechorus
6.5 = chorus (X2 again)Situation A occurs in most songs throughout the album, so we’ll throw out the soft songs and the aggressive ones… a typical album has 12 songs on it, so that’s 12-5, or 7 songs.
Situation B occurs only in the aggressive songs, so that’s 3.
There is no screaming in the 2 soft songs.
So, 13(parts of a song) X 12 songs = 156 parts total.
There are 7 situation A’s, which mean there are 7(songs) X 3(screaming parts per song), equating to 21 screaming parts.
There are 6.5 screaming parts to the 3 aggressive songs, so 3(songs) X 6.5(screaming parts) equals: 19.5 screaming parts.
Add the 19.5 to the 21 found earlier, and you have 40.5 screaming parts. What does 40.5 make up for the percentage of screaming parts in an album made up of 156 parts? Let’s divide it out, and multiply the answer by 100 to give us a nice rounded percentage:
(40.5/156)X100 = 25.96%Just over 1/4 of the album is screaming. The rest is either singing or music.
Conclusion: You’re Generalizing
Check my math again. Now how can something that only makes up 1/4 of the whole thing possibly be considered the whole thing?
Are you sure you’re not just generalizing based on what little you’ve heard, nor actually know?
Next she tells me something along the lines of “it’s all about hate and anger!” Aggression doesn’t mean hate and anger. If you’ve ever watched a sports team psych themselves up, there’s no real hate or anger at all. Nu metal and alternative metal are no different. Yes, sometimes it’s about hate and anger, but most of the time it’s about love, hope, and observing the nature of mankind. Sometimes, it can get mean, because let’s face it, the world is not a pretty place. Other times it can be sad.
“Well, I can’t stand them yelling at me.” Yes, that’s what they’re doing. They’re yelling… at you. You’re the center of all the aggression.
No, they’re not yelling at you. If they’re screaming, it’s because emotion has called for it (or because it just sounds cool…). Being an older person, perhaps the whole idea of screaming as an emotional release is lost on you, but on the flip side of that, someone screaming about something you care about because you can no longer scream should be welcome. It’s all about the energy, or the emotion. I don’t think this applies to every band, however… Five Finger Death Punch will just angrily scream about everything. They go for the persona of a raging beast.
No, in true nu metal, screaming happens when they can no longer contain what they’re feeling in plain clean vocals. The screaming has a theatrical purpose, the same as a song from a musical.
An Example…
For a perfect example, I bring you “How Can I Live” by Ill Niño. Here’s a bit of background behind the story of this song. Cristian Machado, the vocalist, was told a very harsh truth after he’d grown up: that the man he thought was his father was actually his stepfather, and his real father had abandoned him for many years. He discovered this after his real father suddenly showed up in his life, trying to make amends.
Cristian’s first reaction was rejection, and anger. He was angry at his father for not being there, but angry at his mother for lying to him all these years. But, after he’d finally calmed down, he began thinking spiritually. Isn’t it funny that after all these years of rejection and abandonment by his father, he does the exact same thing? Is he now no better than his father? Perhaps he has more in common with his father than he thought… Perhaps he needs to be the bigger man.
“How Can I Live” is a song about that inner struggle.
The verse starts out rather exposition-like. A sort of musing about the comparisons of their behavior. Then the prechorus starts. The prechorus is building in emotional aggression. This realization that he and his father are so alike… and coming to terms with admitting it but angrily denying it. The prechorus builds and builds to what you think is going to be a raging screaming fit, but rather than being continued in the same screaming fashion in the chorus, it instead continues into a sorrowful and apologetic voice for a chorus. This voice is the voice of reason, guilt, regret, and acceptance. A man who is swallowing his pride, and showing forgiveness.
The bridge is mostly screaming, but it’s about Cristian screaming at himself. Think of the lyrics here as an extension of the prechorus. It details that moment when the anger took a turn for satisfaction of the truth. And, a realization that he would not do what his father did… He would not shut out his family. He would be the bigger man.
Listen to the emotion behind the screams… It’s not just commercialized growling… You can hear his voice breaking and pushing to say these things, as though he can feel every word he’s saying.
Why, yo no entiendo por que (I don’t know what for)
I know that our lives are the same
Y mi vida (and my life)
Is just a guessing game, a dirty stain that I cannot play
But I follow your steps, in the same way that you just
walked away, and pushed your way through
I will not live
This song has enough story and emotion to bring tears to the eyes of anyone. It’s as I stated before… a song about love, hope, and the observation of mankind.
Maybe before you blindly snub anything that seems different to you, perhaps you should lend an ear and really break it down. It may surprise you…
I’ve taken the time to explain my music, as well as find examples of songs in your favorite genres that I like. Return the favor sometime – it’d be rude not to.