It's weird how music genres come with a whole truckload of cliche baggage

Half baked showerthought incoming

Take power metal (for some reason I've been listening to this quite a lot the past week. It's pretty great to workout to).

The thing is, it's not enough for it to sound like power metal. The individual components of a fast blast beat and soaring melodic guitar solos and bach-counterpoint and some guy belting out the lead vocals in a tenor range should be enough for it to technically qualify, but that's basically never what happens.

No, it's absolutely necessary for every song's lyrics to be about fighting dragons, storming castles or fighting some other fantasy enemy. Everyone who plays this genre has to have a really big head of hair. The album art and band logos all have to involve skeletons and spiky bits and flames. Pretty much every single one. There's an entire feel to this genre and the feel is self-insert RPG fantasy lore.

I'm trying to imagine this genre of music but it's just some regular low-key dudes singing about, I dunno, having a bad day at the office or something. I can't really picture it.

Makes sense to me, genres are defined by their tropes and aesthetics.

KanWan posted...

https://youtu.be/Lq85Aj1p5pQ?si=cjdmayGuX-4lx-be

I cant remember what interview it was.. or what forum publication it was.. but iirc this was about some real life war instead of high fantasy

Wouldnt be surprised if the lyrics werent about Normandy

but it definitely contains those cheesy keyboards and that classic 80s singing

I dont think there is a way to separate a very niche section of music from the time period it was born in.. its not like rock that has evolved to include different conventions from different eras

if you asked me to write a power metal song on guitar for example, Id know exactly what to look for

same with death metal I suppose

but if you ask me to write a thrash metal tune, thats a little bit harder

Yeah, even in this example it's the usual talk of destruction, darkness, freezing winds, no one left alive, etc. Pretty much every megadeth tune is about this, lol