relentless

Just from listening to "DEPRAVITY" I can see that the GazettE is still really fond of Before I Decay's riff.

You're largely overstating this. Popular Western music is (for the most part) exempt from this. Recently with modern jazz and some very few selections in modern Pop and Rock this is done as a means of harmonic tension; but this isn't new, nor is it indicative of the majority of Pop and Rock music. The majority of Pop and Rock music is still tonal, and in endless cases, rather simple. Modern Jazz is (of course) separate as we can both agree. Aside from a few shining examples, the norm of pop and rock is still centered around I-IV-V; but the means of how it's presented in the harmony has changed. 12 bar blues (consisting of I-IV-V) does not sound the same as a V-I cadence from the classical style, which also doesn't sound the same as a typical I-IV-V power chord progression in punk -- even when all three use the same chords. The means of which these are written are completely separate. 12 Bar blues 99% of the time doesn't use secondary dominants, it doesn't modulate, it doesn't feature contrasts in rhythm as a means to propel the music forward in harmonic motion to the next section -- none of that. It's simply: I - IV - I - V - IV- I. As I have stressed above: same material being pulled from (for the most part) and being composed differently. Modern pop is not exempt from this, as "All About That Bass" and endless amounts of Pop music is centered around the same idea of I-IV-V. "All About That Bass" includes these chords in succession (A, Bm, E, A, Bm, E, A, Bm, E, A, D, A) which is: (I-ii-V-I-ii-V-I-ii-V-I-IV-I). There's no "fogging", there isn't even the presence of extended chords like 7ths or 9ths. It's tonal, and one could say it's pretty juvenile as a whole. And then when suspended and extended chords starts showing up in Popular music (Pop/Rock), it's not a means to "fog" chords and harmony, it's always for harmonic tension -- again, nothing different from anything done in the past 500 years. First song that comes to mind is U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name". Again, another song that revolves around I IV and V with: I-IV-vi-IV-V; but when the suspended chords show up, it's in this progression: D, Dsus4, D6, D. Just to be clear, the key of this song is D. Again, a means of tension (very basic and straight forward) with a move to the tonic, without ever "fogging" what is going on in the harmony and its direction. If one chord is enough to "fog" the harmonic direction, then by a matter of principle I have to disagree. At the first sight of new notes being introduced, or different chords entirely, that isn't a means to "fog" or even a way to move to a new key. It's a quick little something thrown into Pop/Rock to add flavor with its direction often going to the tonic. It'd be like saying Bach's famous Prelude in C major has "tons of key changes because its use of secondary dominants, and diminished triads to "fog" the tonic"; but it never leaves the tonic in the first place, and assuming such would show a lack of understanding of the music at hand. As shown above, these are diatonic chords, the music is entirely tonal, and in NO way show movement away from that which was established in the late Renaissance - early Baroque. It's only written differently to meet the tastes of audiences today, and often notated in different ways. Which leads me to this, which is an incorrect statement. If you think modern use of I-IV-V sounds "way too "classical'", that's on you and I disagree in the fullest because even V-I cadences in the classical style (not "I-IV-V-I cadences", as you phrased it) sound nothing alike -- even when in the same key. The aesthetic and means of writing are very different, with Pop not consisting of any form which propels it forward like a Symphony in the classical style. "I-IV-V" is not the defining quality of writing in the classical style, it's the "V-I" cadence founded in the Mannheim school.. If you meant to say the harmonic weight of V-I sounds very "classical-y" then maybe I would agree with you; but then again "V-I" exists everywhere in Western Music to this day. Even this is incorrect. The power chords do nothing to "fog" their "gender" when it's a progression descending in thirds in the key of Bm. The song (despite its sometimes cool chord usage) is tonal and pretty straight forward. I heard it, and instantly recognized the minor sound -- endlessly googling any chord charts to determine if I was right -- and I was: http://gakufu.gakki.me/m2/?p=N02582 If you want that kind of sound with power chords, all the power to you; but I just don't find anything spectacular about their use and their flat sound.

I want to pause for a moment and make sure we clear up that going about the conversation in this mindset is very misguided. This is one of the few conversations (at least part of it) where going about this in a "classical vs. pop/jazz" mindset doesn't quite work. I appreciate your knowledge of music; but in this regard you're slightly off. It seems like you're assuming that diatonic chords within the major and minor keys "tend to sound way too 'classical'". Not only that; but to draw that paragraph into context yields: Here you're just barely scratching the surface on the bigger picture. This may be because classical isn't your thing, and you aren't entirely familiar with it (which is understandable); but you don't take into consideration that what you described is not unique to "pop/jazz" by any stretch of the imagination -- with the only difference coming from how it's notated. 7th, 9th, 11th, and even 13th chords, suspended chords*, and diminished chords have all been expressed across tons of "genres" of music (to a FAR lesser extent in pop); but how they are used, and how they are read, varies. When reading a Classical work you don't see suspension and go "oh, this is a Dsus4 chord" even though the sound is exactly the same like you would find in other genres. It would (in a classical sense) be considered a leading tone that resolves to a chord (in this case D). Keep in mind that there is definitely jazz (and classical) that does as you say ("Strain away from this exact definition of a chord "gender", fogging this definition either by the addition of laddernotes...or ones alien to the roots..."); but that isn't unique to jazz, and that style is certainly not representative of the whole genre when it's still a very modern understanding of chord structure. It's not even an understanding that is pursued in Pop. If it was, that would be news to me. (Pop as in the genre, not the broad term "Popular Music") Yes, there is my confusion. I thought we were comparing voicing with power chords vs. other ways to play a given chord. I wasn't aware we were strictly discussing power chords. My point was that voicing power chords are lazy (requires little effort) compared to all the ways you can voice chords. Especially when it comes to piano or guitar, I will actively avoid power chords and only use barre chords when absolutely necessary. And I do agree with the matter of viewpoint when it comes to power chords because like I said: there's no "wrong" approach to music, even if I or others criticize it. Your style is ingrained in doom/stoner/black metal and I can dig it; but always keep in mind our interests represent many colors of the same spectrum, and all the different genres/styles we like aren't as far apart as they sometimes seem. Just a slight misunderstanding on both of our parts, not a problem. It's been fun discussing music on a music forum.

I never said it was "bad", only lazy (because there's really no "wrong" approach to music). Using a power chord means you're omitting the third from a chord, which is the most important note for determining its color (major/minor). In context of a piece, you can write a song using parallel fifths and still determine the key (plenty of indie rock does it); but relying on power chords for your progression will always sound more hollow due to the nature of the harmonic series where there is very little distinction between the prime and fifth when played together. It's fine, except there's nothing profound about it and is seen as lazy chord voicing. And when all that exists are power chords, there becomes little to appreciate for me. There I disagree. Holding, picking, strumming, and fingering the guitar all take a degree of of practice similar to fingering and bowing a violin, or proper breathing for a horn instrument. In all cases you're presenting yourself with different challenges that all have the same basis: you have to know how to use it first, even if one's knowledge is very limited. You should listen to someone pick up the guitar for the first time and attempt "Smoke on the Water", or attempt any movement with their hand on the frets. There will be complete disconnect until the muscle memory begins to pick it up -- the same with pretty much any instrument. I have no idea what kind of guitar you're playing, or how you voice your chords; but the statement that "power chord-based music gives you even more freedom with your voicings, as you don't have to waste three fingers on the powerchord itself, so you have three left to throw in all kinds of 7s, 9s, 11s" is completely false which I'll demonstrate with one diagram i sloppily put together. Please tell me how the second diagram (a power chord voicing which "gives you more freedom") is any more efficient than the first voicing? It's not. In fact, the second voicing is damn near impossible unless you have freakishly large hands. Second, you're conflating "chord voicing" with tuning in your last statement. If we are talking about weird tunings, then yes I agree that you can tune to make extended chords easier; but then like I said, everything else suffers because of it. Then within standard tuning (as I showed above), using a power chord as the basis for chord voicing is a terrible idea. I guess you could try it; but good luck. Ok, we're jumping back and forth to different topics so please bear with me. That's where your musical focus is a bit too narrow. Drop tunings, and "weird tunings", are not exclusive to distortion-based music. Even on an 8 string you can voice chords on the lower registers. A pedal may distort the overall sound but I guarantee it will not be completely lost unless the gear a performer is using sucks or they're setting their pedals to completely drown out any nuance of what they're playing. Then maybe there you'd have a point. That's because I never said a 7/8 string was better for "tuning stability", only a better alternative to drop tuning because: A. the extended range, and B. you aren't forced to relearn the fret-board by diving into strange tunings. All the voicings stay the same, you have everything there like you did with a 6 string, only more and far more versatility -- all without having to retune. It is

Sonic Youth are known to delve in strange tunings: http://www.sonicyouth.com/mustang/tab/tuning.html Call me "old fashioned"; but I never really took an interest in bizarre tunings for experimentation's sake. Maybe when I first started guitar there was an interest with bands like Sonic Youth doing it, and even some passing interest in drop tunings found in metal -- over time that interest faded because I started to find alternate tunings being used more as a crutch with many bands instead of serving any particular compositional purpose -- especially the groups that go into drop tuning. Drop-tuned power chords are a whole new level of lazy when it comes to guitar performance because it's a way of doing barre chords resulting in the least amount of effort possible. And then, if you ARE doing something other than power chords, you'll find that suddenly you have to shift scales and chord voicings into a bunch of twisted ways that makes the intuitive design of standard tuning into a mess. One positive note (forgive the pun) could be alternate tunings can help with extended chords outside of basic triads and make those easier (9th, 11th, 13th chords, etc.); but even then everything else suffers if you want to expand your playing. With bands like Sonic Youth, there's not a whole lot technically interesting going on when they tune to ( F# F# F# F# E B ) hold down the the bottom four notes, and throw it through feedback/distortion. In the case of Sonic Youth, I can understand the lack of need for scale movement and chord voicing because there's a conscious effort to derive a unique effect from weird tunings; but anyone else that intends on avoiding that kind of stuff is better off sticking with standard tuning. After all: tuning doesn't do much other than present contrast in timbre vs. standard tuning. If a band or musician is genuinely interested in changing the tuning of their instrument to go into lower registers, I would recommend getting a 7 or 8 string guitar. In that case you're getting the extended range without sacrificing tuning, everything remains intuitive, and more importantly, everything remains practical.

A 37 year old man suddenly decided one day "I don't want to look like a girl anymore, I want to look like Titus from FF X", and he was being completely serious.

These beautiful human beings, Phish. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUZ0bk4FgRs https://youtu.be/Ca_EEZ_gSyE?list=PLoi6KAJuezd82eQK2ne2M6ludgM3-n6sS

Just taking the piss out of that nekkichi fellow for their comments about Dir en grey's touring.

Here comes that NA tour which was supposedly "not going to happen".

No because that'd be like preferring a band or disliking them based on how they dress.............. Oh..........

If this is strictly in regards to illegal uploads of "live distributed" material, then the band can go fuck off. Yeah, the band is within their right (as the free market dictates) to try and prevent unauthorized uploading; but then it makes me wonder what the fuck was the band doing putting that shit on a disc in the first place? At that point, you're not just going to a concert to listen to a band perform music -- you're going to a concert to be given free gifts and told "please don't pass this around anywhere else because this is totally very special.". You're no longer part of an audience enjoying the music of a band you love, you're part of a marketing focus group: they are directly relying on you to tell people how good this "super rare super awesome track that I can't show you because the band told me not to and besides you can totally get it when it gets released for $25 at a later date but i still won't show because i love the band" is. Why not treat your audience with some fucking respect and play that "super secret, super special, and super new material" for them instead of slapping it on a CD and handing it out? I'm sorry; but there's nothing particularly special about a run-of-the-mill VK band, so the thought of them giving you a special song on a disc and saying "don't show anyone else" is so petty. It's a lazy -- and somewhat counter intuitive -- means to drum up any interest in your product by manufacturing demand for a song not based on its musical merits; but due to its rarity. That's not called "making music you want large audiences to appreciate", that's called "marketing". But, when you're a no-name Japanese band relying on a visual gimmick to sell tickets and CDs in the first place, there's probably not much hope for your music career.

It's time for more Brahms; but this time it's the 2nd String Quintet. The first movement has one of the greatest themes Brahms ever wrote, hands down. The way the Cello comes in after the development to start the Recapitulation is breathtaking -- which is then followed by the violin a bar later.

lmfao. They missed the perfect opportunity to throw him on a cross for that extra edgy imagery. If Reita doesn't wear this outfit during all live shows promoting the album, I'm going to be deeply disappointed.

I hope you're aware July and August are not considered Winter months.

Vinushka was that one rare "long" song by Dir en grey that I took to. At first I thought DIABOLOS was awesome for the heavier section; but then you start to realize it's just the same 4 minutes repeated to buffer the length and it becomes a chore to listen to. With Vinushka, I never had that problem. Generally, it feels like Dir en grey are not "progressive" enough to tackle songs of that length. With 3-5 minute songs, there is no great demand to do anything crazy complex in terms of performance or harmony; but when you start stretching music to 8+ minutes, musical development becomes crucial and necessary. When 12012 (I believe it was) tried to do a song that stretched that long, it was garbage because it went nowhere. Though harsh, my thoughts are: if you're going to pull what 12012 did, or what Dir en grey did with DIABOLOS, there is literally no reason why I should listen to the song in its entirety, or at all after the first listen. There is nothing there to appreciate aside from one riff here or there they may come up with; but that one tiny section should not be reason to have to sit through something for 8+ minutes. The remake of MACABRE hits this point home for me. There is one part in the whole remake -- about 12 minutes in -- that I would want to listen to again. And it's unfortunate, because I'm not the kind of person to skip forward in a song, listen to one part, and be done with it. I want to appreciate that one piece of music on its own terms; but when there's nothing there to appreciate, why bother?