IS IT DUMB 2B ORIGINAL???

I was thinking the other day about how some bands make a lot of money even though they always get bad reviews and it seems like nobody likes them. Like how everybody is all “I H8 DEATHCORE/METALCORE;;;ALL THE BANDS SOUND THE SAME;H8 U SUISIDE SILENCE;;H8 U ATTACK ATTACK,” and then they are like “U SHOULD LISTEN TO THIS BAND BECAUSE THEY ARE DOING SOMETHING REALLY ORIGINAL AND UNIQUE” and link to some obscure band I have never heard of. I guess it is cool to be original if you are OK with being a poor artist, but sometimes I think it’s stupid to be “original.” I think it is smarter to wait until someone else invents something, then after they make it popular, copy them (only do it a little better so you get more popular than the band who invented it).

I am going to list some bands who were stupid, because they were the ones who invented something that other people copied — metalcore, djent, and other popular styles of metal. Most of these bands were really good, but because they were one of the first bands to play that style of metal, nobody liked them and they didn’t make any money. I feel bad for them, but I want to share their stories here so you don’t make the same mistakes they did!!

A lot of people now think Darkest Hour is a metal band, but I remember when they played hardcore shows and people knew their guitarist Mike as “the guy from Battery.” Also, he was the first person in the hardcore scene that I saw wearing Diesel jeans (now he looks metal, but back then he was more like fashioncore and all the girls liked him). Anyways, they were probably the first people in the hardcore scene who started copying At The Gates, so basically all current metalcore bands are copying them.

Darkest Hour copied At The Gates before Unearth did, but Unearth were one of the first to add breakdowns and clean vocals to the formula. I think they are more popular than Darkest Hour, but still probably have never made more than like $35,000 a year per person?

Not totally sure what all of this means, but if I was in a band I would probably look at stuff like this to see if there is a way I could make money off of my music

There is a band called Dead To Fall who was also really good. They were pretty much metalcore (they copied ATG a lot), but they were almost deathcore sometimes, but that was in like 2001 before hardly anybody else did it. Their last album is the best one IMO, because I feel like it is a big sarcastic joke that they made because they were frustrated that they did not get more popular. The lyrics to this song are very funny.

I think that Animosity was one of the first real deathcore bands, but they were not very popular. They probably would have sold more albums if they were from Orange County or the Inland Empire (not the Bay Area), had flatironed hair and “were all tatted up” like Suiside Silence or Trace Cyrus, but back then nobody knew that it was so important how your band looked! They had really good music but their image was just like dirty heshers from Concord or Vallejo and you can’t really go on Warped Tour if u look like that.

This chart is pretty cool too… wonder how melodeth riffs fit into it???

Another style of music that is popular on MetalSucks is called “djent,” which as far as I can tell is when a band copies Meshuggah. I don’t think any of those bands make any money because only people who read sites like this like them, though. But anyways, that band A Life Once Lost was the first band from the hardcore scene to copy Meshuggah, but I don’t think they get the credit they deserve for that.

Probably the most original band of all time is 18 VISIONS, who invented deathcore and metalcore (the first hardcore band to combine sick riffs with clean vocals), were the first people in metal to wear skinny jeans, and also invented scene hair. Nobody in the hardcore scene dressed like Motley Crue before they did, and nobody played industrial hard rock/metal before 18V’s last album. They were so original that it is hard to even know where to start, but without 18V, I don’t think that Suiside Silence, Avenged Sevenfold, or Escape The Fate would exist, because they basically just copy 18V in their own ways.

Are u in a band that tries to be original?? Are you OK with being poor? If u want to make money, what do u think is ‘the next big thing’ that bands will copy? Is it smarter to focus on your image instead of making music that sounds new and different????

-Sergeant D.

Sergeant D. makes people with no sense of humor mad every day at Stuff You Will Hate.