Viking Metal

[Garland]

My point is, educated by whom? There's no central standard. If there actually is a recognized authority on the matter I'll concede that people can be uneducated on the matter. What I see are different large coalitions of music fans each calling themselves authoritative. I read your sites. I read The Man's sites. I read your posts and I read The Man's posts. There's no way to actually be educated in some indisputable tenets of music classification. That's why I say it's fruitless to try. When a new fan comes to learn about the genres, s/he'll see a handful of well written, well supported declarations that very often conflict. It's almost like religion. You get a handful of equally persuasive texts with about the same amount of proof and the same amount of diehard fans. But you never get a conclusive decision because nobody's reached one. I'd love a real authority. These different musical minds aught to come to a concensus, because the current situation just confuses people.

[Avarice-ness]

OMG WTF IS THIS THREAD IT'S LIKE IF MY HUSBAND WAS ARGUING WITH HIMSELF OR SOMETHING. *headache*

I didn't read through all the angry-ness so listen to Kivimetsän Druidi, not viking, but folk. And folk is yummy.


Also, as for the whole "Educated in genre's" BS. It is truly BS, in this day and age, bands and artists are making up their own genres to be "individual" i.e. when Britney Spear and christina agular(what ever) showed up, everything sounding like them was "Bubblegum pop" years later Avril Lagibveeajshdjash(whatever) wantsto be punk but spunky, so she calls herself "Bubblegum punk" thus the rest of the world follows. Problem is, shes' the only one in this genre anyone knows of.

SO WHO CHOOSES THE GENRE CERTAIN BANDS FIT IN?
The MASS public honestly. Hell if all bands existed and followed the.. well according to some of you, set in stone genre markers (IF YOU HAVE THIS IN YOUR BAND, YOU ARE THIS GENRE) then it can easily be said that some bands change Genre's MANY times throughout their existance.

Back in the 80's, Metallica was considered metal. Now we call the SAME 80's metallica hardrock, if not rock. Guess what though, Metallica still calls themselves metal.

With the opinions and ever changing factors that are placed into the whole concepts of genre's and band composition... no one can be right when it comes to who's in what genre. If 300 million people say blah blah blah is this, it'll prolly stay that until 400 million people say blah blahblah is that, and then it'll be that.

If I was in a band I'd do like 3 metal cd's and then a pop cd and a new age cd in between, only to screw with people who even CARE what's in what genre. "OMG THEY WERE METAL THEN THEY WERE POP THEN METAL AGAIN?!?! WHAT DO WE CONSIDER THEM?! METAL'POP?! OMZGZ NO WAY. Q.Q.QQ..QQ.Q.Q"
When you classify the music, you kill the music.

To be educated in something, you must be taught by someone who is considered a MASTER in the subject. Someone who works in the field they have MASTERED and have done so for YEARS. Reading wikipedia,watching TV, reading books, listening to the radio makes you an avid music fan, butnot someone who we should all take their word for because they consider themselves educated on a varying subject.

[Alex151]

you sure it's not satanic metal rather than viking

[o_O]

Two sweet folk metal bands are Eluveitie and Korpiklaani. Especially Eluveitie because they use a whole range of Celtic instruments.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iijKLHCQw5o">Eluveitie - Inis Mona</a>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZbucSufNm4">Korpiklaani - Keep on Galloping</a>

[The Man]

I'm also going to strongly recommend Blut aus Nord's Memoria Vetusta albums. None of the others really have the same sound, except for Ultima Thulée which isn't as polished; after the first Memoria Vetusta they started to explore more dissonant and industrial-influenced territory to the point where MoRT is barely even metal (or music in the traditional sense, for that matter). I'm not really sure where they would fit lyrically since the only album with released lyrics is Memoria Vetusta I, which is fairly Viking-influenced (though the band itself is French). Memoria Vetusta II, which just came out a few days ago though I've had the leak for weeks, is one of the best albums released in any genre for awhile, by my estimation.

As for metal bands taking complete left-turns and doing non-metal CDs, several have done that - Ulver isn't even recognisably metal anymore, and several others - Borknagar, Drudkh, Green Carnation, and Hel come to mind offhand - have done one-off acoustic or folk CDs.

[Garland]

Of all the albums I got ahold of, the only band that kept my interest was Equilibrium. They're the most epic of all the viking albums I came across. My favorite music for the last month and a half or so is symphonic metal. Within Temptation and Nightwish get all the attention on my iTunes now. Blut Im Auge and Wingthor's Hammer are probably my two favorite tracks of viking. I do love the intro to Wurzelbert since it's nearly right out of the intro to Zelda Link to the Past.

[Balzac]

Actually, Metallica call themselves hard rock now. They even go as far to say they are the Take That in the hard rock genre.

Also Eluveitie smurfing rock.

[Disenchanted_Cynic]

OMG WTF IS THIS THREAD IT'S LIKE IF MY HUSBAND WAS ARGUING WITH HIMSELF OR SOMETHING. *headache*

I didn't read through all the angry-ness so listen to Kivimetsän Druidi, not viking, but folk. And folk is yummy.
Also, as for the whole "Educated in genre's" BS. It is truly BS, in this day and age, bands and artists are making up their own genres to be "individual" i.e. when Britney Spear and christina agular(what ever) showed up, everything sounding like them was "Bubblegum pop" years later Avril Lagibveeajshdjash(whatever) wantsto be punk but spunky, so she calls herself "Bubblegum punk" thus the rest of the world follows. Problem is, shes' the only one in this genre anyone knows of. w

SO WHO CHOOSES THE GENRE CERTAIN BANDS FIT IN?
The MASS public honestly. Hell if all bands existed and followed the.. well according to some of you, set in stone genre markers (IF YOU HAVE THIS IN YOUR BAND, YOU ARE THIS GENRE) then it can easily be said that some bands change Genre's MANY times throughout their existance.

Back in the 80's, Metallica was considered metal. Now we call the SAME 80's metallica hardrock, if not rock. Guess what though, Metallica still calls themselves metal.

With the opinions and ever changing factors that are placed into the whole concepts of genre's and band composition... no one can be right when it comes to who's in what genre. If 300 million people say blah blah blah is this, it'll prolly stay that until 400 million people say blah blahblah is that, and then it'll be that.

If I was in a band I'd do like 3 metal cd's and then a pop cd and a new age cd in between, only to screw with people who even CARE what's in what genre. "OMG THEY WERE METAL THEN THEY WERE POP THEN METAL AGAIN?!?! WHAT DO WE CONSIDER THEM?! METAL'POP?! OMZGZ NO WAY. Q.Q.QQ..QQ.Q.Q"
When you classify the music, you kill the music.

To be educated in something, you must be taught by someone who is considered a MASTER in the subject. Someone who works in the field they have MASTERED and have done so for YEARS. Reading wikipedia,watching TV, reading books, listening to the radio makes you an avid music fan, butnot someone who we should all take their word for because they consider themselves educated on a varying subject.

I am sorry, but you are wrong, and I have elaborated on everything that you have said. Because you have not read through everything that was said, you would not know that. I am not going to make a full response to your post because the text is very hard to go back and read over and over, and I am through arguing about this. It is clear to me that you have nothing to do with real metal, or the metal underground to begin with. I would not argue with Bruce Lee about martial arts, if he were alive. You should not argue with me about metal. I apologize if this makes me come off as pretentious, but I do not care.

P.S. Metallica's first four records are still thrash metal records, regardless of what you, or any other fool says.


Let's quit talking about this and get back to talking about Viking Metal bands.

Earlier on, someone mentioned Windir. Great band. I recommend them to anyone that is already into Viking Metal, but has not heard of them yet. 1184 is their best record, in my opinion, though everything is good.