Food For Thought/Thought For Food No. 14: In Defense Of Grunge (aka Grunge Didn't "Kill" Metal)

This is a rant I've been saving up for a longtime now. Ever since I started my Food For Thought/Thought For Food series back in 2016, I knew one day that I would rant & rave about the subject matter of this post. I got the start of my musical festival for 2019 in just a few short days, and given it's theme, I find it eerily appropriate that I put this out before it starts. Anyways, on with my speel!

Like a huge chunk of us, we're probably familiar with the musical style known as Grunge. First originating in the mid 1980s, it was a form of music that took elements of Punk & Indie Rock and Heavy Metal, and dealt with themes such as social alienation, emotional isolation, & psychological trauma. It was a style that was oddly reflective in the 80s, and far more so in the 90s. For some, it acted as a catharsis. Others appreciated it unique style of instrumentation. For a few others, however, Grunge is the antichrist of music. The sole single force behind the "Death" of Heavy Metal in the 90s, not to mention that it also somehow......magical & mysteriously.....caused good music to "Evaporate" from the United States. To those within this third school of though about Grunge, may I just say.....fuck you!

Grunge didn't "Kill" Metal.....Metal helped kill Metal! Heavy Metal is solely responsible for the apparent "Asskicking" it received in the 1990s.....actually, that's not exactly true. Heavy Metal isn't completely responsible for it's supposed downfall in the last great decade of this country. It's actually a mix of two aspects: Hair Metal, and the record companies that ran them into the ground. Let's start with the first one.

Now let me start off by saying that I don't hate Hair Metal. Far from it! I enjoy Twisted Sister.

We're Not Gonna Take it

Dokken makes me smile.

Dream Warriors

Hell, I even enjoy the faith-tinged notes of Stryper!

Soldiers Under Command

Yes fellow Otaku & Metalheads, I enjoy the crap out of Hair Metal, but it's biggest strength is simultaneously it's biggest weakness. What is the style's strength & weakness. Commerciality! Hair Metal is perhaps the most accessable metal subgerne to get into. Whether you're a veteran metalhead looking for something a little softer than most of what's in his or her collection, or you're actually looking to get into Heavy Metal and want some easy listening, Hair Metal is a easy subgenre to listen to. Unfortunately, this all leads into the second fault of Hair Metal.....The record companies. I would say something about this, but I think an insider says it far better than I would.

Dee Snider About The Decline Of Heavy Metal

See!? Sure, Twisted Sister weren't necessarily one of the bigger Hair Metal bands, but they were still part of that machine, and as they traversed the 1980s, they ever so slowly were eviscerated & altered into a mockery of their former selves. This was the fate of a majority of the bands that were in that genre, and even then the few that survived were either considered to be a joke by the time the 90s came around, or weren't seen as important anymore. Sadly, Metalheads blinded by nostalgia, or their heads are shoved firmly up their asses in an act of metal elitism (A buddy of mine coined the term "Metaboo" to describe such individuals), are completely in denial about this! As horrible as this might sound, Hair Metal needed to die. By the end of the 80s, most of the bands around were Hair bands, all thanks to the record companies churning out group after group that mocked the ones that were great. Grunge did unintentionally twist the knife in the wound, but you can thank the record companies & Hair Metal for stabbing Heavy Metal, and supposedly killing it.....even though albums like 1916, Fear Of The Dark, and The Eye exist & flourished to various extents throughout the decade.

I honestly don't have that much else to say, other than to stop thinking that just because your music isn't in the spotlight anymore......doesn't mean it's dead. Grow up!

Well, with that rant out of the way, it's back to something happy & fun. So join me in a few short days when this year's metal festival starts. Until then, don't flail around like a chicken with it's head cut off because your musical tastes aren't constantly obsessed over by the public.





***
This repeats Dee's comments from earlier, but there's a little bit extra from a different band:

Why Hair Metal Got Pounded (And Deserved It)

HMO Classics: The Adventures of the Mini Goddesses Review

Hi fellow Otaku & Metalheads!

Once again, it’s time for an HMO Classic review! We saw the origins of my original blog in the Gunsmith Cast review, and 2012 gave us the abomination that was SiN the Movie. 2013 definitely isn’t going to give us anything bad, as it’s one of my favorite happy shows. It was hard to find in the early years of this decade, and it’s probably almost impossible to locate today. It’s a shame, cause it can bring a smile even to the most dour of faces! So sit down with some cookies & milk, smell the flowers, and take a look at my first review of 2013, wherein I looked at the chibitastic Adventures of the Mini Goddesses. Enjoy!

“Hey everybody! Back in November last year, I had reviewed Burn Up Scramble, a show that took me a while to acquire (I reviewed it in late November cause I got the last DVD, thus completing my collection of the show). Today’s show is another one that I acquired in November, and one that’s considerably harder to find, but I’ll get to that when the time comes. So, for today, here’s a review of the incredibly adorable Adventures of the Mini Goddesses.

The Adventures of the Mini Goddesses doesn’t really have a over-arcing story to it. Actually, that’s not completely true. The basic premise of the show is that the main characters of Ah My Goddess (Urd, Belldandy, Skuld) are shrunk down to chibi-size, and have fun around the house with their rat friend, Gan-Chan. However, this leads to the first positive of the show.

Yes, I said positive. The show is pretty much a cutesy comedy, and generally cutesy comedies don’t have much in the way of a story structure (Lucky Star comes to mind when I think about this). Because of this lack of structure, it’s very loose & free forming, and isn’t all that taxing on the brain. The only time that there is any structure is when the episodes connect with one another (This doesn’t happen all the time, but it’s still frequent, and they’re to be watched in the order they’re presented).

This also goes into the 2nd positive of the show. Each of the episodes are just 5 minutes in length. They go by rather quickly (More on this later), but at the same time the 5 minute length means that they really don’t require you to think about the overarching story (What little story there is, anyway). None of the episodes aren’t really deep (Save for episode 28, but I won’t ruin that for you), but since the show is a cutesy comedy, deep episodes counteract the cuteness, except for episode 28.

The show’s 3rd positive is the cast. Almost like the main show, Adventures of the Mini Goddesses has a small but tightly focused cast. The characters that exist in the show are Urd, Belldandy, Skuld, Gan-Chan, and a fair selection of secondary characters (The biggest secondary character, Marla, almost becomes a main character in many of the episodes about halfway through the show). Given the context of this show, a large cast of characters would spoil the soup so to speak. With this cast, we still have entertaining characters, but we don’t have so many that some get overlooked.

The Adventures of the Mini Goddesses’s 4th positive is the animation quality, despite coming out in the late 90s, things look surprisingly good. The backgrounds sometimes looks like something from the mid-90s, but the characters move around really well, and they look good also. Perhaps the one thing about the characters in the show are the rats. They get a laugh from me, because while they look like a fair representation of the rodent in question, they act more like humans rather than rats, and sometimes their faces are more human than rat. The two episodes that really show this & make me laugh is when there’s an election at the temple for a rat that manages all the other rats, and this all culminates in Belldandy somehow getting elected (Spoilers, I know).

The last positive of this show is the voice acting. By the early 2000s, voice acting was much better than it was in the early to mid-90s (Sometimes voice acting in the late 90s wasn’t that good either), and The Adventures of the Mini Goddesses has some of the best voice acting I’ve ever heard. Even the secondary characters have some great voices, which is something I haven’t come across often in my anime collection. There’s rarely any crackles or boring voices, and even on the off chance when you hear something out of the ordinary, you’ll only hear it for a second or two.

Unfortunately, Adventures of the Mini Goddesses has some big problems. Luckily, there’s really only 3 problems, but they’re big like I said. For starters, this series is incredibly difficult to find. I bought the boxed set (used) back in early November last year, and even then there weren’t that many copies. The individual DVD boxes are only slightly more available, both in new & used copies.

Pricing is the show’s second negative. When I bought my used copy back in November, I managed to get it for $28 dollars, and considering the condition it was in (It looked practically brand new), that’s a steal! At the time of this writing, there are only 4 new box sets available (Prices start at $106 dollars...oh hell no!), and 1 used box set is left for purchase (The last one is currently priced at $98.01. To anyone who to manages to acquire it, congratulations!). Pricing for the individual DVDs is much more fair, with prices going from $7 dollars to $35 dollars for new copies (The copies going for $35 dollars is a little excessive), and used copies go from $2 dollars to $5 dollars.

The last negative of Adventures of the Mini Goddesses is how fast the show goes by. Despite the fact that there’s 48 episodes, the show can pretty much be watched in four hours. Hell, I watched 1 DVD per hour, and things move so fast, it’s sometimes difficult to keep track of what is going on. Anyone who doesn’t like fast shows will be turned off by this fact.

The Adventures of the Mini Goddesses gets a 7.5 to 8 out of 10. The story is easy & cute, the episodes are nice & short, there’s a great cast, it’s got decent animation, and the voice acting is also decent, but the show is hard to find, it’s a bit expensive, and it goes by quickly.”

So that was my 3rd HMO classic, which covered one of the most sugar-coated anime I own. I got another one planned about 2 months down the road, but in the meantime there’s one last quicky post I got coming. See you soon!

Album Review: Rammstein's Liebe Ist Für Alle Da

Hi fellow Otaku & Metalheads!

It’s nice & springy as May comes around. No more cold, no more bleak sky. It’s all sunshine & warmth, not to mention flowers and other nice things from this season. Normally I would dedicate this month to album & game anniversaries I missed, but to be honest I found it annoying in hindsight (Despite some of the work being rather easy). From now on, May is dedicated to taking it easy before the annual summer festival. This doesn’t mean I won’t be putting out anything however. Today’s review is especially important, as it marked what almost seemed like a legend’s final release, and given that their long awaited 7th studio album comes out in just 16 days, it seemed only right to give number 6 a look at. So get out your beer steins, find a nice view of the Danube, and enjoy my review of Rammstein’s 2009 smash success, Liebe ist für alle da. Let’s begin!

Background
The 2000s will always be the heyday of Rammstein. Mutter, Reise Reise, and Rosenrot will always be classics in my opinion, not to mention classics in the minds of other fans. However, last decade was also a chaotic time for the band, as flare-ups between the band members gave the impression that they would breakup at any moment (Hence the 3-year break between Mutter & Reise Reise to cool down). As the decade went on they continued to butt heads, but even among this they still managed to put their noses to the grindstone in the recording studio for 2 years, and on October the 16th in 2009, Liebe ist für alle da was released.

Liebe ist für alle da managed to gain some pretty impressive accolades last decade. In Finland, it actually managed to be certified platinum before its release, while in France it debuted at no. 3 on their charts, making it Rammstein’s most successful band in that country. In the United States, it reached number 13 on the Billboard 200 (Becoming the highest ranked album of the band’s career in the U.S.), although it would fall off the charts after just 4 weeks. In their home country of Germany, Liebe ist für alle da would make it to number 1 after dethroning R&B-singer Xavier Naidoo's new album "Alles kann besser werden", and it would remain high on the charts, until......

Yeah, it’s time to talk about the controversy. As stated by Wikipedia:

“The album was added to the index of the Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien (Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons) in Germany, due to the track "Ich tu dir weh" and a picture inside the album booklet displaying Richard Kruspe spanking a nude woman. This means only adults can purchase the album; additionally, it must not be displayed in stores where minors have access (see BPjM for details). As a consequence, the album was re-released in Germany on 16 November in an edited version without the censored track and picture. The band still played the instrumental version song live in Germany until it was ultimately banned from live performances.

Despite the censorship, the video to "Ich tu dir weh" was released on 21 December 2009, on adult website Visit-X, just like the video to "Pussy", after advertisement on the band's official German website. Any references have since been deleted, presumably following German law prohibiting advertisement for media on the index. In Europe, a single was released on 5 February 2010, and in the UK on 15 February 2010.

As of 31 May 2010, the administrative court in Cologne has decided to waive the suspensive effect of censorship (case 22 L 1899/09). The German department deleted the record from the censorship lists on 1 June (Decision No. A 117/10). On 9 June the band announced on their official website that the original version of the album was already available at their shop and that a release of the single "Ich tu dir weh" in Germany was planned in a short period of time.”

Yeah, this was just another example of a country overacting because of their dark past, but as with all forms of censorship & quasi censorship, it only made the music more popular & successful. Far in away their best album of the 2000s, and more than worthy of being a good closer for that decade.

Basic Description
Clean, brutal, and emotional.

I’ll get to the clean part a little later, so for now I’m concentrating on the brutal & emotional parts. Liebe ist für alle da almost comes across as very Devin Townsend-esque with it’s range of emotions, just wearing an Industrial Metal suit. You got the typical German aggression Rammstein is known for, but they tap into nature a little bit, they have fun on some of the songs (Despite the whole album being fun), and everything comes across as the most cohesive the band has ever been in the 2000s. The guitar work is great, drums are calm one moment and thunderous another moment, Flake is a wizard on the keyboard, and Till Lindemann’s voice is top notch. Despite being a decade old this year (Turns 10 in October), it holds up incredibly well.

Best Track
There’s a wide variety of tracks for people to consume with their ears...but kind of like W.A.S.P.’s inaugural release.....I can only think of one.

Pussy (Low Quality)

Yeah yeah, I know it’s cheap to go for the dirtiest track as the best thing on the record, but can you blame me. Up until this point, it’s been a while that Rammstein gave the fans a fun dirty song (Te Quiero Puta doesn’t count!), and they delivered in spades! A great beat, wonderful instrumentation, Till’s gutteral vocal work, and coupled with the incredibly filthy music video, Pussy won’t leave your brain.

If you have the 2-CD edition of the album, might I suggest Donaukinder, or Children of the Danube as it’s translated. Whereas Pussy was energetic, this one is somber, serious, and slower paced. Rammstein actually taps into a real-world tragedy for this tune: On the 30th of January in 2000, heavy rainfall had caused a dam to breach, which in turn caused 100.000 m³ of water to flood a goldmine. Said flood caused 100 tons of heavy metals and sodium cyanide to be brought into the Danube river. Said poisons caused havoc in several countries along the iconic river, drinking water became tainted, and people fled to avoid the poison, which caused all life around the river to die. Though many children had died from this tragedy, Donaukinder is actually about the fish & wildlife within and around the Danube, what with the many play on words contained with the track. It’s a sad song, but somehow there’s a strange beauty within the music. Almost as if some part of the mighty river was calling out to anyone who would listen, and possibly remember this tragic tale.

Donaukinder

Worst Track
I confess when I said back in 2015 that this album sounded a little too clean.......I was pulling straws. Every song on Liebe ist für alle da is good. Damn good, in fact! Even the bonus tracks, despite the last 2 sounding similar to stuff off of the main album, is still wonderful. That being said, if you liked the rough & tumble nature of their previous work, you won’t like this one. Liebe ist für alle da sounds considerably more modern in terms of production, and while that does make the music sound cleaner, something about the feel of Mutter, Reise Reise, and Rosenrot just tickles the nostalgia. In hindsight......I don’t have that much of a problem with it now.

Other
This is the second example of an album I’ve reviewed that I can’t find a good link on Youtube. Their music has always been a bit susceptible to copyright issues, and while I can easily find individual songs, a full album is almost impossible. What else can I say, but go out a give this a purchase.

Overall Impression & Rating
Liebe ist für alle da was a hell of an album to close the 2000s with. Great songs, great production, and overall a great time! It might be too clean for some in terms of the sound, but even those people can’t deny how kickass the whole record is. Quite possibly Rammstein’s crowning achievement.....or is it?

Liebe ist für alle da gets a 10 out of 10. It deserves that rating!

So that was Liebe ist für alle da. Like I said above, their newest album is coming in 15 days, so it needed to be examined. Next week we have another HMO Classic....and it comes from the early days of 2013. See you soon!