Babymetal
 

Japanese teen pop meets death metal in an explosion of awesome

^According to that article Babymetal has the #2 selling album on iTunes currently. Whoa.

Personally I like this group, er, project. I mean if faceless music executives are going to capitalize on weird trends, this is at least something I can get into. I find their schtick oddly pleasing and somewhat endearing.

This song reminds me of Melt Banana.. if they were a J-pop/metal band:



This one is all about metal atmosphere:



And here are the girls explaining how they feel about metal and the Fox God that they embody when they perform:



:confused:

I heard about them a few days ago. Pretty cool stuff, and plan on listening to the album later.

I tried to like it, the novelty wore off after a couple listens and I just went back to my Melt-Banana albums.

Yeah, it is kinda cute and what not, but the novelty to me was short lived and I felt no need to investigate further.

What is more interesting to me is watching all these elitist metalheads who swear off anything nu-metal, spewing forth hatred toward Slipknot and Korn all day long, going on about how awesome this is, even though it is essentially the same thing, but with a j-pop twist. Bet you most of them will go on about how they hate both styles on their own, but think this is some sort of masterpiece.

I doubt that many elitist metalheads will ever call Babymetal a masterpiece.

Also, I guess I do like J-pop a lot more than whatever the pop part of nu metal is. I definitely like Babymetal more than those bands. Still very unlikely I'll ever become a real fan.

well yeah, masterpiece is a stretch. But the idea of it being some sort of greatness that rises above the rest of the stuff from that genre is the point there.

Yeah, it's only greatness lies in it's oddity factor. It's another weird Japanese thing that appears to be making somebody a lot of money.

Not this crap again. Guys, I proudly present that I don't like nu-metal, and neither do I like this cheese.

Profound contribution. Thanks : )!

I just came here to pose, but thanks

Engine, this is so fucking awesome I don't know what to do with myself right now. Japan never fails to deliver.

This stuff scares me...

I am confounded as to why some people are unable to disconnect their brains and just enjoy the goofiness. A small Japanese girl ripped a Dragonforce solo. The world is now complete.

Cool thread Engine, i didn't know about them and i liked the interview vid at the end but i don't get the Melt banana comparison i don't think they sound alike at all.



This "Baby Metal" doesn't sound bad but it seems like a gimmick i don't see any passion in them for metal i just see another idol group exploiting a different music genre.

That's the point. Who cares how cynical it is? Tiny Japanese girl. Dragonforce solo. World complete.

I thought Dragonforce already did that.

But that was a Japanese dude with man-pretty hair. Not as good.

Some of the cheesiest metal I've heard in a long time. Lord, please deliver me from farty synthesizers with what sounds like a couple of Ike's (from South Park) classmates chanting production lyrics.

Not terrible musically by any means, but it's so cheesy that I don't honestly think I could listen to any song more than a couple of times and not be annoyed.

Little girls in vampire vintage dresses performing to extreme metal? Never thought extreme metal could be so cute. :)

Well it certainly is interesting and they do seem to be having fun at it but not my cup of tea.

I never thought I'd see the day metal fans would complain something is too cheesy.

I care.. i think.
I know at the end of the day music becomes a product to sell to the masses but i at least want the artist themselves to make the music and have a genuine passion for it.

These idol groups are manufactured, there is no soul behind the music just business and the thing is these idol groups with enough popularity can jump to any genre and shamelessly exploit it.

Even if there is a formula to most music genres i still think artistic integrity exist and that it always should exist or else music will just become another mindless product and it will stop being an art form.

If I wanted to listen to weird japanese nu metal, I'd listen to Maximum The Hormone :P. ( You know , maximum the hormone is a terrible band name...)

Take all the cookie monster vocals, gore lyrics, power metal lyrics, mash it all together, and still it doesn't touch this abomination. Believe me, I can tolerate a lot of cheesy music, but this is probably the saddest thing I've ever listened to that was trying to take itself seriously. It's like listening to Kidz Bop, but with talented heavy metal musicians.

Maximum the hormone sounds pretty cheesy too, they have the silliest vocals I've ever heard, yet I'm enjoying it at the moment xD. But yeah, I don't get this stuff either, I guess it's where I draw the line?

That gimme chocolate song is cute and the band can play. At least they aren't singing about gang banging and chocolate sales in JP should go up LOL. Perhaps this will serve as a stepping stone for those young people to more serious forms of metal once they grow up. I refuse to condemn it just because it is different and wouldn't listen to it.

The two songs in the OP are pretty great! I'll definitely be checking out the album.

x2

What about this music would give you the impression that it was taking itself seriously?

The singers are like, 9 years old, so I'm pretty sure they take their "PLAYING METAL OMG" pretty seriously, and the pedophiles behind think that the money this will earn them is a pretty serious matter

The fact that they're trying to sell their sound commercially, I can't really think of anything that says "we take ourselves seriously" than that, because it literally means that you think that your music is good enough to sell records. If they were marketed as a gimmick, like Kidz Bop, or Weird Al, it would be a different story.

Do you take them seriously?

Yeah, just like I'm sure Bret Michaels took himself seriously as he was dressing up like a woman, and that Kiss took themselves seriously when they were putting facepaint and lipstick on. It's to sell records, it's a marketing technique. It's still intended to become popular and sell mass amounts of albums, though, and that's the whole point.

I could never get inside the minds of the members of these bands to find out if they actually took themselves seriously, but I think it's easy to make the argument that they intend for others to take them seriously.

It looks like they are marketed as a gimmick to me. They're not even their own band, but an offshoot of some revolving door girl group.

It's a combination of J-pop and metal, I don't even know what I could possibly take seriously about that. I like the music I've heard though. It's fun and goofy and its own unique animal. I tend to like things like that.

Well they're trying to be accessible to the mainstream, aren't they? Novelty acts don't usually do that. They're also trying to create the illusion that they're part of some kind of talented band by hiring talented studio musicians to make legitimately good music. If it was just the regular cheesy metal, I'd agree with you, but the musicianship on this is actually pretty decent.

I don't know about you, but if Weird Al suddenly started playing jazz fusion song parodies with The Mahavishnu Orchestra backing him up, I'd say he was trying to take himself pretty seriously.

How can you even like music that you don't take seriously, at least to some extent, whether it be the musicianship, the lyrics, etc.

Please remember this is a manufactured pop band. Not a real metal band.

The level of seriousness is not an issue for me. I actually do like a lot of bands that I don't take seriously at all.

You just answered your own question.
Weird Al. No way you can take him seriously, but you can enjoy his music. It's the same with any novelty act. I love "Star Trekkin'" by the Firm, but no way would I take it seriously. Life, and music, does not all have to be about taking things seriously. Honestly, why would this bug you so much? It's not like they're trying to take Iron Maiden or Metallica's crown, now is it? They're just enjoying themselves. I say fair play to them.

Easy on the eye too, which is more than I can say about 90% of metal bands! ;)

It doesn't bother me at all, I think I've listened to one song all the way through, and about 20 seconds of another song. I honestly couldn't care any less about them, or who likes them.

Of course you can't take Weird Al seriously, in the sense of music, because comedy isn't meant to be taken seriously. Taking comedy seriously is like listening to prog metal because you think weird time signatures are funny.

"Hahahaha, Jim, did you hear that hilarious guitar progression?! It was SO oddly structured, bro!"

"No, Gilbert Gottfried just made a joke about a bear ****ing a guy in the ass, but the guy keeps coming back! Like you'd keep coming back! UGH! It's so unrealistic!"

Whether they're enjoying themselves, or trying to take Iron Maiden's crown, etc. doesn't really factor into my opinion. I'm criticizing what they sound like first and foremost. I do think they take themselves way too seriously, and like I said before, it isn't common that a band that doesn't take itself seriously would have this level of production and musicianship. No band that's just trying to be a novelty would spend that kind of time, effort and capital to create their music.

Presumably you have a lot of your own money invested in the popular music industry. If not, I can't imagine why you care about any of this at all.

Are you saying that being manufactured means that they don't take themselves seriously? Or are you just reminding everyone that they're a pop band that's trying to appeal to metalheads?

Why on earth would you listen to music that you don't take somewhat seriously? What's the point in listening to it if you don't take it seriously? Any bands that I've ever listened to that I don't take seriously are jokey. Even bands that are eccentric, like Ween or Beck, I take seriously, because the music is legitimately unique and original. Then there's your Weird Al, Cars Can Be Blue, stuff that's intended to make you laugh. I can totally understand not taking that kind of music seriously and still liking it, but that's different. There's no joke factor with this music, it's just crappy.

Presumably, you didn't read the first 2 sentences of my post. :laughing:

Y'all questioned my opinions, so I'm elaborating. If you don't like it, then you obviously care more about this than I do.

It's called fun.

It might be fun for 5 minutes or 5 years, it doesn't really matter. Nobody is saying this band are the next King Crimson or whoever.
I don't know what the seriousness of the people playing has anything to do with it. Some of the best rock musicians have played with Spinal Tap, that doesn't make them a serious band.

I read it all thoroughly.

I take Babymetal as seriously as I take Ween who I love. And while you're using Beck as an example of serious music, I'll go ahead and say that I prefer Babymetal to Beck right now. Beck has sucked for at least 10 years (probably a lot more), and Babymetal amuses me currently.

They're a fictional band that was made up, dude. You don't take the music of Spinal Tap seriously? I would, because they have some legitimately good music. It doesn't matter if it's fun or not. I think Metallica is fun. In fact, I think all of my music is fun, that's why I listen to it, because I enjoy it.