Musical Arguments

[Valerunner]

Right, I'm going to a debate on wednesday and I'm doing it on music since it's the one I'm most passionate about, but I need help.

First, I need points on either one of the two:

Why Metal is the most diverse genre of mainstream music.
Why the 70s were the Golden Age of music.

Evidence may help i.e. tracks or artists to cite.

 

[Storm Earth and Fire]

Why Metal is the most diverse genre of mainstream music.

That's kinda hard to put into words, for me at least. You just kinda have to look around the world of metal and you'll get it... Gather as many bands from as many sorts of metal as you can... Start off by reading an obnoxiously long list of types of metal. =D

Why the 70s were the Golden Age of music.

Well shame on me for not listening to 70s music. =P I listen to 60s music, though...

 

[Valerunner]

I don't listen to '70s stuff either, but the impact was quite big. There we saw Iron Maiden, and AC/DC, plus this was when the Beatles rolled out their last songs.

 

[Storm Earth and Fire]

The 1970s also represented one of the best decades for African American music, with the invention of disco and hip hop, and the continued rise of funk and soul.

Also, Pink Floyd's style moved away from ordinary psychodelic rock, and probably their best time.

 

[Retsu]

Right, I'm going to a debate on wednesday and I'm doing it on music since it's the one I'm most passionate about, but I need help.

First, I need points on either one of the two:

Why Metal is the most diverse genre of mainstream music.
Why the 70s were the Golden Age of music.

Evidence may help i.e. tracks or artists to cite.

Why are you debating this, out of curiosity?

I mean, you could always use this for the first but... damn, it's going to be an uphill battle for you.

 

[Ether's Bane]

Right, I'm going to a debate on wednesday and I'm doing it on music since it's the one I'm most passionate about, but I need help.

First, I need points on either one of the two:

Why Metal is the most diverse genre of mainstream music.

Subgenres:

Heavy metal
Thrash metal
Speed metal
Goth metal
Glam metal
Black metal
Doom metal
Death metal
Stoner metal
Metalcore
Power metal
Progressive metal
Nu-metal
Groove metal
Alternative metal
Rap metal
Symphonic metal
Extreme metal
Sludge metal

Sub-subgenres:

Progressive death metal
Deathcore
Grindcore
Symphonic power metal
Goth black metal
Symphonic black metal
Extreme power metal

And I only needed to wiki five of those, and all those except sludge metal were for verification on whether or not they exist. That's 19 subgenres and 7 sub-subgenres, just off the top of my head.

 

[Tarvos]

Half of these subgenres are bollocks. Just mentioning subgenre lists won't win you a debate anyway. If anything, I would merely cite metal's diverse subgenres for its musical success and its ability to crossover.

Wiki isn't a good source for these genres, genres are always heavily debated. If you want to argue that the 70s were the golden age for music, I think you should look into the following things:

- the 70s rise of progressive rock (in other words, combining jazz and blues influences into a rock formula, introducing technicality, elaborate stage shows)
- the early beginnings of heavy metal (Black Sabbath! Make sure to mention their inventive use of the tritone, which is basically what all of heavy metal is based on musically. The s/t song is a good example)
- the punk rock movement

These three styles are still very influential and spawned a lot of followers; punk branched into several directions and merged with metal in the 80s to form thrash metal (the growling style is derived from punk). The early heavy metal bands are still extremely popular and influenced not only metal musicians but also contemporary pop musicians. Progressive rock is sort of the forgotten child, but you can use this to explain the 70s focus on technical music, and then explain how punk was a reaction against the hard rock and prog rock of the day (this became really conformist, and punk wanted to go against that; yet it became conformity itself).

You can make a very good case for the second; the first, meh. If you want to argue that, argue the bands and the different genres they take influences from; metal has mixed with almost every genre, from Skyclad using folk influences to Unexpect with their weird jazz stuff or the almost atonal solos of Meshuggah using offbeat scales; the weird rhythmic shit they use; achromaticism; classical influences in playing, from Randy Rhoads to Mohammed Suicmez (Necrophagist); mention the blues roots; hiphop influences; punk influences (thrash metal) prog rock influences (prog metal). Power metal is a derivative of heavy metal with more keyboards, so be sure to mention the opera and orchestral music mixing as well.

 

[Valerunner]

Why are you debating this, out of curiosity?

I mean, you could always use this for the first but... damn, it's going to be an uphill battle for you.

It's for my Persuasive Speech thing for English; I have to go and convince the whole class to agree with my viewpoint.

 

[foreign contaminant]

the 70s were a lot of things.

-they brought an end to the psychedelic era, if you could call it that. some notable bands from the 60s (the beatles, the velvet underground) broke up, while bands like the rolling stones and led zeppelin kept going.
-disco came to life, and for the first time, people could easily see how manufactured pop music could be
-they brought pink floyd into the mainstream, along with a rise in progressive music, a sort of "overindulgence" in musicianship.
-said overindulgence inspired many kids to play simpler rock music, like the stooges, the mc5, and the new york dolls
-glam rock was popular for a time, mixing rock with androgyny with three-chord rock in mind
-punk eventually came around, drawing from the last two points but also keeping a pop sensibility in tow
-electronic music came into being; see suicide and kraftwerk
-punk rock led to post-punk, or groups like joy division and gang of four and wire and the fall, who were more diverse in their influences and more willing to mix up the punk formula
-there was heavy metal in its beginning stages
-around the same time as punk rock, other kids in the same section of new york city started rapping over disco records, effectively creating hip-hop

there's probably more i missed.

 

[Valerunner]

Thanks guys.

Not only did I get full marks, I actually got invited into the Debate Club. I didn't enter since I didn't really do much work on it, so once again, thanks a billion.