Well I wasn't able to find a music video for this dude, but since it's the last day I didn't think it was too important. I'm not about to pass on introducing you to the crazy music of Zardonic after all.
If you're a long time follower you might remember a song of this guy's I posted a while ago. Thing is though that was a remix of one of his songs and this is an original.
Zardonic combines Metal and Dubstep in some crazy ways. His faster tracks show it off better than the slower ones, but it's all really good and I really recommend checking it out.
Happy end to the A to Z, can't wait to get back to all the other posts I thought of while we were doing this, haha
Artist: Young Thug feat. Gucci Mane
Genre: Rap
Language: Strong
First things first. I've got a Facebook page now, so you can go visit that if you want convenient updates in your social media rather than just on your blogging platform! I know, I know, you've all just been waiting to get a little more of content into your life. Well it's not like this is more than before, but it's now easier to find, right?
So yeah, Young Thug. Dude lives up to his name honestly seeing as he's been arrested several times for threatening people, drugs, guns, and all manner of thug related things. Generally not nice people doncha know.
A point of interest, there's so many freaking drugs in this video it's not even funny. You've got your cocaine, you've got your marijuana, you've got your Sprite and codeine, and probably some other stuff I don't recognize. Good times up in here, haha
Tomorrow is the last day of the A to Z though, so that's kinda a big deal. Hope you've all had a good time with my theme here.
3 cheers for a majorly disjointed post that doesn't really connect to itself too well.
Yeah, I'm wimping out on X. There really aren't too many bands that aren't fringe Metal acts that start with X. If I could just go with XBox tags like xXsexhaver420Xx then I'd be good, but I had to go with what I knew.
I honestly don't know anything about Mr Xzibit, but I saw he had a song called "X" and I knew it was fate. Let's be real, my "Oh-crap-I-can't-plan-ahead-and-have-to-pull-an-artist-out-of-my-butt" choice has a song that matches the letter? I mean, since he's a rapper I suppose there's a pretty good chance, but still. I'm gonna go with it.
X day though. We've got 2 days left now to this freaking challenge. I'm not gonna lie, this one was a lot harder than last year since I had less free time, less planning ahead, and all that stuff. Eh, we'll talk more about that later though.
Band: White Zombie
Genre: Groove Metal
Language: Strong
Who loves White Zombie? You love White Zombie. Everybody loves White Zombie.
Well fine, you don't have to like them but you can at least appreciate their contribution to the music scene with the popularization of Groove Metal. Ya know, Metal with some groove.
This has always been one of my favorite driving songs though, for real. It used to be that I could start this song and right when the slide guitar intro would hit I'd be hitting the main road and getting some speed going. It was a blast.
This song is, to me, the epitome of Zombie's sound. His new solo stuff is good, but this song just makes me think of his stuff every time.
I don’t know most anything about this artist. I know that I walked into my coworker’s office and heard the song playing and I know that I liked it. That’s about it.
He found them about the same time I did though, so I’ll call that a win. He was playing a playlist on YouTube that has a lot of electronic music on it and this song happened to turn up. Good times, right?
I know you’ll enjoy the song too though, it’s (to over quote myself to death) a solid tune that is kinda smooth and just catchy.
I personally don’t care much for Usher. His style of music, while well executed and by no means bad, is just not something I’m really into. Still, I can’t think of a reason not to include him in the U position of the list.
Honestly I’m amazed at the lack of bands I’m familiar with in the lower letters of the alphabet. I would have thought that I’d know at least a few more then I do, ya know?
Eh, whatever though. This post is about Usher, not me complaining that I don’t know any U artists. We gonna use this song cause it's one of the few I'm kinda familiar with because of a show I watch.
Band: Thousand Foot Krutch (TFK)
Genre: Nu-Metal, Hard Rock
I know what you all must be thinking. "What is this Noah, all you're posting is Nu-Metal bands."
Sorry. Since starting this blog I realized that my music tastes seem to lean toward Rap, Rap Metal, Nu-Metal, Death Metal and any range in between them you can find me. I kinda knew this already, but writing it all down made it way more obvious to me.
This song though, this one is pretty cool.
The guitar riff in the verse sounds straight up like a Rage Against The Machine line which really makes me like it even more. That and the song is catchy as crap.
I didn't really get too much into TFK back when I started listening to music more but I'm thinking I should start. They've got a cool sound going down in the Rap Rock category that I'm into, ya dig?
Band: Tenacious D
Genre: Comedy Rock, Hard Rock
Language: Strong
I'll admit the main reason this song is here is because the song I wanted to post didn't actually have a music video.
It's still a cool thing though, because Tenacious D is a reasonably funny band, ya know? The video below is hilarious since the band has basically been out of the spotlight since their movie came out like, 10 years ago.
Honestly outside of Guitar Hero III I hardly even remembered they existed. This is a new video though, so apparently they are trying break back into the spotlight, right?
Hey though, if they want to try that that's fine with me. I consider this band to be one of the better things Jack Black has done with his career honestly. His comedy isn't really something I'm that in to, and even though the music really follows the same comedic line I kinda like it more.
Tomorrow's post will be what I wanted today but couldn't.
Turns out that the Sex Pistols like anarchy so much they actually hired their bassist Sid Vicious based entirely on his anarchist attitude. Apparently one night he stayed up all night with a Ramone's album and a crap load of speed and learned apparently managed to figure it out. A quote I managed to find is that Sid went to Lemmy of Motörhead saying "I can't play bass," to which Lemmy replied "I know." On their album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols he only recorded bass on the song Bodies. According to legend they didn't even plug him into an amp a lot of the time.
Musically though I really dig the low talent energy that this band has. They just smash away at their instruments and politically rage away, ya know? There's a huge level of fun to listening to bands that really aren't good at what they do, but they do it with full enthusiasm.
Hope you're enjoying the A to Z so far from my blog and the others, been a great time so far, right?
Artist: Ryan Clark (Demon Hunter, NYVES)
Genre: Metalcore, Metal, Dark Electronic
I feel like I've made it reasonably clear in past posts that Demon Hunter is one of, if not my favorite, band I've ever heard. Other than maintaining a solid sound despite switching around a decent number of the musicians in the band Ryan is my favorite vocalist second only to Randy Blythe of Lamb Of God.
Ryan's a rather talented fellow though. In addition to being the frontman of both Demon Hunter and NYVES he's a graphic designer. He's designed all the DH album covers and a great many other bands have used him as well (Alice in Chains being one of them.)
I really try not to fan out on members of my favorite bands, but since DH is the group that basically got me into Metal they will always hold a special place in my heart, ya know?
The reason I picked this song is because even though you don't get to hear his screaming style you get to hear his singing in the band that he usually screams in. Enjoy, it's a solid song.
Band: Queens Of The Stone Age (QotSA)
Genre: Alternative Rock
Getting into those trouble letters here. The Qs, the Xs, and such and stuff. The letters that have a very limited number of bands in them.
I happened upon QotSA though and thought "Hey, I remember them from Guitar Hero!" so I decided to go with them.
This video is the most poorly disguised metaphor for sex ever actually. That's the whole reason I chose it. It's the 3rd song of theirs I've ever heard and the video amused me enough that I thought you should all be graced with it!
Hey look, Phil is wearing a Ghost B.C. shirt. Cool.
Artist: Philip H. Anselmo
Genre: Thrash Metal, Southern Metal
Oh Phil. You are the subject of so many jokes in the Metal community.
From his time to lead singer of Pantera, to his more recent spotlight of screaming "white power" at Dimebash this year, Philip H Anselmo is quite a character.
Honestly I like the guy. He's brought about a rather funny selectionofparodies into my life, his music is honestly pretty good, and without him there would be no equal to Scott Ian of Anthrax when it comes to being in all the Metal history videos.
The bands he's in are honestly really good though. SuperJointRitual and Down are solid, and the plethora of other bands he's been involved in too. He may be an asshole, but he's a really solid artist who does deserve some respect. His voice has a freakishly impressive range that you can see in this video. If you care to look up other stuff he's been in you can see his low range more, but this shows that not only can he do his screaming deal but he can also pull off some legit singing.
We are past the half way point by the way, cool, right?
Band: Outkast
Genre: R&B, Rap, Hip Hop
Language: Some, Strong
You know who knows a lot about Outkast? Not me. Not at all actually. I chose them because I actually had a different band planned today but I didn't want to flood everybody with a pile of Nu-Metal since I realized a significant percentage of this stuff was that genre already.
Oops.
But hey, this is some catchy music, ya know? It's bouncy, it's smooth, it's basically all good.
I'd heard their song Hey Ya before, but most of what I know about the band comes from the skit Key & Peele did. It amused me and did not educate me on the band at all.
Good music though, and it introduced me to a group I'd love to get to know better.
Did you ever watch Lawrence Welk on tv? The Polka King of the Midwest?
I don't suppose you ever wondered what it would look like if they had taken a Metal band a put them up there, did you?
Well you're in luck, because this is exactly what it would have looked like.
Ghost is an absolutely wonderful band, really. They've got the whole costumed thing down even better that guys like Slipknot and the like because they live this too. They have elaborate personas that they take up when they are in costume that it's honestly impressive to think their families don't know who they are for the most part.
For real, they keep the fact that they do this secret from friends and extended family. That's what I call devotion.
Another with no music video because, to the best of my knowledge at least, this guy has only released 1 video and I posted it ages ago.
Thomas Rainer of Nachtmahr is quite a fellow. I don't know of too many bands who would combine Techno with Metal style vocal work, ya know?
This is gonna be a bit of a half assed post and I apologize for that. This week has been miserably long and I accidentally fell asleep yesterday afternoon instead of writing this.
But hey, you've got some really weird music here to listen to while I probably go back to sleep, so that's a good thing, right?
Side note, this guy, despite what he may look like, is not a Nazi. It's just part of the stage act and costume and if you look, all he's got is a military style uniform. It doesn't even have a red arm band, it's a black one with an N. Totes different.
Motograter. They're pretty freaking sweet. They invented an instrument to make the big ugly sound they wanted. You don't get much more metal than that.
The instrument is kinda cool actually. It's this giant frame with industrial cables strung up on it. They hit the cables with drum sticks and it sounds like a cross between a bass and an electric guitar of some sort. I don't really know how to describe it outside of that, but it's one of the main driving forces in this song. I think you can see him a little bit but the video is a little chaotic so maybe not.
Hope you're all at least finding this journey to be interesting, eh?
What can be said about Korn anymore. They were one of "those bands" for the beginning of their career because of their sound and subject matter, they disappeared for a bit with some less popular stuff, they put out a surprisingly good Dubstep album, then they finally put out what their "new sound" was.
This song is from the new album, so let's rewind in the timeline.
So they were formed way back in 93, which actually means they are as old as a band as I am as a person. I'm unsure how to feel about that come to think of it.
They've maintained a rather consistent lineup honestly. Head left back in 2005 but has since rejoined as of 2013. David Silveria left the band in 2006 and was replaced by Ray Luzier on Drums. David though, unlike Head, has done nothing but burn bridges with the band for the last 2 years. The dude is honestly saying some rather messed up stuff that, true or not, is rather unprofessional.
But yeah, the music got a tad generic for a bit when David stopped caring. The drums were primarily all done either on a program or recorded by the singer Jonathan Davis and as such the groove of their suffered a bit.
That's not important though because Ray has been a fantastic improvement to their sound.
Then the Dubstep album. Fans hated this because it was released at the same time as all the Dubstep hate was reaching a peak. It's like, at the time it was a poor decision, but going back it's like the best thing ever. The combination of Korn's sound with the various artists that they worked with is just a terrific thing.
The newest album is a much smoother blending of the sounds though. You've still got electronic elements but there's also a more polished version of the old Korn in there. I like it and you should too.
Artist: Johnny Cash
Genre: Country, Outlaw Country
I think that there's a strong possibility that Johnny Cash may be the one Country artist that everybody can agree that they like at least a little bit. I never really knew much about his life till a co worker made an offhand comment about Mr Cash's severe drug problems back in the day though. I then looked into that and found, not only this amazing song, but a lot of the dude's history.
Run ins with the law, lots of drug problems, and more run ins with the law led to an eventual change, but not before he set fire to a large chunk of forest in California killing 49 of the 53 endangered condors that lived there. His response? "I don't care about your damn yellow buzzards."
A real stand up guy, amirite?
He changed his ways though and cleaned up from drugs, but that doesn't mean we can't still enjoy a song called Cocaine Blues, right?
Apologies for no music video here, we'll have to live without for today.
Dude. It's a Nu-Metal band that was formed after the year 2000. 11 years after in fact. I'm really freaking pumped by this, not gonna lie.
Sounding a little like a mix of Deftones, Limp Bizkit, and P.O.D., these guys are not half bad. If I'm being totally honest I'm more excited about the possibility of a resurgence of Nu-Metal than this band itself, but I'm willing to take the steps as they come, ya know?
Besides, this is some solid music. I think a lot of their other tunes are better, but the options I had in the music video department were pretty low. Their album Violence & Destruction has a lot more songs that sound like what I described them sounding like, so even though this song mostly sounds like some sort of Hard Rock tune I promise that their sound fits what I claim. For reals.
Hey though, there's like no screaming in this song so I'm sure everybody can get behind it, right?
Band: Die Antwoord
Genre: Rap Rave
Language: Strong
I heavily regret not having these guys be the official post for D. I don't know why I thought it would be better to have Dream Theater there considering these guys are much more... unique.
Bygones be bygones and all that.
Die Antwoord is a South African group that I can only describe as artists.
Their lifestyle is a tribute to their music and vise versa. They take what they do very seriously while simultaneously not taking it very seriously at all. The style they have is called Zef. Basically if you're Zef that means you don't really care about what other people think and such, you just care about being you.
Actually if you saw the movie Chappie then you'll have seen them. They're featured quite heavily in it as I recently found out. Like, literally two days ago I found this out. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I really want to now, ya know?
Anyway, their music is clutch. They've got this crazy dance club vibe going that just screams "I did way too many drugs", but it's also really cool. You can tell that they really don't care how you feel about theirs stuff while managing to put out a quality product.
This is a weird video, but all their other videos are rather weird as well, so take what you will. I love their stuff, so if you trust my opinion there's that, right? Without further ado, please enjoy a video about when art videos run into music videos at like, 100mph.
I know I posted these guys really recently but I had planned on putting them in here first so that's just my bad, ya know?
Bluegrass covers of all your favorite Rock songs though, you can't deny that that's really cool. I don't care if you hate Bluegrass, you hear the hits of AC/DC played like this and you're gonna fall in love. Maybe not in love, but at the very least you'll fall in like.
It takes some creative people to get something like this going. When they started you can tell it was a lot more joke oriented but as the years have gone by it's obvious they've accepted their niche place in culture and have refined their sound to fit that. This song for example sounds a lot more polished than Highway to Hell.
Enjoy, and good luck on your respective A to Z adventures!
Yo. Who doesn't like a band that dresses up? The correct answer is nobody. Nobody can hate a band that dresses up and pulls it off. (Slipknot, Mushroomhead, and the like.)
You know who does a fantastic job at the whole masked band thing? Gwar.
Gwar may have started out taking things seriously, but I kinda doubt it. With their costumes, elaborate backstories, and horrific stage show Gwar has managed to capture the hearts of many Metal fans.
I mean really though, this is just a magical thing to witness. Their interviews are always gold cause they're just plain funny. Even if you hate the music you should at least check out some of their interviews and things like that.
But for real, their stage show is the stuff of nightmares. They kill people, they spray blood everywhere, they are really crass, and they kill people. I 100% recommend checking it out, but you've been warned.
Happy Friday and G day everybody, continue to enjoy the A to Z!
Future is somebody I was directed towards by a dude at work. Shout out to my man Luis!
Future is an interesting guy. On one hand you could say he sounds a little generic. He's got that autotune voice thing going on that bugs the crap out of everybody. On the other hand, you've gotta check out what he's doing production wise. His producer is a straight up fantastic individual who really captures a lot of feeling in his music.
Example. A lot of Future's songs are about drugs and how he uses Sprite mixed with Codeine to be happy. Really poor summary, but there ya go. Anyway, you can feel the sadness and resigned attitude in the music that seems to be in the lyrics. I feel like a lot of the time you get people who just get some really good beats and then Rap whatever they want over top of that. This is not the case here. It shows that Future and his producer Metro Boomin' actually worked together on the songs so that they convey the proper feelings.
If you don't like this song I get it, Rap isn't for everybody and Future is an even more acquired taste to a point. Still, I like it and I thought I would share it with you as such.
I'll be honest, this wasn't the song I originally planned. You know what though? For such a fun time as the A to Z is I figured that I should at least try to get a music video up here. After all, last year being full albums there weren't really any music videos in there.
This band is clutch though, you've gotta actually see them rather than just listen because it makes it so much better, ya know?
The clothes, the instruments, all them celtic symbols, it makes the package complete.
I'll be honest, a lot of Prog music just gives me a headache. It's not straightforward and when I'm tired and all I want is the mindless churg of Nu-Metal Prog really doesn't work for me.
When I'm awake though and willing to give things the time of day though Prog stuff isn't half bad. The tempo changes, the weird timing, it's all really nifty.
Dream Theater is good at making their Prog not feel too weird though. Actually a lot of their stuff reminds me of Rush. At least the stuff that has videos does. The song I had planned on posting before I realized it didn't have a video does not sound like Rush at all.
Good band though, solid song. I'm sure you'll like this a lot more than the 16 minute song I had planned on posting, haha.
Artist: CeeLo Green
Genre: R&B, Hip Hop
Language: Strong
In case you live under a rock like I did in 2010 and missed this song, here it is! This was the theme song of a friend of mine for quite a while, he had dance motions and everything. Mostly it just involved flipping us all off, but it was still fun to watch.
CeeLo was one of the judges on The Voice for a while till he got in some legal trouble for being charged with rape in 2014. It was decided that he was not at fault (look it up for the deets) but afterward he took to Twitter and said some rather stupid stuff.
He lost a lot of his credibility in the industry after that and is still trying to recover from that. After all, this is not a subject to be spoken of lightly.
But let's pull back from dark topics, this is just a music blog. Enjoy the tune, think of who you can apply it to, and have a wonderful day.
So as a daily blog I'm not going to take today off like most all of the other blogs are gonna do. Instead I'm gonna run a runner up on Sunday since there's not really any extra letters to slip in, ya know?
Alestorm. Pirate Metal band. They sing about booze.
The thing that's really cool about these guys is the way they get into everything. They have a rather good sense of humor about things, dress like pirates, sing about booze and pirate things, and are all in all a good band on top of that.
Honestly the main reason these guys got runner up here is because I don't have too much to say about them, ya know?
To all my A to Z peeps, have a good day off, see ya tomorrow.
Artist: Brendon Urie
Genre: Alternative Rock, Pop Rock, Pop Punk
Nobody can argue that Brendon Urie of Panic! At The Disco is a fantastic musician with a rather impressive vocal range.
The only original member of the group, Brendon has decided to release material basically solo by recording most everything on the album. He's got some touring musicians but the album itself was written and performed almost exclusively by him, which is, in my opinion, a bit of a weird move. There was discussion before the album was released as to whether Brendon was going release it as his own solo project or as the 5th Panic! album. However on the day that the final original member announced he had left the group Mr Urie announced that the album "Death Of A Bachelor" would be the 5th Panic! album.
It's not a bad album and has a lot of good tracks, so if you liked them back in the day but stopped once the 2000s ended it's worth checking out again. Now please enjoy this rather interesting music video.
Artist: Alexi Laiho of Children Of Bodom AKA Wildchild
Genre: Neo Classical Metal, Melodic Death Metal, Symphonic Black Metal
Language: Generally Strong (this song is clean)
Welcome to the A to Z of 2016! I'm freaking pumped. Like, really pumped.
So the way we're gonna run this is if it's an artist we'll do a little bit of info about them in whatever act showcases their talent the most. If it's a band then we talk about the band. #EasyStreet
Alexi Laiho is one of the best Metal guitarists out there right now. Dude can play really fast while singing lead, but that's not all he can do.
First: He can do that live which is impressive in itself.
Second: He is literally almost always drunk at shows and it doesn't impact his playing or singing in a major way. It's actually really impressive to see as I think I posted in the past.
If you've never heard his band Children Of Bodom before then you should really make a point to check them out. They combine Classical music styles with Death Metal. Neo Classical is a very interesting type of music that, while not everybody's cup of tea, is impressive to see pulled off well.
Children Of Bodom pulls it off very well, and their newest album continues their trend of knocking it out. With the exception of one album that fans agree really wasn't that great they have put out solid music since 1993.
.jpg)
