eBay banning Death Metal.

[Solid Snake]

As a private business, eBay has the right to decide what it will and will not allow its users to buy and sell, and I can't fault them in the slightest for making this decision.

Free speech is protected by the government in the public arena. This is a private enterprise, however, so free speech laws don't exactly apply here. If eBay doesn't want to sell this crap, they're the ones who are actually losing money by choosing not to sell it, so I'm sure they rigorously evaluated each album before deciding they didn't want to make a profit from it, y'know?

I see no foul play here.

[Monkeybonk]

Imagine, for just a moment, a world without bands consisting of nothing but a bassist, drummer, and a guy who can't sing so he just yells and screams until his voice is raw.

I know about a million people who try to be drummers, play the bass guitar, and can't sing, so I guess if you totally got rid of angry Metal music, all the teenangsters would just be angry and write angry songs and scream angry words into a microphone.



No really, eBay banning Death Metal, this is seriously the best news I've heard all day. Get some god-damn taste and stop listening to that shit.

[ApathyMan]

Okay. First off, these are not Death Metal bands. They are Black Metal bands.

But yes, while eBay does certainly have the right to do this, it doesn't mean I have to like the decision. It's not like I'm going to "fight it" or anything, since Burzum's music really did promote neo-nazi ideals, but still...

... still...

Also @Zutsujin:

MAIDEN!!!

[Captain Hat]

The majority of you who are in this thread bashing black metal and death metal need to grow up fast and find a clue. So you don't like black metal? That's great. I'm happy for you to not like black metal. But to typify death and black metal musicians as morons who can't play their instruments is so patently false as to be utterly ridiculous: Extreme heavy metal of all varieties is some of the most technically demanding music there is to play anywhere. Not only are a lot of the riffs very technically complicated (particularly in grindcore, death and black metal), they are also played at such a fast rate that even the slightest slip can mean an entire bar has been missed.

This may not tickle your fancy: And I can understand that. I'm not about to call you rude names or claim you have no taste because you don't like something that I do. I like to think I'm mature enough to rise above using musical preference to judge someone else's character. However, typifying such excellent musicians as the guys from Emperor or Nasum or any of a hundred other death/black/grind bands as being "rubbish" simply because you don't "get" their music is fundamentally childish.

In addition, I wouldn't attatch a great deal of significance politically to the use of Odin's name in that of a band: A lot of black metal bands like to utillise a lot of Norse mythology and symbollism in their music and artwork because it's a step back to Northern Europe's "pagan" roots rather than because of any association with a political movement, Nazi or otherwise. A good example is my friend Ian Finlay, who has recently started drumming for a Sunderland outfit called Woden's Throne.

Unfortunately, however, it is still true that a number of black metal musicians have espoused Nazi teachings, so to a certain extent this doesn't surprise me. On the other hand, while I lack familiarity with a great deal of the body of work represented (I like grindcore, me), Emperor's members are certainly not among them.* While it should be clear to anyone with any familiarity with their work that they are anything but Fascist, they all start to get tarred with the same brush once the idiot racist faction starts piping up. It must be said, however, that much as with skinhead punk and its early association with neo-nazis in the UK, this is a very small minority of those in the scene.

At the same time, it's eBay's site, and eBay can do pretty much whatever it likes with it. If that includes stopping people from selling some fantastic slices of black metal to each other, then that's just the way it is. It may be the wrong decision, we can debate that until the cows come home, but at the end of the day it is eBay's to make.

*It should be noted that this doesn't mean that Emperor's members have always been sane, non-discriminatory or even remotely nice people, but I don't think they put any racism onto their records.

[Nique]

The majority of you who are in this thread bashing black metal and death metal need to grow up fast and find a clue.

There's a little tiny bit of oversensitivity here. I mean, if we want to start a real argument about musical skill and technical details, then all modern music falls on it's ass when put up against the intricate concertos of classical music.

If some in this thread have taken the 'name-calling' too far and not in jest, I won't defend that. But come on. I think, as a forum community centered around a webcomic, and a sprite webcomic at that, I think we can all afford to have a sense of humour about of tastes in entertainment.

I could rattle off the names of some bands that I listen too, just to be barraged with insulting titles like 'emo' or 'hipster', and I would think it's hella funny.

On topic, there is this question; is ebay placing ALL bands under this genre under ban, or are they defining a sub-genre of 'racists-bullshit-black-metal'?

[Captain Hat]

Originally Posted by Nique

There's a little tiny bit of oversensitivity here. I mean, if we want to start a real argument about musical skill and technical details, then all modern music falls on it's ass when put up against the intricate concertos of classical music.

Technically not true, since most classical music is composed with an entire orchestra in mind, whereas if you listen to a Tool album or even some Steve Vai songs (or, dare I say it, an Emperor or Opeth CD) you can hear them play very complex musical structures on only one or two instruments: Tool's polyrhythmic songs are a very good example of this, as they are structured so that the multiple rhythmic structures of the music fade in and out of resonance with each other, all reaching resonance ath the same time in the choruses. Not only is this kind of music very, very hard to write and orchestrate (no matter how many instruments you're writing for), but the guys playing the music have to keep in perfect time with only themselves as reference- and to top it all off, a single musician may be playing in several time signatures at once, depending on the song in question. At least a classical musician has the rest of his section to keep him in time.

Emperor's later work, particularly "Prometheus: The Discipline Of Fire And Demise" clearly displays a lot of influence from classical music by the likes of Wagner, also.

In addition, some modern guitarists can play the parts of several classical pieces at once on a single instrument. I would certainly not claim that they were inferior musicians.

I do take your point in terms of hostility, though I do have a virulent dislike of unjustified criticism. I see it as a sign of immaturity, and I apologise for the phrasing of that comment: I did not mean to offend the persons of those involved, but rather to counter their arguments.

On topic, there is this question; is ebay placing ALL bands under this genre under ban, or are they defining a sub-genre of 'racists-bullshit-black-metal'?

They haven't banned ALL black metal as far as I can tell (there are a number of important bands not on that list) though several of the bands they have banned have not produced racist material. There was some controversy about a comment a member of Darkthrone made about Jews a while back, but they deny being racist vehemently and for the most part nothing suggestive of racism appears on their records: Also, a member of Emperor once killed a homosexual man for propositioning him, but he wasn't one of the main writers and I don't think any of that sort of content made it onto their records. I never said they were particularly nice people. A lot of black metal bads like to publically espouse Satanism and so on, which I find to be a rather juvenile response to overly-structured Norwegian society and disaprove of to a certain extent, though not so much that I would see them banned.

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by Captain Hat

The majority of you who are in this thread bashing black metal and death metal need to grow up fast and find a clue.

Originally Posted by Captain Hat

I do take your point in terms of hostility, though I do have a virulent dislike of unjustified criticism. I see it as a sign of immaturity, and I apologise for the phrasing of that comment: I did not mean to offend the persons of those involved, but rather to counter their arguments.

You know what I see as a sign of immaturity, is loud proclamations of other people's immaturity, based on their insufficient appreciation of the mighty malevolent metals of the Heavy Black Death Wotans of rawk!

I'm sure it's incredibly intricate, technically demanding songcraft, that doesn't make listening to it any less like getting fucked in the ear.

You're certainly welcome to like whatever you like, and you're even encouraged to make your argument for its merits, but the next time you presume to proclaim anybody's personal inadequacy based on their inability to live up to your dictates on the range of permissible opinions, you can and will be removed from this forum.

As for your complaint about the 'majority' of people, I don't even know where that comes from - it was a minority of people in the thread even saing what awful sounding bullshit was the Black Death Ghost Nazi Scare Metal of Doom, and of those, I think like what, one person said it was due to anybody's lack of technical capability.

The next time you disagree with Monkey Bonk? Then just, you know, disagree with Monkey Bonk. Instead of announcing that every poster in this thread fails as a human being, because you disagree with Monkey Bonk.

[Captain Hat]

To be fair, I wasn't referring to your comment: You pretty much just said you didn't like it, which is fair enough. I was referring more to those who were inferring that the musicians in question were rubbish.

At the same time, I was pretty sure it wasn't just the one guy. I'm probably wrong, but I thought it was two out of three.

[EDIT]Yeah, I was wong. Bah. Teach me to only read a thread once. I have the short-term memory of a goldfish. At the same time, I don't think that just thinking something sounds bad is a reason to ban it. If I thought that, I'd advocate the banning of... well, a lot of stuff. Like maybe preventing that guy from Coldplay from ever opening his mouth ever again.

On second thoughts, that's not actually a terrible idea.

Err... Carry on.

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by Captain Hat

I'd advocate the banning of... well, a lot of stuff. Like maybe preventing that guy from Coldplay from ever opening his mouth ever again.

On second thoughts, that's not actually a terrible idea.

I believe we have an accord.

[Mike McC]

Originally Posted by Captain Hat

Technically not true, since most classical music is composed with an entire orchestra in mind, whereas if you listen to a Tool album or even some Steve Vai songs (or, dare I say it, an Emperor or Opeth CD) you can hear them play very complex musical structures on only one or two instruments.... At least a classical musician has the rest of his section to keep him in time.

Um, I would say the vast majority of classical music was written for small ensembles, the type that can fit into a room for a party. And I would like to see some of the bands reach the sheer complexity that is reached by Romantic era pianists and musicians. There is your complexity.

And I always find it funny when people get all up in an uproar over what a private buisness does, when they have the right to not sell these things. They aren't forced to sell absolutely everything by the First Amendment. In fact, the First Amendment sort of protects thier right to choose for themselves what and what not to sell.