"Is Rock Dead?"

[Liam]

Thats the thing, most grunge fans prefereed Alice In Chains to Nirvana, but AIC didn't have the mainstream crossover sound that Nirvana had, ergo, more people prefer Nirvana.

I'm a bigger AIC fan than a Nirvana fan.

HIM are a very poor band. Fair enough, you listen to one of thier albums, and think it's pretty good, and then you check out thier rest of thier albums, and realise they are pretty much the same. They have a couple of good songs, but thats it.

Also, I don't care if people think the Darkness sucks, I find it hard to argue against how talented they are. Fair enough, you may not like the songs, but thier ability is unquestionable. Fair enough, they are no Tool, but they have shed loads of ability.

[Big Tuna]

HIM are a very poor band. Fair enough, you listen to one of thier albums, and think it's pretty good, and then you check out thier rest of thier albums, and realise they are pretty much the same. They have a couple of good songs, but thats it.

Also, I don't care if people think the Darkness sucks, I find it hard to argue against how talented they are. Fair enough, you may not like the songs, but thier ability is unquestionable. Fair enough, they are no Tool, but they have shed loads of ability.

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[Liam]

Yeah, I agree that Justin Hawkins vocals are an acquired taste, but as you said, the beats and riffs are all pretty cool otherwise. So, whether you like them or not, you can see that there are some redeeming features, as they can actually play pretty damn good, and the riffs and everything are pretty awesome (again, not on a par with some of the riff shreddersof the past) but still refreshing in an alternative music scene full of Emo and Pop Punk.

[Cactus Drags]

The Darkness are talented, yeah, but I'm not a fan of their sound.

[DMN in the House]

I'll admit, my biggest problem with The Darkness is Hawkings. I don't really like their sound all that much either.

I won't sit and argue with you about HIM, I'll just say that Love Metal is one of my five favorite albums of all time.

[Liam]

I'll admit, my biggest problem with The Darkness is Hawkings. I don't really like their sound all that much either.

I won't sit and argue with you about HIM, I'll just say that Love Metal is one of my five favorite albums of all time.

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Love Metal is cool, as are most of thier other albums. My main problem is that there is very little progression.And unlike a band like Motorhead (who play the same sound in every album), the sound isn't that dynamic that you can do that. They needed to do something different, and they haven't.

Take it this way, if 3 or 4 different bands released one of HIM's albums, and only one, the albums standing alone would be pretty alright. Just when put into one bands back catalogue, you see little progression, or none, its a bit of a let down.

HIM's "Wicked Game" >'s you though.

[Farmer Reil]

I also think that some people are too "mainstream-phobic". When a decent mainstream band comes along, people are too interested in being kvlt, tr00 and br00tal to accept that this band, although commercial, are a good band. It's stupid really, but it comes down to image.

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[Liam]

I also think that some people are too "mainstream-phobic". When a decent mainstream band comes along, people are too interested in being kvlt, tr00 and br00tal to accept that this band, although commercial, are a good band. It's stupid really, but it comes down to image.

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Name ONE new band that's been inside the Top Ten recently and didn't suck, other than the Darkness?

Go on.

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Well, I like Indie, so that would be easy.

Kasabian, The Killers, The Kaiser Chiefs, Keane (meh, not great, but there's a lot worse), Athelete (again, ok), Snow Patrol, Franz Ferdinand.

Fair enough, if you look at Rock, it's a lot harder then that. Lostprohets are one of the only mainstream bands to have success, and they are rubbish.

[Gabriel]

I'll admit, my biggest problem with The Darkness is Hawkings. I don't really like their sound all that much either.

I won't sit and argue with you about HIM, I'll just say that Love Metal is one of my five favorite albums of all time.

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Love Metal is cool, as are most of thier other albums. My main problem is that there is very little progression.And unlike a band like Motorhead (who play the same sound in every album), the sound isn't that dynamic that you can do that. They needed to do something different, and they haven't.

Take it this way, if 3 or 4 different bands released one of HIM's albums, and only one, the albums standing alone would be pretty alright. Just when put into one bands back catalogue, you see little progression, or none, its a bit of a let down.

HIM's "Wicked Game" >'s you though.

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[Liam]

Yeah, I can understand why people like HIM, and I do like some of thier stuff, I just like progression from album to album, or I get bored. Obviously, if you like one song of thiers, you'll tend to love the rest, which is cool I guess.

I also quite like the lyrics as well, even if I'm not big on the songs.

[Cactus Drags]

The Lost Prophets hating is getting pretty tired. They were pretty good when I saw them at Birmingham Academy last year.

Iron Maiden were in the top 10 recently, Reily, as I thought I'd already mentioned. Don't you dare say they're not a good band.

[apsham]

My only exposure to Lost Prophets was "Last Train Home" and I like it, why do people hate them?

[tristy]

Eh, Lost Prophets just aren't my thing.

They sound extremely pre-packaged, to me atleast.

[Cactus Drags]

They aren't pre-packged. I admit they've polished their sound quite a bit, if you were lucky enough to hear the original Fake Sound of Progress, you'd know it was much more raw then the version that got a mass release. People seem to hate them for being a boyband with guitars, but personally I don't see where they dramatically changed their style. If you ask me, it's boybands who started dressing more alternative...

I will admit that the American accent they sometimes use is incredibly irritating, thankfully when I saw them they spoke with their native Welsh accents.

[RPS]

They aren't pre-packged. I admit they've polished their sound quite a bit, if you were lucky enough to hear the original Fake Sound of Progress, you'd know it was much more raw then the version that got a mass release.

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Hahahahahahahahaha.

You know, you just contradicted yourself, right?

[Liam]

They aren't pre-packged. I admit they've polished their sound quite a bit, if you were lucky enough to hear the original Fake Sound of Progress, you'd know it was much more raw then the version that got a mass release. People seem to hate them for being a boyband with guitars, but personally I don't see where they dramatically changed their style. If you ask me, it's boybands who started dressing more alternative...

I will admit that the American accent they sometimes use is incredibly irritating, thankfully when I saw them they spoke with their native Welsh accents.

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The hating may get tired, but it's for a reason. For me:

1)Fakesoundofprogress was good, and then they went from being really raw to being an extremely polished, radio friendly band........selling out (and I hate that phrase, but thats what they did).

2)Ian Watkins seems to think he is God's gift to music...when thier latest album came out, he was like "you've never heard anything better"...I know it's all about hype, but humility is possible as well. He's been like that since....I just hate him.

3)The American accents, yet being from Wales, annoys the fuck out of me.

4)I've seen them live...I can understand why people find them good live, but honestly, it was a big apathetic waste of 30 minutes for me. Luckily Placebo were on afterwards, who blew them away (easily one of the best live bands I've seen)

5)Like a lot of modern alternative singers, Ian Watkins thinks he's Mike Patton, and he's about a million miles away from being as talented as the guy. He just sounds like a cheap knock off at times.

[Cactus Drags]

They aren't pre-packged. I admit they've polished their sound quite a bit, if you were lucky enough to hear the original Fake Sound of Progress, you'd know it was much more raw then the version that got a mass release.

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Hahahahahahahahaha.

You know, you just contradicted yourself, right?

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[Liam]

With the last one, I meant more vocal stylings than anything, so that does directly influence the music. I just think he tries to do stuff he can't do, be too versatile (more live than on CD) and he just sounds naff.

I just think from the 1st album to the 2nd album was this big commercial change, and it just sucked.

I invented this philosophy on the UK music scene a little while ago, and I'll let you see what you think.

Lostprophets aren't overly the most talented of bands, yet they are getting big and rich and famous, along with lots of other half decent bands. Bands that are then starting out think "Wait, why try and do something different, when we can just do this bog standard music style and become big and famous as well". They then do that, and we are inundated with worse and worse alternative bands on the UK Music scene.

It's kinda what happened when Nirvana were big....they were good, but so many bands after that tried to be them. I'm just worried that the UK music scene is going to go to shit because bands wanna sound like the Lostprophets.

[Cactus Drags]

Interesting perspective, but I don't hear too many bands that sound like the Lost Prophets, in fact none come to mind as I type this. I'm too worried about the originality, I think we're doing jsut fine at the moment. I've recently gotten into the local music scene here in southampton since becoming a student, and though there's a few blantant rip-off bands, there are plenty of good, talented bands with some decent original material. which will perhaps become more obvious once the emo trend dies out.

[Liam]

I wasn't talking about bands currently ripping them off, I mean in the long term.

Like, when Busted got big, we then had McFly, and we have some other naff poppy bands out now as well. If Lostprophets is the only Mainstream rock band, then we might see loads of rip-offs in the near future.

I know there's a lot of diversity in the underground, just worried that the UK Alt scene will be spearheaded by Lostprophets and thier clones.

And for the record, I actually think that Ash and Muse are the best British bands going (commercial bands), even though they get mucho hate.