Has album become a dying god?

Scene from the "A Dying God Coming Into Human Flesh" video, Celtic Frost

Just had a look at today's Wall Street Journal and read a story on Apple's iTunes. To cut a long story short, Apple is changing its "song selling" strategy to one of three-tiered pricing: Instead of the current 99 cents, songs will cost 69 cents, 99 cents or $1.29.
So, who is going to decide on how much a song is worth? The answer is the "invisible hand" of the so-called "free market," of course. Quoting WSJ: "... people familiar with the matter said the most sought-after-songs, which generate most of the sales on the service, will likely cost $1.29."
Now, iTunes, though still alien to many metalheads that like to feel and touch their music, is not a joke. It has sold 6 billion songs since 2003. All in all, digital music retailers in the US sold more than 1 billion songs last year alone.

The real question here is, are users downloading albums or songs? As the "product" is presented as a song, it is a safe bet to assume that individual "songs" are being downloaded and listened, who would want to download those "fillers" instead of purchasing an extra single from whatever band?

Thus, atomization, the trademark of capitalist mass culture, has started working its way into albums themselves. (Another disturbing sign would be that cute "Shuffle" button at your WinAmp, or that ominous iPod Shuffle device.) Cultural atomization presents "standardized, formulaic and repetitive" products into the "market," destroying any traces of authenticity or originality. That is only natural, because the driving force behind this "culture" is not the creation of culture, but the creation of "marketable" culture.

Having done a small Googling on the issue, I am pleased to see there are others out there who are worried. One asks: "Does the 'concept album' (aka The Who’s Tommy and Quadrophenia; Pink Floyd’s The Wall, etc.) ever stand a chance of resurfacing? Will more artists move to 'unit marketing' where they push the smallest possible pieces of content into a marketplace that mixes, matches, and rearranges (even more so that today)?" Another one gazes to a key point: "... there is a perceived notion that music criticism is no longer necessary." And Chuck Klosterman is really, really pessimistic: "… Chinese Democracy is (pretty much) the last Old Media album we’ll ever contemplate in this context - it’s the last album that will be marketed as a collection of autonomous-but-connected songs, the last album that will be absorbed as a static manifestation of who the band supposedly is, and the last album that will matter more as a physical object than as an Internet sound file."

The moral of the story comes from a blogger at The Independent:
"Our listening habits have effectively become one long, self-created compilation album. Whereas in the past you might listen to an album and establish which are your favourite tracks, your less favourite ones might well become favourites later on, because you'd listen to the album as a unit. No longer; we can easily discard the tracks we don't want - and, indeed, with iTunes or illegal downloads, never have to buy them in the first place. So the tracks we end up liking are informed by the judgement of others."

Having said all these, metal is still far away from the threat and if any genre is to protect its integrity, that would be metal. And for two reasons: First, the "marketability" is relatively low and second, its listeners are much better armed, either by instinct or by knowledge or by both, against the "invisible hand."

Still, something has to be done against the atomization, the fragmentation of music, through dismantling the concept of album itself. I would say that first the issue and the severity of it should be discussed and assessed. I hope such a platform to debate this mass culture of bastardization will be formed, by musicians in the first place, as the threat gets more visible.

Until then, we listeners should at least "ban" that shuffle button and listen our music the way it is meant to be listened. I, for one, will start with the mighty Dreamweaver!

Long live NWOBHM!

Steel plant in Birmingham, UK.

It has been three decades, but it yet remains a task for a documentary maker to properly reflect the rise, the glory and the fall of New Wave of British Heavy Metal to the screens. Seems an improbable task, in this age of commercial music. But nevertheless, history cannot be erased: NWOBHM was there, it affected a whole generation, transformed music and gave metal the edge, the direction and the raw power that many acts today still feed from - whether they are aware or not...

NWOBHM, though heavily influenced by punk, was also a reaction against 'commercialized punk,' as much as it was a rebellion against the "soulless virtuosity" that great bands such as Deep Purple were venturing into with overly complex rhythms and "half-hour-long" solos. That episode in history, when ideas collide in musical form, should be a lesson for the future, as similar - but never the same - collisions occured, and still occur, periodically. Thrash metal, a genre which this writer is proud to be part of, was heavily influenced by NWOBHM, while also raising the "flag of hate" against commercialized pop-metal. It drew a thick line between exploiting young anger and feeding from it; by being true to its listeners, thrash became to be our answer to the world. And yes, we learned NWOBHM "through" thrash, just like many kids who are hopefully learning thrash through today's modern metal acts.

Having said all these, this writer understands the musical importance of both Deep Purple and of Mötley Crüe, but what NWOBHM, thrash and today death metal embody go far deeper. They are the essence of metal, and that essence is definitely not only about music. The essence is of empowerment, organization, coordination, action, unity, all related to being part of something much bigger than a single individual. All those are reflexes and reflections of an oppressed but creative class. Tony Iommi's and Biff Byford's lost fingers still testify to what that class is.... So, long live New Wave of British Heavy Metal!

By the way, you might want to check the article on The Guardian on the genre...

Best metal albums of 2008

Hail of Bullets - ... Of Frost and War

Happy new year to all... 2008 was not a bad year in metal music, but not a great one either. Here are my favorite albums for the year:

... Of Frost and War, Hail of Bullets: Definitely THE death metal album of the year.

The Thin Line Between, Neuraxis: Not as good as the brilliant Trilateral Progression, but a band can hardly top that kind of masterpiece anyway. Passing on to a big label has had a negative effect on the band's music, if you ask me.

Twilight of the Thunder God, Amon Amarth: What can be said? The guys have done it again!

Ob(Servant), Psycroptic: Definitely one of the best releases of 2008, Psycroptic has matured beyond imagination. May be their "second best" album, after the yet-unreleased one :)

Antithesis, Origin: Brilliant riffing throughout the album.

Vertebrae, Enslaved: Deserve to be called the "King Crimson" of extreme metal...

Praises to the War Machine, Warrel Dane: Excellent lyrics, excellent music, great vocals... More than enough until the next Nevermore album...

Dark Invitation To Armageddon, The Scourger: The best thrash album of the year.

The Formation Of Damnation, Testament: On second thought, this may be the best thrash album of 2008:)

Traced In Air, Cynic: I don't think Cynic anymore fits into the realm of metal. They just make brilliant music.

Zero Order Phase, Jeff Loomis: Probably the most underrated guitarist of metal. But also the best and the most modest one.

Iron Will, Grand Magus: Imaginative and back-to-the-basics at the same time.

Karanlık, Ran: This one is from Turkey. Excellent Turkish-language heavy metal from two seasoned masters. Listen to a few of their songs on myspace...

Cynic and Veil of Maya

Here's an article of mine from 2005, one that appeared in the first issue of the short-lived Turkish metal mag "Agrikesici" (Painkiller). Tweaked the article a bit after all those years... But it is timely, as Cynic releases one of the best albums of 2008, "Traced In Air." Strongly recommended!


Veil of Maya

"The bourgeoisie turns everything into a myth, into shimmering patterns on the veil of Maya, into a virtual image on a virtual screen, so it becomes utterly impossible for anyone to get anything whatsoever straight." (Dar Zhutayev)


It's been more than 15 years since the world met Focus, the ground-breaking Cynic album. Some named it progdeath, some jazz/death and some only progressive metal, and the album, as might be expected from such a synthesis, did not sell much. But the target was not that anyway; what Cynic wanted was a permanent effect on music. Today, as we listen to Focus over and over after all these years, finding new things as we continue, shows the target is attained.
It is Internet cliche that progressive bands have an obsession with space, time or philosophy. For Cynic at least, the cliche proves to be correct. Let us dwell in the story told at Veil of Maya, the opening song of the album, the "most memorable" of them all.

In Maya's grip
Illusion transforms verity
Perceiving thus
A delusive world of duality
Veil of Maya
Balance every joy with a grief
Dual scales of Maya
Earth's unending law of polarity

All philosophy throughout history roughly falls under two categories: Idealism and materialism. Idealism, which reigned beyond dispute from ancient history to the end of Europe's Middle Ages, claims that "spiritual and non-material comes before the material one," furthering that the world outside thought and feelings is "unknowable." Some, such as Bishop George Berkeley, have even claimed the world outside does not exist independent of our thoughts and feelings. Thus, an insurmountable wall is erected between thought and matter and in the end, one claims objective knowledge "cannot possibly exist."
Added to that subjective idealism there is also the "objective idealism" that claims matter is "a manifestation of idea powers" like God. Islamic sufism, that finds its refined state with Mansur al-Hallaj's proclamation of "Enel Hak" (I am God), is a good example. Thus, the bigoted rulers who killed Mansur violently in the year 922 can be seen as enemies of knowledge and flagbearers of "subjective idealism."
As opposed to all these, materialism claims that the root of thought and consciousness, i.e. that who defines those, is the outside world. For materialists, thought is a reflection of matter, which is independent of thought and existed before it.

THAT WHICH IS NOT

Maya is one of the key concepts of Indian idealism, which has a history spanning thousands of years. In Sanskrit, it is defined as "that which is not," the unending and nonexistant imagination of the enticed mind. Thus, it has the power to create the impossible. God is an energy (shakti). Its endless energy and potential is summed under two categories: Spiritual energy and material energy, Maya. Maya is responsible of the creation of an imaginary world that is formed by names, shapes, time and space. "God first created itself, then the feeling of duality and then Maya. " (Guru Grant Sahib)
Thus, the Maya concept shows that ideas that are presented to us by Hollywood flicks such as "The Matrix" are rooted back in thousands of years. Let's look at Sri Guru Grant Sahib again: "That which separates us from the Divine Conscioussness is Maya for us. If it is wealth that separates us from the Divine Nature, our Maya is wealth. If those that make us forget about our divine condition are our spouse, children or friends, they are Maya. Thus, Maya is the feeling that the individual is a separate entity than the Divine Entity. Searching for the essence of being in other places than the Holy Spirit is also Maya."
So, one can say that the main function of Maya is "cheating the mortals." In this state of delusion, it is impossible for us to embrace the Creator. We would think the temporary as permanent, the fake as real, the ending as unending and the limited limitless. Indian idealism gathers all these "suppositions" under one state: Sleeping. All the world is asleep.
The individual under the influence of Maya is "Jeeva" and "Jeeva," forgetting the "only truth" that is God, thinks he is an independent entity than God.
At some point, Maya represents "the totality of material being" and shares the common idea of all religions that "the life we live is fake." But Indian idealism refuses to define the world as "real" or "fake," claiming it is neither. This situation, reminiscent of the Schrödinger cat, is called "Mithyaa," or "illusion." If the world and life is merely an illusion, it is not possible for us to understand and change it, because we are anyway in a constant state of delusion.
Leaving the individual powerless and defenseless against "unknown powers," this understanding is shared by many beliefs embraced by Latin American Indians to primal beliefs of Africa and Australia, from Conficius to shamanism.
In ancient texts, Maya is likened to "a fly that lands on a dirty mind," "the cloud that covers the sun," "the she-elephant that makes the he-elephant blind from lust," "a mountain of fog," "a trap used to catch fish," or "grape juice that entices flies." All these descriptions indicate that the roots of Maya philosophy lies at the primitive agricultural society.
Ancient texts also say Maya is "a female serpent that is attached to the world." Thus, the religion is linked to "modern religions." After all, the snake, as the "bad guy" of the Adam-Eve legend, is in fact Lilith, the goddess of a time when man and woman were equal. As great religions launched war against that old order, Lilith had, in time, turned into Lucifer.


MAYA SUBJECTS YOU

The "earthly veil" that Maya covers upon our eyes is told by Cynic as:

Illusion works impenetrable
Weaving webs innumerable
Her gay pictures never fail
Crowd each other veil on veil
Charmer who will be believed
By man who thirsts to be deceived
Maya subjects you

But Cynic does not emphasize the qualities of Maya only by lyrics. One of the two vocals in the song is mechanical and feelless, while the other is guttural. The change and relation between the two depicts the "deceitful dual world perception" and the hypocrity of Maya. The third vocal is Maya itself: A cheerful but also shivery female voice. The first two voices sing the chorus together in the first half of the song. Creating sudden contrasts between musical styles, fusion passages at the end of the first minute and in the end amplify the effects of "antagonism" and "bipolarity."