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Alright, I know this has been done to death before but I'd like to generate some wider discussion about what you think its place in the magazine is.
I've gone from being massively opposed to it, to the realisation that, like every genre, there are good and bad bands and perhaps Terrorizer has a duty to report on the good and lambaste the bad, like we're supposed to with everything else. I do believe there are good bands that fall under the wider and often meaningless banner of 'deathcore', but a lot of bad ones.
I'm reluctant to just dismiss the whole lot because musical history is full of things that the preceding generation saw no musical value in and obviously that didn't mean there wasn't any.
Will people look back on the period in which Terrorizer stumbled into an awkward clinch with deathcore the same way I look back at the Boo-Yah Tribe and Spineshank features in the late '90s?
Your thoughts please!
Yes. It's no worse than the majority of death metal, plenty of which already clogs up the mag. My tastes don't really coincide with what the mag puts in it so I'd have to say yes.
I say cover it a little, just don't go overboard with it.
Everything in moderation is the key.
Ah okay.
Well, in that case, it depends if you want to go just for the quality stuff, as Was suggests, or what a large percentage of your readership wants and feature the B and C league stuff.
I'd love you to go for option A, but business is business...
'Business is business' should be the new strapline!
Extreme music - No Boundaries. That's the soundbyte, right?
So, more contemporary classical, jazz and noise. I think Terrorizer can learn alot from The Wire and Rocka Rolla, without wanting to sound patronising.
Would it sell more magazines? NO!
Deathcore is undeniably a form of Metal, and it bears strong resemblance to Metal subgenres Terrorizer already covers - it should definitely be included. Don't worry about avoiding the more popular Kerrangy! bands, either - that never put us off Slayer or anyone else with mainstream approval.
so, what's deathcore then? who is an example of it? The Black Dahlia Murder?
I have no idea about this sub-genre.
WAS: not so sure about jazz, but there is definitely a place for some contemporary classical in Terrorizer, since it's often more extreme than the art-metal bands they tend to cover.
Amen, RB. True dat!
Sun Ra is more kvlt than any hairy motherfucker in the latest issue, that is for certain.
However, would including such luminaries put kids off reading it, or inspire them to seek out new musics?
I don't know.
It wouldn't suit the market to say the least. The "no boundaries" tag is just a posture really, nowt wrong with it. Just saying is all.
The posters here don't represent the average readers whatsoever I'd imagine. Ex-pro musicians, professionals, middle-aged collectors post here. If I was 15 I'd be fucked if I'd sit down and listen to some old shit like Sun Ra, Robert Fripp, Comus or whoever I like to now. I wanted to listen to Anthrax and Hard-Ons as loud as possible, get access to girls and alcohol and pretend to be older than I was. Tp paraphrase Slipknot, teenagers = shit.
I read the UKDM special (which may or may not be deathcore) and listened to the fear candy extra but none of it did anything for me. So if deathcore is included I'll simply ignore it. no one forces us to read every page.
i just think it's a shame that Tez seems to have lost the willingness to look beyond metal for extreme sounds. You had articles on Borredoms and Scorn but it seems that writer has gone and the remit has narrowed. I think it's due to the editorial change but if you're going to include deathcore can you not expand to encompass others?
Cool, H-R.
This is a good way to find new music actually. When a band I enjoy lists influences / bands I haven't heard of, I am usually interested in checking them out.
I think it should be covered but Terrorizer should avoid bandwagoning like the last issue. By proclaiming these young British death metal bands to be the next big thing just comes across as hype and I feel that it will look bad on the magazine in a few years time when the majority amount to nothing. We really don't need Trigger the Bloodshed on every page. I also feel that the time and effort would be better spent on finding new bands that are doing something special.
I did feel that the stance taken by the 'British death metal special' was slightly Metal Hammer-ish - not in the quality of bands, but the presentation I meant. But anyway, you can't really say 'genre x should be totally excluded from the magazine' because there's always overlap. It's not like every band in the magazine is liked by all of its readers, is it? If there's a feature on a band I don't like, I don't read it, I just skip to the bit about Brutal Truth's new album.
I think the comparison to 'folk metal' is a good one - a lot of that is just aimed at stupid teenagers in Viking hats, but no disputes whether or not it's metal, cos of course it is. Same here really.
It's certainly crucial that Tegs continues to support non-metallic extreme music, as it is preferable to wholly metallic extreme toss, and it's been an important facet of the mag from its earliest days.
There was an Industrial Special being planned about eight years ago, what happened to that? Oof, hang on, of the staff I discussed it with in a boozer in 2002, NONE are still with us...
Still, good idea though.
Industrial special = awesomeness.
Deathcore? Sure, why not.
It should be included, yes.
It won't make me start buying it again...
Terrorizer was my fave mag before I started writing for it strictly because it covered a range of extreme music, not just metal, and I'm sure not all youths out there are consumerist zombies, and many are curious to find out about bands that don't have ringtones yet, metal and otherwise.
The very question 'should T cover deathcore' manifests a process of narrowing its scope. Suddenly the question is about deathcore and not about Pansonic, Coil, Diamanda Galas, Boris etc. In the current issue the Earth Crisis feature isn't mentioned on the mag's cover - No, I don't point that out cos I wrote it, but cos it shows that even EC is now in the margins of what we cover.
I can't think of any reason for this narrowing down besides a conclusion that that's the way to sell more copies. I'm saddened that the very identity and uniqueness of the mag must be sacrificed in order for it to stay afloat. I can only hope that when the economy stabilises, this tendency will prove to be reversible.
I can also wonder, genuinely as I don't know the stats and figures - is going strictly metal with the added nod to 'what kids dig' the best way, commercially speaking? Because quite often I bump into people who enjoy a range of underground genres and never heard of Terrorizer precisely because it doesn't cover industrial, experimental, post-rock, etc. These people are mostly over 30 and very loyal - the kind of people who still buy CDs or vinyl. Perhaps they can/should be made more aware of Terrorizer, and perhaps covering more ground combined with letting other crowds know we do is more beneficial on the long run than constantly second-guessing what the kids would be into next?
Say, if there's an industrial special, ads can be placed in mags/websites that cater to this genre.
Yeah all that.
I think SatRad has hit the nail on the head. Much as I kept on requesting a p.e. special in Tez actually I think it's pretty pointless. ZT have not only done a 3 part industrial special but now have a pe noise feature every issue. Rock a Rolla covers the post rock, avant-garde angle and I read Tez for the extreme metal side of things. Maybe it's no longer appropriate for a magazine to cover everything, I don't know.
Each magazine has it's select audience.
You will anyway because it's a large part of your readership nowadays.
A lot of us who just shrug our shoulders at the vast majority of deathcore (though, as with any genre, there are gems - Beneath The Massacre take a bow) have faced this a while ago, so isn't this thread a bit pointless unless you want another 'Is Deathcore Shit?' thread?
TEZ CREW GIFROLL