Cookie Monster

I had mentioned this earlier in my Thrash Metal blog, but it was brought home to me again after listening to a band called Baroness, their so-called Blue Album.  The music itself was excellent, yet it was completely marred by the atrocious singing, if you can even call it that.  Yet again, Cookie Monster showed up to sing. (Fortunately for this band, their recent Yellow/Green double album dials down the Cookie Monster considerably).

 Mastodon is a similar band with excellent music and terrible vocals.  Opeth has finally released a non-prog, regular album, Heritage, with no such vocals on it, and with the addition of songs from that album the live set has finally pushed the CM variety into the minority.   We can expect one song from Damnation, not the whole album, but at least the rest of the set is no longer mostly growls.  Which is even more peculiar, because Mikael Akerfeldt, the singer, actually has a damn good singing voice.

 Look at the Big Four of Thrash, finally playing together.  Of these, only Tom Araya (Slayer) has a gravelly voice; we can probably blame him for this trend.  “If he can get away with it, why can’t all these other idiots with zero singing ability?”  James Hetfield (Metallica) has the best of the four: a nasty biting, rasp which is still intelligible.  Dave Mustaine’s (Megadeth) voice is almost identical, full of venom and contempt but still recognizable.  And Joey Belladonna (Anthrax) can belt it – no subtitles needed. 

 I predict two things: (1) bands like Opeth will continue to sell more records and be more successful so long as the singer actually sings, and (2) the hardcore deathcore yahoos will sneer “sell-out” when a band moves out of the Cookie Monster box, a demographic which could fit into a small room, into the demographic of “normal, intelligent people” who prefer to hear real singing – you know, like Rob Halford or Bruce Dickinson.  Welcome to the real world at last.