System Of A Down Steal This Album Rock Music CD Review

System Of A Down, the richly talented Rock group have released their latest CD titled Steal This Album and Wow! It's really a good one.

This CD grabs your attention right from the outset with Chic 'N' Stu and won't let go until the very last note of the very last song Streamline, which by the way is another great track.

Steal This Album is a pleasantly varied, mix of 16 tracks that are very well written and brilliantly performed songs by these clearly talented musicians. Most of the songs display a lot of the kind emotion that makes for a really great listen. Clearly drawing from what I can only imagine are their own real life experiences. At different points touching on the most real emotions of love, and the pain of failed relationships can certainly be heard.

One of the refreshingly nice things about this CD is the way all of the participating artists seem to be really enjoying themselves. Combine that with the overall presentation and you've got one of System Of A Down most impressive releases ever.

If you're a System Of A Down fan this is a CD your collection flat cannot be without. In fact, this is one of those CDs that you don't even have to be a fan of lname, or even Rock to know is good. It's just good music. Period.

While the entire CD is really very good the truly standout tunes are track 11 - Highway Song, track 13 - Ego Brain, and track 16 - Streamline.

My Bonus Pick, and the one that got Sore [...as in "Stuck On REpeat"] is track 1 - Chic 'N' Stu. It's a great track!

Steal This Album Release Notes:

System Of A Down originally released Steal This Album on November 26, 2002 on the Epic label.

CD Track List Follows:

1. Chic 'N' Stu

2. Innervision

3. Bubbles

4. Boom!

5. Nuguns

6. A.D.D.

7. Mr. Jack

8. I-E-A-I-A-I-O

9. 36

10. Pictures

11. Highway Song

12. F**K The System

13. Ego Brain

14. Thetawaves

15. Roulette

16. Streamline

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The Origins of Metal From the Beatles to Black Sabbath

It is widely known that the origins of metal music can be traced all the way back to the mid 1960s, maybe even before than that, but metal bands did not come into existence until the formation of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. However, many bands had touched upon the sounds that they focused on (i.e. heavily distorted guitars and power chords) before they started to hone in on the potential of the driven sounds.

In 1964, for example, The Kinks released You really got me, which was centred around distorted over-drive guitar riffs. However, a lot has got to be said for the guitar playing on The Velvet Underground's debut album, The Velvet Underground and Nico. The influence of the distortion on I'm waiting for my man (1967) and the feedback on Heroin are clearly early forms of metal music. Lou Reed later released a solo album called Metal Machine Music (1975), which was a collection of distorted feedback loops. On the album's notes, Reed claimed to have invented metal music.

The late sixties would see the heavy metal sound gain more even drive in the mainstream release of Helter Skelter on the Beatles' White Album (1968). The heaviest sounding guitar song to that date, Helter Skelter is clearly an important step in the evolution of metal music and the reality is that is was written by Paul McCartney. Helter Skelter is definitely high up the ranks of proto-metal.

It's no surprise then that in the same year as the White Albums was released that both Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath formed, although in all fairness Jimmy Page had already started to develop his own interpretation of distortion, feedback and fuzz tone in his earlier band, The Yardbirds, along with Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton.

Led Zeppelin, exploded onto the music scene out of the break up of The Yardbirds with their debut album, Led Zeppelin. It featured heavy distortion, but the band's varying influences meant that their music wasn't solely rooted in metal sounds.

However, it was the formation of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple that created the concept of the metal band. Black Sabbath, Paranoid and In Rock all surged on the heavy metal bands' stake on musical history. Originating in Birmingham, Ozzy Osborne and the rest of Black Sabbath ploughed into the metal music scene, giving it a focal point along with Deep Purple. This focal point expanded with the start of Judas Priest in 1969. Also originating in Birmingham, Judas Priest's first album, Rocka Rolla, was the beginning of a massive musical legacy that has let to 35 million album sales worldwide.

Lots of other bands and artists contributed to a greater or lesser extent to the beginnings of metal music. Jimi Hendrix's fuzzed up riffs, for example, are a major source of inspiration for metal music even to this day. Iron Butterly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida is another good example of proto-metal music.

However, if Lou Reed says he's the inventor of metal music, who am I to argue.

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Review of Heavy Metal - Music From the Motion Picture

Of all the music I own, this collection of tracks in Heavy Metal, has to be one of, if not, my favorite. I have constantly upgraded the media - from wax to CD - ripped the CD to mp3s - lost the CD - accidentally deleted the mp3s - downloaded from iTunes. The music from this album, release in 1981, has held up well over the years.

Some will argue that the music is not "metal" and to an extent this is true. But the "metal" in the title is from name of the movie "Heavy Metal" of which this album is the soundtrack. There are some tracks that are early versions of metal (Nazareth, Black Sabbath for example.) These, mixed with the other tracks, provide a good cross-section of the music of the early eighties - metal, hard rock, pop, and I guess a Devo category which defies categorization (new wave maybe.)

Heavy Metal the movie is an animated collection of vignettes released in 1981 with the sci-fi and fantasy magazine Heavy Metal serving as its inspiration. The magazine was and is famous for its nudity and violence and the movie contains an ample portion of each though not to extent of the magazine. The soundtrack to the movie is sixteen tracks from a variety of artist and was released on a double album.

The songs from the solo artist rival, or in some instances, are much better than anything they have done elsewhere. Blue Lamp is one of Stevie Nicks' best solo releases ever. Donald Fagan, just coming off the breakup of Steely Dan, shows his jazzy style in True Companion. What Don Felder does here is just as good or better than anything he has ever done, with or without the Eagles.

Blue Oyster cult wrote several songs for the soundtrack to the movie but it was a song they didn't write for the movie that made the cut. 'Veteran of the Psychic Wars', cowritten by BOC's Eric Bloom and the science fiction/fantasy author Michael Moorcock, has been covered by the Finnish metal band Tarot and by Metallica.

Tracks from early metal bands (but not too early) Black Sabbath and Nazareth blend well with the hard rock from Riggs and Sammy Hagar. Hagar is at the height of his solo career. The two songs from Jerry Rigg's pseudonynous band are better known than anything else they have ever done. The song Prefabricated, is translated from the french and is by the band, The Trust.

Cheap Trick recorded "Reach Out" and "I must be Dreaming" for Heavy Metal. Power ballad "Open Arms" from Journey also appeared in the soundtrack to the movie "The Last American Virgin."

The high quality "Queen Bee" was probably Grand Funk Railroad's most notable track during their early eighties reunion. Grand Funk was one of my favorite bands from the 70's (it's also Homer Simpson's favorite band.)

Hard rock, guitars, keyboards, strong vocals - if you're looking for this sound, it's all here.

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Using a Lick Library to Hone Your Guitaring Skills

Especially in the rock music genres, the word "lick" is used to refer to a pattern or phrase that consists usually of either a series of musical notes or a short phrase and is often played in melodic lines or in solos. More often than not the term is used in reference to the guitar playing rock musicians. Some musicians recommend that one of the best ways to learn the guitar would be to practice licks, collect a variety of them in a lick library and learn how and when to utilize them so that you will be able to create good solos.

A lot of time is devoted to the practicing of scales when a person is first learning to play the guitar. There is not much benefit to that approach. There is a better way to utilize the practice time.

Scale practicing is not all lost. When you scale practice you are able to build up the strength and agility in your fingers. You will be training your ear for the patterns of the scale. You are learning the fret board notes. But if you think about it, scales itself is not music. Even the notes you play in a chord or in a solo did originated from a scale; you are playing them differently.

In music such as the rock, the blues and jazz, notes not in the scale are quite often used. Another point is that your scales practice does not help you when it comes to playing chords, solos and licks which are the building blocks of most guitar songs.

Here are a few suggestions for what you can do instead. When you are accompanying songs on the guitar, chords are mainly what you will be playing. So you should practice your chords. If you want to play them you will have to begin practicing them.

Continuing to practice scales do not help you do that. Another thing you can do is to practice playing licks. Practicing lick you have accumulated in your lick library will give you all the benefits that scale practice provides. Also, it allows you to directly utilize you skills in your songs.

It is a good idea to collect a large number of licks in a lick library and you will become skilled at knowing exactly when to utilize them when you begin to create your own solos. Another thing you can do is to practice intervals. This will bring it all together, because you will be able to play anything when you hear, and then play the intervals with the guitar.

Train yourself to think intervals instead of in scales and it will allow you to make creative solos and licks. Keep practicing licks and intervals, but also be certain to practice whole solos also. If you can learn a complete solo, that would provide you with a good finger workout. It teaches you the construction of solos.

This is a more productive process that continuing to practice scales. So these are the alternative methods you can use when learning to play the guitar. You will still get all the benefits that the scales practice gave you.

A good way to be able to improvise a song on your guitar is to build a foundation of both riffs and licks. It is said that successful players had all created a well memorized riffs library and also a lick library. While practicing, they would totally absorb their licks from many sources, so they will be prepared if the opportunity arose for them to perform a solo or give an improvisation. That process of learning through the lick library makes improvisation very easy because you will be able to blend you tunes.

There are several strategies you could use when approaching learning to play guitar. Utilizing a lick library is only one of them, but it has been proven to be effective. Learn more about using a lick collection to hone your skills as a guitar player.

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Learn to Play Heavy Metal

The heavy metal genre of music is known for exacting highly intense emotions from the audience; and this is precisely what separates it from other contemporary music genres. Once you develop a taste for heavy metal, you are unlikely to find any other music style so cathartic. If you are an intense person and have occasionally listened to heavy metal bands, you are sure to have a desire to learn to play heavy metal. However, the first step towards learning it must start with knowing the history of its origin.

Born out of the experiments of late 1960s, heavy metal took the shape of a separate class only during 1970s and 1980s. It originated from the fusion of old blues and rock styles and finds its uniqueness in heavy guitar distortions. The earliest music that could be termed metal came from bands such as Led Zepplin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath in the 1970s.

The later bands shed most of the blues influence and added more speed and loudness. You can find metal lessons in books, CDs, DVDs and also on many websites. An important thing is to keep away from irrelevant lessons and focus only on what is essential for metal music. Your lessons should be more focused on techniques like scales, harmonics, palm muting, tremolo picking, etc which support the aggressive metal style of playing guitar.

The learn heavy metal guitar course by Phil Wheatley is a complete beginner course for players who are venturing into the metal guitar niche. This course gives you a run through in exactly what a metal guitar player will require to start playing fast. With a detailed coursebook and more than 10 video lessons, the course available for download is the fastest means to learn to play the guitar for anyone. Phil Wheatley has offers some interesting advice on playing metal guitar on his blog and this is a good way to read the latest news in the music scene.

Heavy metal music is played at a faster pace and in a rather forceful style. Mastering strong and heavy notes as well as riffs will greatly improve you metal skills. These are important things to be kept in mind when you are looking for lessons to learn to play metal guitar. But do not allow yourself to be overwhelmed with the tricks of metal music and keep in mind that you are learning so that you can have fun. And you will sure succeed with patience and practice.

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Gorman's Rock and Metal Ultimate Guide.

Hi Gorman here, your Rock and Metal music connoisseur extraordinair inviting you to ask me anything rock and metal. Watch this space!!! for all your heavy metal and rock news, gossip, reviews and more.... coming very soon! right here! later dudes...

Can you imagine life without music? It’s very difficult to imagine no doubt, but one thing is certain, life would have been dull and boring had it not been for music. In fact you can never come across a person who says that they have never hummed a tune in their life or that they do not love music. Well everyone cannot become great singer, but we all exercise our vocals in the privacy of our bathrooms. If anyone says that they do not sing in the shower, chances are likely that are they are lying. Heavy metal music is a genre of music that evolved in the late 60s and early 70s. Heavy metal music is also referred to as metal music, and this music reached the zenith of its popularity in the 80s and many subgenres of music evolved from heavy metal music. The sounds associated with heavy metal music consisted of heavy guitar and drum centered sound with highly amplified distortion of fast guitar.

Devoted fans of heavy metal music are referred to as headbangers and metalheads world wide. Heavy metal music is characterized by loud distorted guitar sounds, dense drum and bass sound, emphatic rhythm combined with vigorous vocals. A typical heavy metal music band consists of a bassist, a rhythm guitarist, a drummer, a lead guitarist and a lead singer or vocalist. The vocalist may or may not play an instrument. Today heavy metal music has a variety of styles namely power metal; progressive metal and symphonic metal and most of the present day bands often make sure of the electronic keyboard. The heavy volume used in heavy metal music is a vital element of attraction towards the music for fans, especially for live performances. Most popular theme for songs of heavy metal music is violence, fantasy, sex and the occult.

Physical gestures are a vital part of heavy metal music and this is very much evident during live performances. Moshing, headbanging, hand gestures like devil horns, stage diving, air guitar and crowd surfing are very popular among singers and fans of heavy metal music. If you are thinking that heavy metal music is just a form of entertainment, then think again. Researchers have recently found out that heavy metal music can be a great source of comfort to teenage children. The study has found out that teenagers who regularly listen to heavy metal music cope better with pressures as compared to their peers. So now if you find out that your teenage child is hooked to heavy metal music you can just simply rest easy.

Heavy metal music has several subgenres. Underground metal is one of the broad categories of heavy metal music and there are five categories under this namely: death metal, trash metal, black metal, doom metal, gothic metal, power metal and trash metal. The sound that was developed by trash musicians was mush faster and aggressive then the original heavy metal music. Some of the popular heavy metal musicians and bands are Guns N Roses, Iron Maiden, Poison, Bon Jovi, Ozzy Osbourne and Deff Leppard.

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Heavy Metal Bands erupted on the scene in the late 1970's and since then have split into many sub-sets and styles. Each style carries its own variation with other styles mixed in. What we now call Traditional is usually a grouping of some of the original bands that were around before the genres split. Some examples of these groups include Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple.

Heavy Metal Styles

Black - Originates from Speed metal, Thrash metal and hardcore punk in the early 1980's. Black metal has had much opposition from mainstream culture due to many of its bands having an anti-Christian worldview. Typical instruments include vocals, electric guitar, bass guitar and drums.

Death - Originates from Thrash metal and early Black metal in the mid-1980's. Uses heavily distorted guitars, blast-beat drumming, and deep growling vocals. Inspired by groups such as Slayer, Celtic Frost and Kreator.

Doom - Originates from classic heavy metal, especially Black Sabbath albums of the early 1970's. Uses slower tempos and a much heavier and "thicker" sound. Lyrics tend to evoke a sense of dread, doom or despair.

Drone - Became more popular in the early 1990's. Drone metal melds Doom metal with the long duration tones of drone music.

Folk - Developed in Europe in the mid 1990's. It fuses classic heavy metal with traditional folk music through the use of folk instruments.

Glam - Also known as "hair metal", it arose in the late 1970's and stayed popular through the 1980's. It combined the looks of glam rock with the power chord hard rock style of music.

Gothic - Combines heavy metal with gothic rock. Originated in the early 1990's from a mixture of death metal and doom metal. Popular bands include Paradise Lost and Anathema. Lyrics are brought out through gothic fiction and personal experiences.

Groove - Sometimes referred to post-thrash, originated in the early 1990's from genre's including thrash metal and hardcore punk. A popular Grove Metal album would be Pantera's Cowboys from Hell.

Industrial - Draws from heavy metal and industrial music using sequencer lines, distorted vocals, sampling, and repeating metal guitar riffs. Established in the late 1980's, popular bands include Fear Factory, Ministry and Nine Inch Nails.

Metalcore - Gets the name from a fusion of hardcore punk and heavy metal. Metalcore is different from other punk metal bands because of the emphasis on slower and more intense breakdowns that are conducive to moshing.

Neo-Classical - Heavily influenced by classical music, Neo-classical metal is a very technical music performance that was established in the 1970's and 1980's.

Nu-Metal - Developed in the 1990's, this music blends both hip-hop and grunge with classic heavy metal. Popular bands include Korn, Deftones and P.O.D.

Post-Metal - Originated in the early 2000's, post-metal is characterized by minimal vocals with distorted guitar and heavy atmospherics. The group, Isis, is usually credited with originating and making popular post-metal music.

Power - Originating in the mid 1980's, it is a mixture of classic metal with speed metal which adds in a symphonic element, usually through the use of keyboards.

Progressive - Established in the mid 1980's, progressive metal is a mix of classic heavy metal with progressive rock. Early bands mixed heavy metal from groups such as Metallica and Megadeath with progressive rock bands, namely Rush and King Crimson, who were already fusing some heavy metal into their music.

Sludge Metal - Originating in the late 1980's, sludge metal is a mix of both doom metal and hardcore punk. It is aggressive with shouted vocals, contrasting tempos and heavy distortion. It moves through slow paced songs that have brief hardcore tempos.

Speed - Established in the 1970's and 80's, speed metal is characterized by extremely fast and technically demanding song sets. While still popular today, more prevalent is the toned down version of speed metal called thrash metal. Motorhead and Judas Priest were two of the most influential bands of this genre.

Thrash - Originating in the early 1980's, thrash metal descends from speed metal. It is characterized by low-register guitar riffs and shredding style lead work. The "Big Four" of thrash metal are Metallica, Slayer, Megadeath and Anthrax.

There are many other types of Metal that cross genres to create their own style, including Alternative, Avant-garde, Christian, Crust Punk, Extreme, Funk, Grindcore, Rap, Symphonic and Viking Metal and others.

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