Metal Evolution

I heard that this was picked up for a second season and there will be episodes about death, black, doom, and even hardcore. Anyone know if this is true?

I actually read that a month or so ago. I guess VH1 was happy with what they saw early on and greenlighted a second season. I havent seen it anywhere else mentioned though.
 
I thought the Prog Metal episode sucked. They spent a big chunk of the show talking about and interviewing old prog rock forefathers .. Genesis, Yes and Rush.

They spent a large amount of time on Mastadon .. I didn't understand that. They aren't a band that really comes to the front of my mind when talking about prog metal. Good band, but I don't see them as this major influential force in the genre.

At least Queensryche and Dream Theater got some solid coverage. Savatage and Opeth got zero mention. Symphony X .. they showed their album cover for V .. oh boy. Weak episode in my opinion.


Britt
 
The only good thing about the Prog episode was the fact that Meshuggah got a bit of time. Overall it was a very weak episode. I mean I know Rush deserved to be included but nearly 20 mins on them alone?
 
I thought it was a fine episode, actually. They covered the leaders in just about every style of prog metal except for Opeth. It definitely could have been better if they shortened the prog rock stuff, though.
 
Nope, not even a mention.


Britt

Well, the FW logo, along with Savatage and Opeth, were on the visual tree they kept flashing to, but no coverage on them.

The one thing that I do appreciate about Dunn is that he is 100% honest about how familiar or unfamiliar he is with a genre. He admitted to not being terribly familiar with Power metal or prog. He also stated that Mastodon was the one band out of the genre he was currently a fan of. Those guys mentioned Yes, King Crimson, and Genesis alot. Therefore, that may have been his next step to work backwards into what influenced those guys. Hence, the series is about "evolution" and not simply covering every current well known band of the genre.

I agree the power metal one was better but for someone who seemed to be unfamiliar, it wasn't too bad.

I mean, I am sure there are some older guys who might have watched that who had no clue that classic prog bands were influential to a whole new breed of metal bands.

I was simply waiting for some Uriah Heep coverage, though all we got was a quick glimpse at the cover of Demons and Wizards. :)
 
The one thing that I do appreciate about Dunn is that he is 100% honest about how familiar or unfamiliar he is with a genre.
He is honest. However, I'd be curious to learn how in touch he's been with the genre as a whole, since growing up a Metal fan in the 80s...
  • He starts the episodes on both Power and Prog, by stating he's unfamiliar with the genres
  • He starts the episodes on Glam, Nu Metal and Grunge, by stating he's not a fan
  • He excluded Black and Death Metal from this series
  • He so badly botched the piece on Black Metal in his original documentary, that he had to include a companion piece with the DVD
I don't mean to be critical of the series; I thought it was excellent. Just curious how current and encompassing his listening habits are.
 
Or how limited he is in talking about bands that everyone can appreciate?

I mean, black metal is such an expansive genre, that I doubt he could have done justice to the Finnish scene (Beherit, Impaled Nazarene, Thy Serpent), the French scene (Blut Aus Nord, Belenos, Peste Noire, Deathspell Omega), the Greek scene (Rotting Christ, Zemial, Kawir), the US scene (Krieg, Judas Iscariot, early Nachtmystium, Xasthur, Von, Leviathan), and the countless other scenes that would take a while to highlight without a quick montage. But maybe that montage would be necessary, because it is such a diverse genre and not at all centered in Norway any more.
 
I mean, black metal is such an expansive genre, that I doubt he could have done justice to the Finnish scene (Beherit, Impaled Nazarene, Thy Serpent), the French scene (Blut Aus Nord, Belenos, Peste Noire, Deathspell Omega), the Greek scene (Rotting Christ, Zemial, Kawir), the US scene (Krieg, Judas Iscariot, early Nachtmystium, Xasthur, Von, Leviathan), and the countless other scenes that would take a while to highlight without a quick montage. But maybe that montage would be necessary, because it is such a diverse genre and not at all centered in Norway any more.
I'm not sure he needed to do justice to each individual country's scene. After all, if you don't need to include Fates Warning and Savatage in an episode about Prog Metal, it's more than reasonable that you could do justice to BM without covering Xasthur.
 
I do think a real fan would try to squeeze in as many bands as possible in a ontage of sorts just showing what bands sound like to show the range in each genre. As a fan making a series it would be one of the best aspects of doing the show....to give bands you like that may not be known outside of the metal world thier little bit of exposure. This is why I have issues with this guy. Like Zod said....so many episodes he had to explain that he had no idea about the genre and stuff.
 
If I never have to see another 'black metal documentary' as long as I live, I'll be just fine. Most of the time they offer absolutely nothing new and simply regurgitate the same Norwegian Black Metal facts that anyone with the slightest interest in the genre has already encountered. There are exceptions but they are few and far between.

That said, the S. American documentary that Zero Tolerance is working on looks to be EXCELLENT.
 
If I never have to see another 'black metal documentary' as long as I live, I'll be just fine. Most of the time they offer absolutely nothing new and simply regurgitate the same Norwegian Black Metal facts that anyone with the slightest interest in the genre has already encountered. There are exceptions but they are few and far between.
While I would agree that we don't need another documentary about Black Metal, I'm not sure you can create a complete picture of Metal's "evolution" without it.
 
While I agree 100% with everything everyone here is saying, you have to remember the target audience.
This is airing on VH1 Classic.

I would guess there are a good number of older metalheads and classic rock guys who watch THAT METAL SHOW who have checked these out. I am sure they were exposed to MANY bands for the first time from this series.

I mean, I didn't really expect the prog metal episode to do 10 minutes on ANACRUSIS, esp if he isn't familiar.

I stand by that for someone who isn't extremely well versed (Which is I think what seemed to have drive him to do this in the first place), he did most of the genres justice from an overall perspective. If you weren't familiar with power metal at all, and were intrigued, checking out Rhapsody, Blind Guardian, Helloween, and Nightwish wouldn't be a BAD place to start, albeit of course very limited in scope of the whole genre to guys and gals like us.
 
Yeah...no mention of Fates Warning is criminal in my opinion... I like the series but this was the weakest episode... the only part I liked was that Portnoy was wearing a King Diamond t shirt :devil:
Seems to me that he didn't talk about bands where he didn't have an interview with them or someone associated with them, so that may be the easiest explanation.
 
Seems to me that he didn't talk about bands where he didn't have an interview with them or someone associated with them, so that may be the easiest explanation.


I agree.... He largely focuses on those bands that have given him access to them, but to ignore certain pioneers in the genre or not even mention bands he has on his own list doesn't make sense to me.... and since when did Savatage become Progressive Metal???