MUSIC and Me throughout the years

Okay, so I think I'm going to start off by introducing the bands I always listen to in my seclusion. Of course, I seldom get to come out and talk about it to my friends since too few of them know what it is at all, and this has been going on since I hit puberty. (Note: Discography here is pertaining to what album from those artists that I own and used to own, not the artists' full list of releases)

1. Rage Against The Machine

The band whose songs became the anthem of my early teenage years, inspiring me to be a non-conformist and a rebel at heart. I got introduced to them when I was 12 by the music video of Guerrilla Radio. “At 15 exposed to Philly’s finest killing machine..” I found my head banging to the music when I was only 15 when I decided to find them out. Tom Morello is an ace with his turntable-scratching-like guitar, but it was the bass sounds by Tim Commerford that got me groovin’ with RATM’s brand of funk music. Zack de la Rocha’s style is venomous, while Brad Wilk is the rolling drummer.
Whilst at lower secondary school, secretly I enjoyed the band’s music, something that I got to indulge in only in private as none of the people around me would listen to music as hard as this, and something I hope more people would do…that is, to appreciate music.

Discography:

1. Rage Against The Machine
2. Evil Empire
3. The Battle of Los Angeles
4. Renegades
5. Live at the Grand Olympic Auditorium

2. Audioslave

Not many of my friends know the dire truth that ¾ of Audioslave is made up of RATM. Chris Cornell originally is the vocalist of Soundgarden. Of course, I got so excited over the news of Audioslave’s formation, since I miss the good music by good bands so much after the music scene is very much being saturated by chugging riffs of the so-called Nu-Metal, something Commerford allegorised with ‘an easy Maths problem’ in a live phone interview with Malaysian Hitz.fm radio.
Despite the majority, Audioslave is not an extension of RATM in terms of music. Cornell’s soulful vocals is very delightful to listen to, and Morello’s guitar pyrotechnics is something lovers of good ol’ rock relinquish from. However, on the third (and last) official album, Revelations, I was shocked to hear political lyrics being sung by Cornell on it although I’m much very used to it with RATM as he was the one who refused prior to the band’s formation. Now, RATM is back on the scene, performing live on rallies to music enthusiasts and for just causes alike.

Discography:

1. Audioslave
2. Out of Exile
3. Revelations


3. HIM

I got my first taste of razorblade-sweet love songs when I was 17 in the song Gone With the Sin from this band hailing from the Scandinavia, so painfully good that I got into Gothic (and started to believe in love) ever since. The best part is, it has got the old rock spirit in it despite its compositions are being rather contemporary pop rock. This band are: Ville Hermanni Valo (chief songwriter/vocalist), Mikko “Linde” Lindstrom (guitarist), Gas Lipstick (drummer), Mige (bassist) and Burton (keyboardist).

Discography:

1. Greatest Lovesongs Vol. 666
2. Razorblade Romance

3. Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights
4. Love Metal
6. Dark Light
7. Venus Doom (special edition)

Compilations:

1. And Love Said No: Greatest Hits 1997-2004
2. Uneasy Listening Vol. 1 (Remixes)

4. Cradle of Filth

The fact is, I had first listened to Black Metal music with Singaporean As-Sahar (Intifada album) when I was 16, introduced to by a guy called Joe Slaughter 666 (no, I’m positive he’s not from the band Sil Khannaz). COF is more melodic, focusing on Gothic themes. The Metal guitar in the overdose of Nymphetamine was so beautiful that I pay no heed to warnings of explicit contents of Dani Filth’s dirty lyricm nor of Black Metal’s notorious reputation as what the local media’s quick hotcakes are made of.

Discography:

1. The Principle of Evil Made Flesh
2. Cruelty and the Beast
3. Midian
4. Lovecraft and Witch Hearts (compilation)
5. Damnation and A Day
6. Nymphetamine
7. Thornography

5. Children of Bodom

This is another Finland’s export beside HIM and Nightwish. COB’s brand of Death Metal music, introduced to me through the album Hate Crew Deathroll is energetic, a make-no-apology headbangers’ ball. Alexi “Wildchild” Laiho is on both guitar and vocals. Although literally suffering from headache from the loud music and growling vocals during the first listen, the album was fast becoming among my favourite soundtrack during furious times.

Discography:

1. Hate Crew Deathroll
2. Follow The Reaper
3. Are You Dead Yet?


6. Nightwish

I’m going to talk of Nightwish in terms of Tarja Turunen’s era as the band’s vocalist. I first listened to them on the final album with her - Once. It is an opera Metal band centered mainly around Tuomas Holopainen’s piano arrangements, and supported by Emppu Vuorinen on guitars, Marco Hietala on bass, and Jukka Nevalainen on drums. Tarja’s operatic vocals are particularly strong on epic tracks inspired by folklore subjects as well as literature by J.R.R. Tolkien, and the band’s ballads are lushful despite not being inspired from profane love themes. The Netherlands’s export Within Temptation is a neo-classical Gothic Metal band that uses a female as the main vocalist like Nightwish.

Discography:

1. Oceanborn
2. Once
3. Highest Hopes: The Best of Nightwish (CD+ Live DVD)

Other Listening:
Within Temptation
- The Silent Force
- The Silent Force Tour (DVD)

Epica

7. Tristania

Tristania is a melodic Gothic Metal unit hailing from Norway, another Scandinavian nation. It has since changed lineup- I first listened to them on the album with Vibeke Stene as the vocalist- World of Glass, in which the band returned to its earlier style of music that deliberately mixes Gothic choir and classical female vocals with Black male vocals on a canvas of melodic Gothic Metal music, resulting with rough Metal gems unique to this band. Ashes revealed more of the band’s industrial side of music, an prominent approach that has taken by Theatre of Tragedy, another Gothic(-Doom) Metal unit that uses female vocalist.

Discography:

1. Ashes
2. World of Glass