About Tastes, Arguments and Judging - grrroOOOOOoowwwwl it OUT!!!

"And you should get more into growlers... just ignore the growling if you want, there's usually lots of dynamics in their music!"

This is a posting by "Blueprint", and has been agreed by "Ayreonaut" on the forum of Progpower Europe as a final comment to my ppe reviews. I want to memorize Lamneth's article Tribalism in Progressive Circles.

What I can say about the growling is that it is not my favorite art of expression. I am listening to growlers since a couple of years, and it will never be my preferred vocal technique. There are some I can enjoy pretty much, and some I cannot stand at all. I divide them in four categories:

1) The expressive ones - Used to create a sonic vision of something evil in a story to be told, such as Amaseffer use in their outstanding prog metal bible soundtrack epic trilogy. I love them one hundred percent.

2) The atmospheric ones - used alternatively to clean vocals for creating a dark or evil atmosphere in genres where guitar alone (or even with keyboards) cannot achieve it. Why not? If it turns out any good...

3) The "for-the-sake-of-it" growlings - In the beginning there was the growling, the came the lyrics. All music gets written around it so the growling has a base to float over. I dont' have any sense for it, there is no beauty in the music for my music analyzing neuronal patterns.

4) The production enhancing growls - Now we have produced a very strong album, but what can we do to improve sales results? We should bring some growling in, that will attract the other half of the metal fans as well. I call them - like they are meant to be - evil. Evil commerce.

So, what happens if those cookies come along when I'm tuned in to progulus radio? I get tears in my eyes (1), just let the music play and wonder if and how it will please me (2), press the mute button because the music bothers me (3) or consider the band being lost to the deeps of capitalism (4).
If it fills the air at such a genious festival like Progpower Europe, I have a great option: I walk through the door and do the second thing I came for: talking to some of the great people I have the opportunity to meet.
Concernig to Blueprint's idea of just ignoring the cookies, well, I can't. At least unless one offers a growling filter implant.
But all in all, Blueprint is right, many bands really do great music, and the fact that I can't stand the growling and therefore will not listen to them is a tragedy.

So much for my statement about cookiemonster vocals. I will not say silly things like "I hate people shouting at me this way" or something like that. There is this one thing in man that has no reason: taste. It is the way it is, and one cannot say why. In this human here, a strong growling intolerance is given. but hey, it is my taste! I don't actually am against it on purpose! I just don't like to hear it. I would never say it is a bad thing because of reason xy. Bad for me in person only because I miss some great instrumental work, but I will never tell anybody to not growl unless he/she were in a band I've founded.
Lamneth complained about one who said that Opeth are killing the death metal genre by bringing in some clean vocals. Well, I bet it was a young one who's overly supportive to that genre so he doesn't want to go beyond it one little step. It was an opinion, nothing more. A person with a rather narrow range of taste. That won't make this person a bad guy at all. I bet if I meet that one, we could have a great time together.
We here are proggers. We love this kind of music and support it in all ways we can. In common we share tastes. Even if we have sort of tribalism, which I tend to call differences in taste. Is that bad?
If I made friendship only with proggers here in Munich, where I live, I would be a rather lonely person.
Imagine a person that is highly intelligent and smart, has a high class job that makes him a 1st class income, but is straight to the ground and simply a great friend. And then you find out he's a country fan. Would you turn your back on him and call him a moron? I don't think so.
In the nineties there was a great guy being sound engineer at the studio where I worked. We were hanging out in bars and street cafes pretty often, simply having a great time. one day we began a discussion about how a good radio show would have to be made, how much variety it should have, and all that kind of ideas. It took some two hours and we agreed in simply every aspect, until we came to the point where we started to name bands to be played. We've found out that I was the metal guy and he was a straight to the heart hip hopper. Man, that was a laugh!! But we've remained good friends and spent plenty of great time together until life tore us apart 10 years ago. I still think of him often.

All we people on this planet have different tastes and should respect each other's. Some 25 years ago, when I was into jazz (among other genres), I turned and walked away because of the elitism of the jazzers. In the here and now I experience the same elitism in prog fans and gotta shake my head.
Intelligent music - being open minded - convert the sheep to prog - no hope for the morons ... I hear and read terms like these way too often in the progressive corner. Are we really that better than the rest of the world?
The doctor who saves your live loves classical
The bakerman who produces your bread loves marching music
The farmer who grows your vegetables loves country
The constructor who built your house loves trip hop
---> All morons? Not worthy?

Stop the elitism! Stop evangelizing! Or you are the moron...
Yes, play your preferred music to people you like. But when they ask you to stop, then stop. Respect their tastes.
Taste cannot be controlled, neither can it be manipulated. Gladly! If that were possible all our governments would do it. A horrible scenario.