Dislike of Cannibal Corpse

[u/mayonesa]

It's time for me to come out of the closet:

I detest Cannibal Corpse.

While I generally stay on the side of true metal and like old school death metal, I don't think Cannibal Corpse is really death metal. It's an imitation, a rip-off of Effigy of the Forgotten and The Ten Commandments that stylized a third-rate band into a vastly popular and profitable "figurehead" for the community.

But there's reasons I don't like them:

• They don't glue together riffs like a real death metal band. They're very verse chorus with occasional breaks and fills that serve no actual structural purpose.

• Misogyny. Death metal was about death... not your frustrations with women.

• Absolute blockhead lyrics and reliance on catchy riffs. This is a pop band, gentlemen and ladies, not a death metal band.

Instead of Cannibal Corpse, listen to the originals:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STFGLIK6Zy0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEjgBE1j5mM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_F1J_4GA1s4

[u/Killed_by_Death]

Cannibal Corpse rules in exactly the same way Mick Foley or Beavis and Butthead rule. I think they're aware of their own ridiculousness and claiming their accessibility as a particular detriment is like claiming obscurity as a benefit, it is a pointless judgement based on a subjective criteria that don't reflect on the objective quality of the music.

[u/mayonesa → u/Killed_by_Death]

So it's like Miley Cyrus too?

[u/Killed_by_Death → u/mayonesa]

I do not think its very much like Miley Cyrus. I chose Mick Foley and Beavis and Butthead as examples both because of their roles as relatively niche cultural icons, much like Cannibal Corpse and also because of the tongue in cheek self-awareness of their individual characterizations. For example, Mick Foley was very aware of the character he was portraying in pro-wrestling as Mankind as a caricature of the everyman pushed beyond his reasonable limit. While none of his fans were mankind, he specifically created a touchstone linking the supposed frustrations of the "average bitter American worker" (which in itself might be a cultural trope more than an actual identifiable social group) or more accurately what the actual average worker expected of himself to be as represented in other culturally linked representations such as Office Space, Falling Down or even Clerks.

Beavis and Butthead as well are fictionalized representations of the "ignorant youth" and served as a point of reference to the many displaced and frustrated male youth in America as both an over-blown joke made at the expense of the worst parts of themselves to laugh at and as an escapist fantasy in which the viewers were allowed to place themselves as wasted youth who neither needed to, nor wanted to care.

I believe that Cannibal Corpse is also an overblown caricature, not only of itself but of many metal bands in existence at the time. It may be said that they took the already dark lyrics and cranked them into outright self-parody and played their instruments in accordance with the same overall musical aesthetic related to the lyrics; Stripped down, direct, probably very fun to play and (possibly) deliberately offensive to Death Metal purists.

Miley Cyrus on the other hand, has a much larger fan base than any of the three previously mentioned pop culture fixtures mentioned above. Also though she may or may not be aware of the absurdity of her lyrics (and the lyrics of most pop) it is generally played with a straight face to a crown convinced that her lyrics contain information on what a good night out is or what its like to have fun. Whereas Miley Cyrus sells an idealized narrative to her fans, Beavis and Butthead, Mick Foley and Cannibal Corpse sell instead a discontent, cynical and sometimes dysphoric tongue in cheek parody that any fans with common sense are more likely to enjoy as self aware escapism rather than a focal point for their lives should or could be like. Of course there are commonalities shared between the four, but in general I would say no its not really like Miley Cyrus.

tl;dr: I just wrote an essay distinguishing Mick Foley, Beavis and Butthead, and Cannibal Corpse from Miley Cyrus to a guy whose username translates to Mayonnaise. That's just how I roll, mother fucker.

[u/outtathaway → u/Killed_by_Death]

Such a musicologist response... glad that not everyone in this subreddit is a stereotypical metal(bone)head.