The thing with music is that there is a vernacular of musicology. The problem with rock is that pretty much anything like the Melvins is a very short conversation. Blues, slower, sometimes fewer intervals, long. That's it. Talking about the audience gets to the genuine subtleties in the music (timbre, tone, production etc) much quicker than describing what valves they use on their amps. It's usually easier to use oblique, inexact euphemisms than it is to treat music like a lab-case.

I'm telling you this like you're a fucking idiot, rather than playing the fucking idiot.

The 'indie kid meme-set' [incidentally, that's a grotesque phrase] is a paradigm that predates any exact chronology. Again, inexact language.

Regardless of all this, the Melvins remain shit. Although there was one track I like.

I don't have a problem with The Melvins' alleged approximation of metal as such, since metal has a mutant nature that is one of the most absorbent compared to other variants of rock music. I did get a sense that a portion of the crowd at their gigs might as well been attending any other band called The Melvins, though, but that's just another personal impression.
I am with demonrail on this, the tone on their guitar is there in sound, yet there is a distinct lack of licks, or touches, for wanting of a better word, that would make their music that little less motionless, or dead end, like somebody already pointed out, and more spirited-sounding. What I'm probably trying to say is that they don't seem to understand that pacing down the playing shouldn't mean that you have to let it die a boring death, you could just give it a sense of occasion that their records lack completely.

They're no Maiden. And in not being Maiden, they're no Priest either. They're barely Man-O-War.

They're Whitesnake for the Volvo generation.

A few years ago I was listening to a punk compilation, and there was a Melvins track on it. I started listening to it, thought "this sounds like Metallica" and skipped to the next track.
Around a month ago I decided to buy a Melvins album because I like bands like Boris and Metallica now. I decided on Stoner Witch. Half way through listening I turned it off. I know Melvins fans will say I didn't give them a proper chance or I need to listen to more, but I just don't want to.

Acid King is better.

Dont you mean the Polvo generation

They're Stoner/Doom's MC5: a great idea on paper but boring as fuck on record (admittedly I've not seen them live).

Blue Cheer were better, too.

Speaking of bands with massively inflated reputations.

i respect the melvins a ton and really like probably five of their albums, but god, when they aren't good, they suck ass. just a lot of really dull half-assed ideas all around. give me flipper, godflesh, swans, electric wizard, boris, neurosis, etc. over these clowns* any day.

*jk buzzo, i still love you. i'm only doing it for the sake of this thread. :7(

I love the Melvins. Just enjoyable to listen to in my ears.

i enjoy eating eggy toast in my mouth

Polvo should make a volume 2 for sure. Any volunteers out there?

They're alright. Some songs are pretty damn good, others make me yawn.

I saw them live. The show was sold out, we didn't have tickets...but were let in right before they played. They had 2 drummers for the gig, which was really cool; and their stage presence was commanding.

My favorites are Stoner Witch, Ozma and Houdini.

Well, yes, but if you want to distinguish Metallica from Melvins, you're going to need be a bit more exact than the audience as, in this case, "indie kid" is obscure to the point of phantasmic. This is why I used that grotesque phrase which, in the way I am thinking of it, puts the audience in a post-2000 confluence of transmutable ethics and aesthetics. To extend it before then would require a terminal dose of retrospective plying and Melvins certainly predate it. Are there genuine, subtle differences between Metalllica and Melvins that make the latter any less legitimate? I just get the sense that this typically spins out of relevance to be saying that indie kids are shittier than metal kids so the Melvins are shittier than Metallica, all while pointing at unsubstantiated continuity of subtleties. I don't think there is any saving grace evidence there within the subtleties to provide a narrative of music quality that makes Melvins necessarily shit. It begins with first impressions.

I'm sorry, I'm taking this too far. I just haven't thought about the Melvins, or even the quality of any music, in such a long time that I'm reopening my own reservations. I'm thinking of deleting this post. The Melvins are just a band.

their latest album was quite numetal-y in places, truth be told. Theyre ahead of us all.

Well, this is the thing - either you understand what I said or you don't; the meaning is pretty self-evident - of course there's a presumed value-judgement within the context of what I said. This isn't absolute, but it isn't therefore obscure. I don't believe you don't understand what I said, and what I was getting at. I also don't think you're thinking I was making an empirical statement. I think you're well aware that I was describing why I don't like the Melvins. I'm sure you're aware this doesn't matter one jot in the great manner of things. You can complicate matters all you like (and you do seem to like it) but this isn't a thread for an analysis of the suppressed premises of blithe internet statements on bands; neither is it the thread to disentangle the horizon-point of semiotic saturation within the given context. It could be, but you're going to have to re-word your questions better in order to make it so, otherwise you're just being a prick. Obviously, in kind, I'm being a cunt.

a lady once told me that her husband "has been friends with the Melvins for years"

I was unimpressed.

ps: our King Buzzo always stated that he HATED the Melvins. the gremlin changed his name, I'm sure.


why would you do such a thing? have you started breathing yet??