Females and Metal

[edsped]

Shouldn't matter. But I'll leave you all with this.

https://www.google.com/search?clien...g&biw=1240&bih=674&sei=0Ab3T5KCFYn88gSoxMn-Bg

Thank me later. Courtney Cox is amazing.

She sure does like her push-up bras.

 

[groph]

This is the part that annoys me about some women in metal. This picture deliberately plays up the whole "OMG, I'm a cute hawt rebel metal chick!" aspect, and it's completely crass. Women seem to be afraid that, if they're not willing use their feminine wiles to market themselves, no one will pay attention to them. However, whenever I see something like this, it only serves to cast a shadow of doubt on their musical integrity, as far as I'm concerned.

Having said that, my favorite "woman in metal" would probably be Leilindel from the band Unexpect. She's supremely capable of both operatic cleans and harsh screams. Additionally, her vocals are used as one thread in the tapestry that is Unexpect's music, they don't focus on it simply because OMG FEMALE METAL SINGER!

Xaios, we're on good terms but I'm going to challenge this

On the first paragraph, I'd wager a bet that it's because women are in a near 100% male dominated area of music that is pretty excessive about its "tough guy" image or some values of traditional masculinity. Metal encapsulates anger, aggression, etc (and I'm talking about the image, I know lots of individual guys who like metal aren't stereotypical manly men of masculine man-ninnity who hail from Mantopia). and women in metal have to overcompensate to be taken even the least bit seriously. Then they're subjected to the commentary of guys who can only talk about how they find said metal girls attractive or not, often with little commentary about actual talent. The "metal chicks" I'm aware of often overdo the hell out of the leather, makeup, dyed hair, spikes, straps, boots, etc. whereas all a guy has to do to look "metal" is have on a band T-shirt and jeans.

But hey, sex does sell, but I don't think it's fair to in a sense blame women in metal for using their attractiveness to their advantage - my point is that's basically all they can do within this particular subculture. They're basically looked at as groupies, even the ones who are all "done up" to look "metal." The problem isn't necessarily even how they look as far as clothes go, surely women dressed "normally" or more conservatively (IE a band shirt and jeans) are still subject to the same bullshit commentary (OMGTH, a hawt girl in metulz! or She doesn't really like metal! What an attention whore!). Same thing goes for girls/women who post videos of them playing guitar/drums/whatever. Even the comments that do praise their talent or lack of it often also say "and I'd still bang her, too!" I guess at the end of the day there's a double standard.



EDIT: As far as favorite women in metal go, I don't really have any. I'm not big into metal with operatic vocals, most female-fronted bands haven't wowed me, but this is because I haven't heard that many and those I have heard I didn't care for musically in general. I suppose Linda of Warface is pretty awesome although I don't care much for the band. She's a pretty competent guitar player in death metal, though.

 

[The Uncreator]

Sex does sell, but I cant imagine buying an album because the singer looks good. It just doesnt even seem like something anyone over 13 should do.

 

[The Reverend]

Courtney from Unicron
Krysta from IWABO
Whoever was in Into The Silence

I don't know how I feel about women in metal. I've been ruminating over this question for this entire thread, and a clear stance has yet to come to me.

I generally don't think that women vocalists can handle screaming and growling as well. Outside a few examples (Cerebral Bore comes to mind) women just don't have the edge in their voices that translates to a savage, low-range roar. Without posting audio examples, it's hard to explain, but a good ear can often pick female screamers/growlers out.

As far as female musicians go, stop playing fucking bass. Why do women love the bass? I guess I'll never fucking know. This does bring me to the main point of contention I've found with the idea of women musicians in metal: I feel as if a lot of them are only mediocre, and get more attention and props because of their gender. I'm not seeing Govan, Petrucci, Abasi, or even Broderick level talents here, but they're way more famous than most equally talented men. What the heck, fellas?

 

[ilyti]

Food for thought:

It's been mentioned several times now that most women in the rock/metal scene just happen to be hot, as well as talented. More power to them! Of course, opinions are subjective, and I wouldn't call every girl posted in here "hot." But has anyone here ever heard of any women in metal that are "ugly"? Most are really good looking, others are average. I can't think of a single woman in metal I would consider "ugly". Which leads me to believe that part of any female fronted metal band's success is tied to how good looking the woman is. The lesson learned from that is, don't hire an ugly girl for your band, no matter how good she is. That's kind of unfortunate.

Prove me wrong, folks!

 

[Xaios]

Xaios, we're on good terms but I'm going to challenge this

On the first paragraph, I'd wager a bet that it's because women are in a near 100% male dominated area of music that is pretty excessive about its "tough guy" image or some values of traditional masculinity. Metal encapsulates anger, aggression, etc (and I'm talking about the image, I know lots of individual guys who like metal aren't stereotypical manly men of masculine man-ninnity who hail from Mantopia). and women in metal have to overcompensate to be taken even the least bit seriously. Then they're subjected to the commentary of guys who can only talk about how they find said metal girls attractive or not, often with little commentary about actual talent. The "metal chicks" I'm aware of often overdo the hell out of the leather, makeup, dyed hair, spikes, straps, boots, etc. whereas all a guy has to do to look "metal" is have on a band T-shirt and jeans.

But hey, sex does sell, but I don't think it's fair to in a sense blame women in metal for using their attractiveness to their advantage - my point is that's basically all they can do within this particular subculture. They're basically looked at as groupies, even the ones who are all "done up" to look "metal." The problem isn't necessarily even how they look as far as clothes go, surely women dressed "normally" or more conservatively (IE a band shirt and jeans) are still subject to the same bullshit commentary (OMGTH, a hawt girl in metulz! or She doesn't really like metal! What an attention whore!). Same thing goes for girls/women who post videos of them playing guitar/drums/whatever. Even the comments that do praise their talent or lack of it often also say "and I'd still bang her, too!" I guess at the end of the day there's a double standard.

Again though, it's being brought back to image. Look at this photo again:

This photo screams TIIIITS!!!

You're right in saying that all a guy has to do to look "metal" is to wear a band t-shirt and ripped jeans. However, they're not generally marketed based on their looks. Groups with competent musicians who write interesting music shouldn't have to partake in such banality. They can be wearing clown makeup and bear skins on stage for all I care. I doubt anyone disagrees with that particular point. The fact remains, however, that a much greater portion of metal bands featuring female members market themselves on style, rather than substance, than bands solely comprising of men, and I simply can't be arsed to care about bands that sell music that way, because they're not actually selling music.

If a band's plan is to sell records based on sex appeal, then power to them. However, don't expect me to respect them as a musicians if that's the road they take. If the music they make can't speak for itself, no quantify of breasts and cleavage on an album cover will make me any more inclined to buy their album. And the simple truth is that metal bands with female members are far more apt to do exactly that.

Maybe I'm not being realistic about "how things work in the real world, yo," but that's how I feel on the issue. The argument keeps coming back to the fact that they can't sell their music based on the traditional metal image. I counter that maybe they should focus on selling the music based on its own merits instead of an image.

 

[skeels]

In the 80s there were tons of ugly chicks in so-called metal bands making it big...

Does anybody get where I'm going with this one?

*crickets*



Oh well... Yellow Machinegun. Best two minutes of my life.

 

[highlordmugfug]

^^I you.
EDIT: That's aimed at Xaios. Fuck every band who has a female member that thinks flashing me is going to get me to give a shit about them, it's the opposite.

 

[artmachine]

So many "bands" use image or a gimmick to sell records or gain noteriety(which blows) and it's honestly kind of easy to do that with metal, so recruiting a female member is just a very easy way to do that. But claiming that all heavy bands with female members are just using her as a gimmick is totally bogus. Any band that's willing to do that would find another way to do it without a female member. Look at all the mall metal/"scene" garbage, that is 100% image/trend over music/art and those bands consist of mostly male members. Some stuff just sucks, regardless of the sex of the members of the band.

I don't think either of these bands use their female members for anything except that they're constructive members of their bands who value the music they play and create.

 

[bhakan]

I think Aliases have the right idea. I completely forgot they had a female guitarist until they were posted in this thread. It's probably easier for them, as a female guitarist sounds no different from a male, unlike vocals, but they don't at all market based on "LOOK WE'VE GOT A GIRL IN OUR BAND."

 

[Xaios]

So many "bands" use image or a gimmick to sell records or gain noteriety(which blows) and it's honestly kind of easy to do that with metal, so recruiting a female member is just a very easy way to do that. But claiming that all heavy bands with female members are just using her as a gimmick is totally bogus. Any band that's willing to do that would find another way to do it without a female member. Look at all the mall metal/"scene" garbage, that is 100% image/trend over music/art and those bands consist of mostly male members. Some stuff just sucks, regardless of the sex of the members of the band.

Whoa there, kemosabe. At no point in time did I claim that "all" heavy bands with female members practiced this style of marketing. I said a greater portion. And while the sceneXcore image is equally as abhorrent, that's a different matter.

 

[artmachine]

Whoa there, kemosabe. At no point in time did I claim that "all" heavy bands with female members practiced this style of marketing. I said a greater portion. And while the sceneXcore image is equally as abhorrent, that's a different matter.

That wasn't strictly directed at you by any means and I know you didn't say "all", but a lot of the talk in this thread is definitely hinting at saying that MOST of it is gimmicky or even saying that women in heavy music have no other choice than to exploit the fact that they're women. I guess I just come from a different scene for the most part. I'm more a part of the "touring the basement/collective circuit and knowing your band is never really going to be a financial success", so I'm very opposed to any sort of gimmick/image/catch/lack of genuine passion, so I just think people are looking in the wrong places if they're finding so many gimmicky bands. Like I said, the band exploiting their female member would do that in some other way if that wasn't already their catch. I guess I just don't blame the women in these situations any more than I do the 4 other dudes in her band who probably recruited her in the first place. And I'm definitely not trying to sound pretentious or self-righteous, I mean, I even said I know the stuff I do and I'm into will never be super popular.

I guess I just think that extreme music/underground music kind of already puts you in the minority and being truly passionate about it and participating in it can sometimes make you butt heads with society/your average joe/joanne, so it's a bummer to see one minority being kind of prejudice towards another minority within that group.

 

[TheFerryMan]

Lol. forgot about these guys.

 

[Mprinsje]

 

[Ckackley]

Some food for thought- The lead singer in my band dresses the way she does to be sexy, yes.. To be noticed ? Yep..
However she also does it , because it makes a lot of men really uncomfortable. She runs the band and does all the business. You ever see a typical bar promoter try to deal business with a hot, confident girl ? It's kinda funny. She also doesn't see a need to hide the fact that she's a chick behind a t-shirt. Manowar and black metal guys can wear armor and no shirt , but she can't wear a bra top ? All of the "core" bands can wear jeans three sizes too small but she gets shit for wearing a miniskirt ? C'mon now guys....

 

[AxeHappy]

Meh, I don't think there really is a double standard per se. Just guys tend to like metal more than women.

How many ugly, truly successful male pop start can you think of?

People like to look at beautiful people. It's pretty much that simple.

I do not give a flying fuck about the gender of a person in a band. I listen to the music, and if I like it Yay.

My band actually has a female singer, but we didn't look for one, we just held auditions and it turns out the best singer whom showed up happened to be female.

 

[shellbound]

 

[oddcam]

This was not what I expected at all. I like it.

 

[tacotiklah]

Meh, I don't think there really is a double standard per se. Just guys tend to like metal more than women.

How many ugly, truly successful male pop start can you think of?

People like to look at beautiful people. It's pretty much that simple.

I do not give a flying fuck about the gender of a person in a band. I listen to the music, and if I like it Yay.

My band actually has a female singer, but we didn't look for one, we just held auditions and it turns out the best singer whom showed up happened to be female.

This is the way it's done, and should be done. Base judgments solely on talent and not eye candy. Dudes in extreme metal styles are ugly as hell anyways, so you'd think they'd be less prone to wanting eye candy.

 

[SomeGuy97]

Since she was mentioned earlier in the thread, just thought I'd put this here since I hung out with her tonight:

"Lzzy" Hale, myself, and Arejay. Both really cool and REALLY down to Earth. Got really smashed before and shortly after this.