I think the sight of Corey Taylor with his mask on with those three girls alone would be worth the ticket price

I actually bought the album off iTunes .. seriously

It's one of the most brilliantly insane albums i've heard in years!. There's one track that actually goes in to a reggae beat in the chorus and another that goes full on dubstep - and i mean FULL on dubstep. Skrillex would be proud!

With the one with the reggae chorus, I was listening to it on the bus today and actually said to myself "What in the actual f**k ?" ..

Quite brilliant. Curse you Ted for making me spend a tenner !

Funny, that was almost exactly my feelings watching the video. It was quite clear that the "backing" band were legitimate, talented, genuine metal musicians and the ones playing most of the actual "music". Yet even during the instrumental sections, the focus was clearly on the girl dancers/singers with the guitarists, drummers, et al out of sight, purely a means to an end.

It almost reminded me of death metal when it started as well... but the girls are just the usual formulaic Japanese 19-year-olds-masquerading-as-13-year-olds fare the Japanese seem to find cute. To be fair, the dance routine is professionally done and I'm sure it took quite a lot of skill to learn properly, but the vocals are still annoying and pointless, the girls cutesy-rather-than-cute (*), the song itself a novelty without even managing to seem novel.

Somewhere in that backing band, the seventh most talented guitarist in Japan is wondering where it all went wrong, and how the **** he ended up whoring out his skill as the faceless backup for a novelty "band" consisting of three teenage dancers manufactured for emotionally-stunted otaku to lech over and waste silly amounts of money on.

(*) Or whatever the word is that's to "kawaii" as "cutesy" is to "cute"....... "kawaiitsy"?!

I agree with you but just wanted to point out these ones actually are really young - one is 16 and the other 2 are 14 (and they've been doing this for years too). Being that they're Japanese they're probably only 4 or 5 foot tall as well :O

The other two are now 15 apparently ..

This is worth a look .. certainly one of the heavier ones on the album (which i keep listening to, so i'm clearly going deaf soon )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDqaTXqCN-Q

It's amazing just how many bands, containing very talented musicians, get totally overlooked. Stick some jailbait on the front & look what happens.

I think you are standing in the way of progress. Why shouldn't Metal just be cut up like any other music.? The musicianship is in the studio these days and this Baby Metal is very inventive.

Indeed. It's incredibly creative - having reggae, dub step, techno, hip-hop and death metal all on one album in a manner that actually does work, obviously IMO, is something that should be applauded.

But then when metal purists want to get in the way of course

Metal gets mixed with other genres all the time. I don't have a problem with that.

I got introduced to Megitsune and at first I was like WTF?!?! am I going to have nightmares, but by the end it was so infectiously catchy that I couldn't help but like it even though Babymetal is everything I should hate in one package.

The album is great, I love all mish-mashing of genres. It's the only way I'll ever listen to metal music at least.

So what's the problem with this one? Metal isn't a very serious genre anyway?

Finally got round to watching the video in post 1.

It's manufactured pop/pap that's even worse than The Saturdays and The Spice Girls. All the focus on three girls who aren't playing anything at all and the "singer" is miming.

An utterly worthless, manufactured, commercial gimmick. File under Sigue Sigue Sputnik.

I dismissed Sigue Sigue Sputnik in the same way at the time but listening back there's a certain presience to their music and their methods. SSS were sending up the very industry that produced them and I think they were quite aware of that. And did Frankie GTH not simply do the SSS stuff better than them?

Well singers do generally tend to mime in music videos ..

But I don't think you can seriously refer to that as "pop" ..

And here's another one.
http://metalhammer.teamrock.com/news...-get-1-8m-deal

Not as cute though, are they?

Actually the links were interesting...I like the English Dogs song "Turn Away from the light'? And Rob Halford looks well for his age...looks like he wants a shot at Glastonbury. I think Iron Maiden are more likely candidates though.

Goatwhore, Dying Fetus, God Seed are great names even if they sound like parody names.

What on earth are you talking about?

ETA - Never mind. It's the sidebar, isn't it?

Actually it's the News page of Metal Hammer, is it not?

Do you think that one is ever limited in this internetwork of connectedness?

The wee guys playing metal were boring.

Me and my gf got the album a while back and liked it pretty much straight away

It's just something different. I like artists that push the envelope a bit, and a lot of metal bands seem stagnant or stuck in the past at times.

I don't care what the girls look like, or how old they are, I don't really watch music videos anyway,

Why not? It's as dumb as anything on TOTP in the 1980's, but with a generic "heavy metal" guitar backing, similar to that which comes out of those toy electric guitars for young kids. Pete Waterman could easily have produced something like this. There's nothing radical about it at all.

I like you

The intro to Akumu no Rinbukyoko sounds like Meshuggah

Well its good to see the next shit fad in metal is well underway. I was getting sick of the "Beauty and the Beast" vocals, "deathcore goes deathmetal for realz" or the never quite dying "nu metal is still dope yo".

Worst part is D'espairs Ray and the like will never get a look in whilst shit like this is pumped out. Japan has some great metal bands, sadly they also like to sell pokémetal.

Why do so many of their detractors sound so angry? It's only music, don't listen to it if you don't like it. Why is it bad that someone hasn't noticed all the same bands as you? Everyone has different taste, I wouldn't expect everyone to have the same taste as me, and don't care if bands I like have got a look in, or haven't got a look in because they don't happen to be mentioned frequently by a few people on digital spy. I don't listen to music based on how popular it is. I would say if the band you mentioned are out there, they will indeed have been noticed, and got a look in and have fans, since you've heard of them. They may not have as many fans as some other groups, but that's life- some things are always going to be more popular than others. Lady Gaga is more popular than Opeth for example- it's just the way it is, but I'm sure Opeth do alright. And pokémetal? Where did that come from?! Nowt wrong with Pokémon, great game

I wasn't talking about those who listen to this type of dross, I was talking about the dross. Why do people feel the need to defend what they listen to, just listen to it. But like it or not, its utter crap.

And the reason why bands like Opeth never get the success is because there is always a shit Tenacious D that people will lap up. Although I think Opeth are a bit gash, some of its alright, not my cup of tea though. But at least its music, I dont like it but I can hear talent and music in it, its not a souless money grab using the same tired cliches over and over again.

Then again I had fad music, that type of comedy/trash that is made to sell shit by the numbers. At least have some musical intent, not just "oh this will sell and get bums on seats, people will love to hear a couple of Japanese birds who cannot sing screech over some generic metal".

Also, if it was 3 fat birds who were not great looking would anyone care? or 3 females who just dressed in the heavy metal dress code (t shirt with band name on, jeans, sneakers/flats/hitops/boots)? or what if it was 3 dudes who couldnt sing like these cannot? No one would care. But because they are dressed like school girls its all awesome.

Not to mention people will vomit hate over the likes of savile and rolfie harris but the endless stream of young sexualised girls is all ok. Just watch "Hit me baby one more time" and tell me that they never intended a young school girl to be sexy. Its the hypocrisy.