Metal discussion
Women and Metal
I think there are less women in metal because metal in general is geared towards men, especially the more extreme styles, such as black metal.
This is hard for me to answer because most of the metal bands I listen to have female singers and lots of female fans, so I don't have a very good perspective on sub-genres that are more dominated by men. It does seem rare to see women as instrumentalists in any band though, including many of the ones I listen too. They're always vocalists. But that does not seem to be exclusive to the metal genre - it goes for just about any standard band.
i am 48 years old and have been a metal fan for 30yrs. the scene back then was totally devoid of women apart from lita ford and joan jett . now especially with the goth/ emo links with metal and the operatic bands like nightwish , within temptation etc the female vocalist is ideal. i have to say about ten years ago b4 amy lee and evanescence the band lacuna coil and vocalist christina scabbia eere making awesome albums, great to see them getting the recognitio they deserve. arch enemy are a great band with a female vocalist with a much more extreme sound. the genre has always been looked on as the music of teenage boys by all forms of media which puts female musos off getting involved in it but it has changed for the better in thr lasts five or so years and some pf the best bands have female members . please checkbout within temptation's the unforgiving abd nightwish's last couple of albums. women in metal are the shining lights at the moment.
definitely not my cup of tea, i like some gothic bands with female backing vocals but not lead singers.
I prefer listening to a masculine voice.. I've never been able to really appreciate a female vocalist in a metal band, I'm not sure why.. Maybe it's not my cup of tea as you said.. Maybe there is something deeper. Not too many women have a strong enough voice to be able to sing in metal bands in my opinion. Also, maybe people just feel that women are supposed to have soft voices, therefore making them less popular when they show up in the metal scene. As far as women as metal fans, I'm stumped. =\ I don't have any female friends that share my taste for metal.
I find it's mainly symphonic or Gothic metal bands that have female singers--so much so that I have a hard time finding bands in this genre with male vocalists.
I hate female vocals, but DJERV is amazing!
I've heard some horrendous female vocals in metal, and I've heard some great female vocals. Sometimes the vocals will be excellent but not befitting to the music. When they're done right, I love them, but I can't stomach when they're done poorly.
Sometimes it's better to have a woman behind the vocals... whether it's clean or growling. There are certain bands/genres where I also feel that if you're going to sing like a girl, then you should have a girl singing.
Michael wrote: "Sometimes it's better to have a woman behind the vocals... whether it's clean or growling. There are certain bands/genres where I also feel that if you're going to sing like a girl, then you shoul..."Power metal?
LOL, Michael, I agree with you on that. I've always hated falsetto male vocals, but they have been growing on me over the years - well, only if it's metal, still hate it in non-metal music.
I guess i can tolerate female vocals only in power metal but power metal have been one my least favorite metal genres.
Cherie wrote: ". As far as women as metal fans, I'm stumped. =\ I don't have any female friends that share my taste for metal"I have some female friends who love metal music but Im yet to listen to a great female fronted metal band.
I can give a girl her props if she can really growl, but I can never get into it. Besides I just can't resist a good male vocalist. :P
Matt Heafy from trivium has an incredible voice... Plus he's damn gorgeous! ;)
My all time favorite male voice would probably belong to Maynard. Well, maybe his looks are not as gorgeous as his voice is but honestly who cares?
Maynard is amazing. My other favorite male vocalists are Marco Benevento of The Foreshadowing, Juha-Pekka Leppäluoto of Charon, Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth, Roy Khan formerly of Kamelot, Jonas Renske of Katatonia, Giampaul Andrianopoulos of Lonesome October, Paul Kuhr of Novembers Doom, Aaron Stainthorpe of My Dying Bride, and probably a ton more.Nermin, have you heard Soen? They/their singer sound just like Tool/Maynard.
Yeah, I've listened to their album Cognitive, that's their only album as far as I know. A very promising band. There's also Rishloo and Prisma which sound very similar to Tool. I love Rishloo but think Prisma is a pure Tool rip-off, still they can be enjoyed. Is there any news on new Tool album, i wonder? it's been what like 6 or 7 years since they released their last album?
Cool, I'll have to check those two bands out.No, I haven't heard anything about a new album unfortunately; I think Maynard is too busy with his winery lately :D
Rishloo is really great, check them out first, Prisma is just meh. Damn him and his winery, I want a new Tool album :(
Btw, you seem to like Scandinavian bands, have you listened to Pain of Salvation? They are one of my favorite bands of all times. Check them out if you're into progressive metal.
LOL, seriously, forget about the winery! Yes, I do love many Scandinavian bands and usually like progressive metal. I will add Pain of Salvation to my To Listen list as well - thanks!!
You're welcome, just don't start by listening to their last albums, they kinda went downhill on those two albums. Do you mind if add you? metal fans are a bit hard to come by on GR :D
Oh not at all! As long as you don't mind my sometimes silly taste in books. :)I love getting to know other metal fans.
My favorite metal vocalist is the guy from Carach Angren, I forget his name, plus he's very good looking both with and without corpse paint.
Lindsey wrote: "Oh not at all! As long as you don't mind my sometimes silly taste in books. :)I love getting to know other metal fans."
I definitely don't mind it:)besides I've compared our tastes and we seem to have many books in common.
I've never heard of Carach Angren though.
Awesome :) Will go accept now!I've heard of Carach Angren, never listened to them though. I'm pretty deficient in my black metal listening.
I don't like black metal much either unless it's Burzum('s earlier albums)
I can't get into Bruzum, I think it's because I have a hard time seperating the person behind the music from the music itself.
Oh, i understand, he has some ridiculous ideas not to mention that he's a murderer but i love his music, that is something that I can't help.
I don't know the other woman you mentioned, but I do like Maria Brink :)
How is there a conversation about women in metal and no mention of Angela Gossow? I love that woman!
I've only listened to a few songs from Arch Enemy, Angela is probably good but it's really not my genre. There's also an alternative metal band called Otep with a female lead singer that i occasionally listen to. she's not bad at all.
Liv Moon from Japan is amazing, and I became a big fan of Xandria with their release Neverworld's End. I'm waiting for an operatic female vocalist fronting a doom metal band...there are already too many female-vocal gothic/power/progressive metal bands, thanks in large part to Nightwish.
Nermin wrote: "I've only listened to a few songs from Arch Enemy, Angela is probably good but it's really not my genre. There's also an alternative metal band called Otep with a female lead singer that i occasion..."I agree with you. While I recognize Angela is good, Arch Enemy is not really my thing.
I like Nightwish (with Tarja); also I love Masha from the folk-metal band Arkona. She's awesome.
I agree about Masha from Arkona! I also love Alice Dionis'/Psycho Jeremy's voice from Mab. The band used to be an all girl band but recently they have a male guitarist.
The reason I like Angela Gossow so much is because she's not turning Metal into a "feminine" sound which is what I hear from a lot of female fronted bands like Nightwish, Epica, Leaves Eyes and so on. It's like that music is geared up to be "female-friendly" as if there's only one kind of style of music that women can perform and that's lighter and more lyrical. There's no compromise with Angela.
Mark wrote: "Liv Moon from Japan is amazing, and I became a big fan of Xandria with their release Neverworld's End. I'm waiting for an operatic female vocalist fronting a doom metal band...there are already too..."Herodias is the only doom metal band I can think of that has operatic-like female lead vocals. I don't really like them all that much, but here they are just in case you're interested http://herodias.bandcamp.com/
Also, Rain Fell Within is another one; they are very heavy on the operatic vocals. I think they're probably just gothic metal, but they have a doom-ish feel to me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-TJS... One of their singers just did guest vocals on a track on Saturnus's new album.
I can't think of any doom bands with femal operatic vocals. The closest I can think of is Virgin Black but they have a male singer who does both clean vocals and growls.
It's too bad that nothing is known about Requiem: Pianissimo I think that album would have been awesome. Rumor has it Virgin Black is waiting for the contract with their record lable to expire. before releasing it.
Oh I love Virgin Black! I just remembered that one of my favorite bands, Funeral (the one from Norway; there are at least ten metal bands with that name), has classical female vocals on some of their albums. Ava Inferi is another doom-ish band with female vocals.
*facepalm*How did I forget Ava Inferi?
How could we forget Avril Lavigne? Just kidding :D
:D I forgot them too. I only remembered when seeing someone's comment on a video of one of Funeral's female vocal songs.
Forgot to mention Madder Mortem. More heavy-prog metal than anythin I guess. One of my favourite under the radar bands with a truly amazing female singer.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksXCr7...
Well, I chose to write my term paper about the percepiton of women in Metal, and I would like to revive the discussion and hear your opinions:
Why do you think there are far less female Metal fans and musicians? Does the music simply appeal more to men, or are there other reasons that discourage women from entering the scene? Is it as macho as the stereotypes go?
I'm grateful for any comment, be it a sentence or a page! If you can spare five minutes, I'd also appreciate you filling out a short survey about the tpic at (http://kwiksurveys.com?s=OBJNKI_ffdf655a), that'd help me out lots!