Another Filler Post About Music

Well, in the couple of months that I've been listening to Nightwish, it's overtaken Queen to the number one slot on my most played list at Last.fm. Which is quite impressive.

Since I wrote about Rhapsody of Fire a while back, I've been growing ever more fond of it. While in that post I considered some of the problems with concept albums, it must be said that Rhapsody's music, with its epic fantasy sagas, is unique among concept albums. Yes, it is a different kind of experience compared to, say, Nightwish, but no less wonderful. Particularly to a fantasy geek like me.

Having received a little money from translation work, I went on a bit of a shopping spree. I now own all the studio albums by Nightwish and Lordi, and all but the latest by Rhapsody of Fire (which I'll try to obtain soon). My income being what it is, I've favoured libraries, friends and the Internet as sources for music for a long time, but some albums you just need to own in physical form, because the listening experience just isn't complete without the additional aesthetic and informative content provided by the covers and booklets. This is especially true for Rhapsody of Fire, as the booklets contain not only artwork, but also additional narrative, maps etc. vital to the story.

I hope to receive my next paycheck soon. This one will be spent on the new guitar. I'm kinda excited about that. And rather impatient.

The Concept of Concepts

I've just been getting acquainted with Rhapsody of Fire. It's not half bad. The singer isn't quite my cup of tea, but he's not particularly annoying either. (Like I've said earlier, the vast majority of metal for me is ruined by vocalists I don't care for. Well, the same applies to any genre really.)

Now, this type of music seems to rely heavily on the idea of the concept album. Rhapsody of Fire has taken this to the extreme by creating an epic fantasy saga spanning multiple albums. This has its pros and cons. The idea of a continuing saga is pretty cool, but it means you really need to listen to the entire work as a whole, and it is harder to really get into.

Nightwish, on the other hand, while it can be seen as working in the same genre, symphonic power metal, doesn't do concept albums (or at least such themes are much more subtle). Songs are complete in themselves, which means they hook you in a very different fashion. It was a single song by Nightwish that got me interested in them, and the whole symphonic metal genre. And after that single some came another, and another, and another... great, anthemic songs you can just listen to over and over.

Whether it has something to do with the different approach to songwriting, or simply a result of different personalities and songwriting skills (not to mention the very different style of vocals), it's hard to say, but I don't think this type of music can ever have quite the same appeal to me that Nightwish, for example, has. The same applies to most concept albums, in all genres, not just Rhapsody of Fire and other metal albums. Take Aimee Mann's The Forgotten Arm, for example. While there's much to speak for it, it just doesn't hook me in the same way that the albums before and after it do.

Concerning Blacksmiths and Metal

Generally speaking, there are very few examples of Finnish music and cinema that appeal to me. There are probably many reasons for this. One is that, having an English father, I was exposed to a large variety of English (and American) music, literature and cinema from a young age. English is the language of music for me. It's not that I disrespect music sung in Finnish, it's just never been a part of my life, so it sounds wrong to me.

Another reason, which applies particularly to cinema, lies simply in my nature, the type of story and aesthetic that appeals to me. This isn't, at least in whole, a result of my heritage; I'm sure a lot of Finnish people, especially of younger generations, share similar tastes. I've always been mainly attracted to fantasy and science fiction, epic stories often of a highly visual nature, and we simply don't have the resources to make that kind of movies in this small country.

And this is obviously the part where we come to the exceptions to the rule. I just watched Jade Warrior for the second time, and I still think it is a brilliant movie, both in story and visual aesthetic, and not only in comparison to other Finnish movies. I also thoroughly enjoyed the Lordi movie Dark Floors, but of course that has so few specifically Finnish elements that I'm not sure it even counts as an example.

The story of my taste for Finnish music, on the other hand, is inseparably entangled with another story, the story of discovering metal music. I grew up listening mostly to 60's music, and others who carried on the tradition (like Tom Petty, whom I discovered through other artists who begun their career in the 60's). While I greatly enjoyed some harder rock, such as the Rolling Stones, and later Queen and AC/DC, I steered clear of metal music for a long time.

In the late 90's I discovered Japanese video games and through them the world of video game music. This also opened the door for electronic music in general. Then came The Black Mages, an album of music from the Final Fantasy games re-arranged as metal. It was a great album and together with the later Black Mages albums remains among my favourites. I came to the conclusion, that musically some forms of metal music had a great appeal for me. However, most of the non-game metal I heard was ruined by unappealing, even annoying singers, and an overall attitude that tended to be so over-the-top in its supposed darkness and wickedness that it ended up being ridiculous, and not in a good way. No offence to you metal afficionados out there, that's just how my taste is.

Fast forward to 2006. Our own Lordi won the Eurovision Song Contest. I found their tongue-in-cheek humour and horror movie themes to be appealing in a way that the majority of heavier rock artists I'd heard had never been. It took a year or two to really get into it, but these days I'm a big fan.

Now, I recently saw a hilarious YouTube clip of misheard lyrics to Wishmaster by Nightwish. I happened to be in a mood for some suitably atmospheric heavier music, so I figured it was about time to get better acquainted with this domestic giant. And I discovered I enjoyed it greatly. Musically Nightwish is just the kind of metal I seem to enjoy, epic, often fast paced, yet atmospheric and emotional symphonic/power metal, not unlike The Black Mages and other Japanese video game music. The frequent fantasy themes are also right up my alley (although I must admit I haven't had a chance to really pay attention to much of the lyrical content yet).

It's curious that, video game music aside, the two examples of heavier music I've most enjoyed thus far are both Finnish. And just as curious that pretty much the only examples of Finnish music I enjoy represent the heavier side of rock.

To end this longish post, I should perhaps make the clarification that the fact that I've lately been painting my nails black does not stem from heavy metal or goth style, but rather from glam style and artists like The Ark.