Yesterday i was at a lecture by Prof. Dr. Michael Custodis at the Folkwang University in Essen, Germany. Title was: "Irony in Metal - Devin Townsend

[JuZ]

Hiya Lolliklauer.

Thanks very much for posting a summary of the lecture, it's certainly appreciated!

I'd be interested to hear more about his theories on irony in metal. Would also like to know if he was focused specifically on irony, rather than simply humour or parody.

From a personal perspective, while I often find Devin's humour charming and funny in interviews and live shows, the "funny" / "ironic" stuff in his albums isn't what draws me to his music at all. But I realise that it has some significance in terms of his creativity and his perspective, so it's all part of the package.

Interesting to hear the theory that it's his sense of irony itself that gives him musical freedom within the genre. I'm not exactly convinced of that, but it would be great to read this proposed paper.

Thanks again!

I'd be interested to hear more about his theories on irony in metal. Would also like to know if he was focused specifically on irony, rather than simply humour or parody.

From a personal perspective, while I often find Devin's humour charming and funny in interviews and live shows, the "funny" / "ironic" stuff in his albums isn't what draws me to his music at all. But I realise that it has some significance in terms of his creativity and his perspective, so it's all part of the package.

Interesting to hear the theory that it's his sense of irony itself that gives him musical freedom within the genre. I'm not exactly convinced of that, but it would be great to read this proposed paper.

Yeah, i

[JuZ]

I'd be interested to hear more about his theories on irony in metal. Would also like to know if he was focused specifically on irony, rather than simply humour or parody.

From a personal perspective, while I often find Devin's humour charming and funny in interviews and live shows, the "funny" / "ironic" stuff in his albums isn't what draws me to his music at all. But I realise that it has some significance in terms of his creativity and his perspective, so it's all part of the package.

Interesting to hear the theory that it's his sense of irony itself that gives him musical freedom within the genre. I'm not exactly convinced of that, but it would be great to read this proposed paper.

Yeah, i

Did anyone recorded this?

Mr. Custodis himself recorded it, because he wants to write an article or paper or something about Devin based on this lecture. Btw. it was in german, of course. Maybe the paper will be in english like the one about Steve Vai he wrote, but i don

Mr. Custodis himself recorded it, because he wants to write an article or paper or something about Devin based on this lecture. Btw. it was in german, of course. Maybe the paper will be in english like the one about Steve Vai he wrote, but i don

I'd have to say I agree with his sense of irony being liberating.

I'm sure we all here love metal, but we have to admit, the vast majority of metal artists take themselves and their music WAY too seriously, and in doing so, they begin to erect walls and barriers between what is and is not "true metal". You have to dress like this, you have to write lyrics about this, your guitar has to sound like this, you have to play at this bpm and upwards, you need this kind of drum beat, you need a breakdown in every song, your singer must sound like this, your bass must do this, your fans must be like this, your gigs must have mosh pits.

And obviously its ridiculous for these people to be so serious and erect these barriers. At the end of the day, most of them are 20-50 year old adults like the rest of us, so the idea that they take themselves seriously whilst on stage in makeup screaming about ripping fetuses apart and giving themselves neck injuries from shaking their hair up and down... is ridiculous.

Now, if you like metal, and you want to make metal music, but you don't want to make boring, serious metal music that conforms to all these stereotypes and self-erected barriers, then one way to do that successfully is to parody it. You can take yourself seriously, but only out of irony, and that way you can sound like typical metal when you want, but then you can take the piss out of it by going in any direction you like.

There's tonnes of examples of this. For example, when dev wrote a riff that sounded like Meshuggah (Planet of the Apes), he didn't take the metal faux pas of copying styles too seriously, and actually went in the other direction of calling himself out on it by including the lyric "we all rip off Meshuggah". And he didn't mind stepping outside of the lyrical context of the rest of the song in order to make that statement, which is great in itself! When I first heard the song, that lyric convinced me that the song was probably about the music industry and bands ripping each other off, and he had purposefully included a riff and lyric like that to make that point. But then later I discovered - actually, the song isn't about that, he just put that line in to acknowledge what he had done, and he included that riff because he loves Meshuggah and thought it sounded kickass.

Although my favourite and most blunt example is in the song Earth Day, when the music builds up to get very heavy, very atmospheric, very serious, very emotive, and he pulls every classic trick in the book to facilitate that - tonnes of delay and reverb, thumping drums, screeching vocals and "fuck you"-style lyrics. And then he just cuts it all, takes the reverb off the vocal track and leaves it dry, and in the most laid back way possible he shouts "music... it's just entertainment folks!".

Perfect.

Many good points Garrie but I personally don't find metal particularly serious compared with other genres. It seems the least serious too me (bar maybe rap) and is often quite tongue-in-cheek with black and dry humour. I remember sitting with a mostly non-metal audience watching a documentary called 'Full Metal Village' about Wacken Open Air and at the end Sodom are on stage as they headlined;

Sodom: 'Wacken, are you ready?'
Audience screams: 'Yes!'
Sodom: 'Are you ready to kill?'
Audience screams: 'Yes!'
Sodom: 'Are you ready to kill each other?'
Audience screams: 'Yes!'...*song starts*

The cinema audience were in howls of laughter yet the band and audience sounded serious i.e. everyone meant it ironically but because I'm used to such metal-talk it was nice being reminded of the humour of it all. If I was watching it alone of DVD I wouldn't have reacted in any way.

I'm not sure what way you meant it but surely songs about 'ripping fetuses apart' is in fact ironic in that it's not literal and is a song about ripping a fetuses apart!

Imo, a lot of metal is ironic and although Devin uses it in a more winking/obvious way (less dry) I don't think it's his primary reason/excuse for breaking genre conventions. Outside of Earth Day and the albums I mentioned I can't think of many other examples and that's were more of his music is. Maybe the lecturer's paper will be more thorough.

Imo, a lot of metal is ironic and although Devin uses it in a more winking/obvious way (less dry) I don't think it's his primary reason/excuse for breaking genre conventions.

I think the point is that other metal artists don