photo by Alex Solca
Cannibal Corpse bassist and songwriter Alex Webster has obviously heard tons of comparisons between his band and other death metal acts, including ex-vocalist Chris Barnes' group Six Feet Under and vocalist George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher's former band Monstrosity. He has probably also taken part in at least a few heated conversations about which musicians are better than other musicians. In his first guest entry for HeadbangersBlog.com, Webster addresses why metal fans feel inclined to rank their favorites and why he has determined that such discussions are completely irrelevant.
As long as I've been a fan of music, I've always heard arguments about which band is the best, which musician is the best and so on. When I was young, these arguments would be among friends or maybe presented in a magazine by a writer, and of course now you can find them all over the internet. It's pretty hard not to run into a "who's the best" type argument on any music website that has a forum or allows comments.
This is obviously a discussion many of us enjoy, but is there really any way to win this argument? I don't think music can be measured in the same way you measure competitive activities like sports. Music is an art form, and every individual is going to appreciate and enjoy music differently, as is the case with any type of art. I mean, I don't follow art, but I'd have to assume that there aren't a lot of debates over how "Dali is better than Picasso" or whatever. Each individual likes the art he likes and that's that; there's no competition going on.
So, if we all know that music is art and not a competitive sport, where did all of these arguments come from? I’m not sure I know the answer, but I have an idea, particularly when it comes to metal, which is a very physical form of music that requires skills that canbe measured. For example, if a drummer can't play certain beats at a certain tempo, he's not going to be effective as a death metal drummer. The practice it takes for a drummer to reach that level is certainly similar to the training of a competitive athlete. The physical demands of playing any instrument at a high level require a commitment and dedication that I think most athletes would recognize and appreciate.
But these physical demands are where the similarities end in my opinion. In sports, the winner of a competition is generally clear (unless the ref sucks). Somebody scored more points, ran faster, jumped higher. The winner is the best man or woman (or team) on that particular day. Music on the other hand has no measurable "winner." Of course, you can, for example, measure the beats-per-minute a guitarist executed an arpeggio at, but you can't measure the effect it had on the listener. If one musician makes music that you love and another doesn't, speed or technique may or may not have had anything to do with that. If you prefer music made by the slower of the two, there's no arguing your taste, because what you enjoy is your personal choice. You can effectively argue about who is the faster player, but not really about who makes better music.
So, the arguing about which band or musician is better than the other is probably fueled by our appreciation for their athletic skills as players, as well as by our misconception that the greater the skill, the better the music. On top of that, music fans are very passionate and opinionated about our individual tastes, which creates perfect conditions for some truly heated debates. As to how this relates to metal in particular, well, music fans are probably as dedicated to their favorite artists as sports fans are to their favorite teams, and what music fans are more dedicated to their genre than metal fans? None that I know of. Combine that dedication with the extremely physical nature of our music and it's no surprise that the metal community is rife with sports-like debates about "who's the best." Is it a pointless argument? Probably, but it also shows just how important metal is to all of us.
So, having thought this over a bit now, I think I might have an answer to the original question. Who's the best? Your favorite band is, that's who, and don't let anyone try and convince you otherwise.
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