Get (Into) What You Paid For: Vol. 3. Day 61 – The History Of Metal

Its day 61 of my third Get (Into) What You Paid For challenge. Even though it got extended to be an extra month long, I’ve been adhering to the challenge and haven’t broken it. In two days it will be up, and I can’t see myself loosing willpower in just these final two days, so I think we can chalk this one up to a success.

I’ve actually been too busy this week to think about buying things, or to have had much time to shop even if I had wanted with. Most of my entertainment since the previous entry has been brief listenings to the Tell Em Steve-Dave podcast in the background whilst getting ready in the morning or whilst eating dinner.

Since I’ve been so busy, I haven’t actually had time to play any more of Arkham Origins, which is a shame because I was really enjoying it. Reading wise, I’ve started, but not had much time to read, The Definitive Oral History Of Heavy Metal, which seems decent so far. Its basically Metal Evolution as a book, with a bit more depth. All the usual stuff like Ozzy an the bat, Alice Cooper and the chicken, Hair Metal band’s sex lives, Mustaine being fired from Metallica, Grunge’s impact, drug use and all that sort of business is covered, as you’d expect. (You probably couldn’t get away with writing a book without it, as much as you may want to). There’s also extra stuff like Pete Steele’s declining mental health and the violent lives of several Crossover and Hardcore bands that I haven’t heard a dozen times before, so it seems worthwhile for fans who’ve seen this sort of material before too, and not only new-commers.

Even that was mostly all read in one sitting on a long train journey. Listening-wise, what I’ve actually been doing, is constructing a giant playlist, called “A Brief History Of Heavy Metal” and then listening to that, or sections of it, mostly when in bed and trying to fall asleep. Its still a work in progress (limited time, busy, remember?) so there’s probably some glaring omissions, but just go with it.

For this week’s edition of Get (Into) What You Paid For, instead of writing about a few albums in great detail, I’ll present you with this playlist. You know those CDs you sometimes see, compilations like “The Best Air Guitar Anthems” or “How To Rock” or “Heavy Metal 101” or whatever? Its basically one of those, but with the tracks in semi-chronological, and in genre-or-time-period based clusters, so as to roughly tell the tale of the evolution of metal. If I was a crazy millionaire I’d make a radio station to just play this every day. And a Scuzz style tv station to do the same with either music vids or live footage. And I’d give it away as cds in a campaign the same way as you would Change4Life brochures.

But I’m not a crazy millionaire, so just have a look at some screenshots of it instead, then if you fancy it, make your own playlist of it in Spotify or whatever.

As well as listening to that playlist, and the albums I got for Christmas, I decided, as is the usual thing during one of these challenges, to listen to albums in my collection that haven’t had enough attention paid to them.

With that in mind, I’ve also re-listened to the first two Bush-era Anthrax albums, Sound Of White Noise and Stomp 442, both of which are way, way better than I remember. They are really worth listening to if you are in the right mood.

On top of that, because of having read aforementioned book’s Industrial chapter, I decided to stick on Ministry’s Land Of Rape And Honey album, which I inherited from my brother about a decade ago and never actually paid any attention to. I was pleasantly surprised. The way some of the riffs work reminded me of early Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails, as well as some Mushroomhead, so clearly Ministry were influential for their guitar style as well as just the use of samples and programmed drums. Huh, good to know.

Other than that, I’ve not really got much to talk about so, for no reason, here’s a screenshot of my most-listened-to artists of January:

There you go people, see you in two days, hopefully without having bought anything. G’bye.