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Dragonforce
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 27 May 2024
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Back when they first got really insanely famous due to Guitar Hero III, a lot of people thought their music was fake.
They were called studioforce by guitarists who felt threatened by their inability to play TTFAF, and those same haters justified their hate by pointing out that the band themselves frequently couldn't play it live.
This was due in part to the band still having a janky live setup at the time, in part due to their singer not sounding as good live (when they switched singers to Mark it made a big difference for their live shows IMO), and of course because Sam and to a lesser extent Herman would drink excessively before playing a lot of nights, leading to lots of recordings of their sloppy drunk shredding being uploaded to YouTube.
But mostly, I would argue, the hate came from people who dislike new things. They tried to invalidate the band's obvious technical prowess as a way to disregard their (at the time) relatively innovative sounds.
You see that a lot in the guitar community. Anything new or that doesn't fit a traditional, pre-existing mold is dismissed as inferior. Anything non-traditional and obviously skillful tends to draw hate from those same people.
Now that Dragonforce has been around for a good long while, the traditionalists have had time to adjust and Dragonforce has had their live act consistently together for well over a decade, the hate has largely died down.
It also helps, IMO, that Herman Li does regular livestreams so people can see that he's a relatively down to earth guy, especially for someone with a giant wall of guitars in his house and a collection of high end sports cars.
I saw them live in the late 00's at an open air festival, and it sounded like I was playing the track myself on guitar hero. Wasn't super into them after seeing them live tbh, since it seemed fake from the live experience.
So if they fuck it up live, they're fake, but if they play it perfectly live, also fake.
Play while under water in a swimming pool? Believe it or not, straight to jail.
And to be clear, you can like or dislike them, not judging you, I just think it's funny that people think they're fake no matter what lol
I don't see what could be qualified as non traditional in their music. It was run of the mill speed/power metal that was pretty common since the early 90s, or even the 80s if you stretch the definition a bit. Even from a technical standpoint they were fucking good but nothing ground breaking.
I always felt that the hate against them came from the fact that they became mainstream popular thanks to guitar hero while they were not particularly notable among their peers in the metal scene.
That's the hate they got from within the metal community. I'm talking about the hate they got from the guitar community in general, which at the time was maybe 90% blues rock dads.
Oh OK that's something i was completely unaware of.
So you're telling me those supposed guitar fans had completely missed the whole guitar hero phase of the 80s, to the point that Dragonforce appeared "non-traditional" to them in the early 00s ? That's funny and they sound like a fun community.
I never understood this. This is the same argument people used to hate on electronic music in the early 00's. But like... if it sounds good then who cares?