That's My Jam: A Tale of Two Bands

Wake up. Drag yourself out of bed. Check the time. Feed. Clean. Dress Up. Drive. Slide the security badge through the reader by the door. Turn on the computer. Check your voicemail. Check your email. Check your inter-office mail. Fill your coffee cup. Put on the headphones. Scroll with your thumb until it says "shuffle songs."

Like so many other things on a Monday morning, hoping for the best..

Only to get exactly what you need.

I discovered One Minute Silence about a year ago, when I happened upon this song through Internet radio. I'd never heard of them before -- but after getting instantly addicted to this burner I immediately set out to learn more. Turns out they'd had only a quick 3-album run before breaking up, which in my opinion has a lot to do with the fact that this is about the only tune of theirs that sounds like this.

Because unfortunately, like a lot of bands trying to break through in the
late 90's, One Minute Silence began delving into the idea of Rap Metal.

It seems a laughable footnote now, but Rap Metal was a hot trend when it hit. The problem was, most bands that tried to jump into that fray suffered from one of the two following major handicaps:

A) A rock singer trying to rap.
B) A rapper trying to sing rock.

Rap metal is essentially a bad word these days, but when it first appeared it was an idea loaded with crossover potential. Fans (and the bands themselves) don't like to admit it anymore -- but there are several established groups (Korn, Disturbed, and Slipknot come to mind) who got their foot in the door with their own variations of this genre, only to grow out of it about the time the wave started to crest and the record companies started looking at the entire idea as a commodity.

Recognizing the commercial successes of groups like Limp Bizkit, labels started trying to either manufacture hits with put-together groups like Linkin Park or over-emphasize the urban side of the equation by having hip-hop producers mix metal albums, which in many cases tended to sap the overall attitude of the band's recorded musical performances -- leaving in it's wake little more than second rate vocal tracks that essentially had no chance competing against established producers and performers on Top 40 radio.

Best rap metal song I've ever heard? -- 99 Problems, by Jay-Z

The simple truth was that very few rap metal bands even at the height of the style's popularity had anything close to a serviceable, skilled rapper as a frontman. As such, once the initial novelty wore off it became clear that the majority of the bands were just rock guys trying to imitate the styles of more urban artists, and in most cases failing miserably.

When all you have is the suggestion of authenticity, then it's hard to take your message seriously.

And what rock guys rarely seemed to get is that underneath everything else -- rap music was (and will always be) about the message.

When your entire musical style is built on skimming only the surface qualities of another genre, whether it be the beats, the style, or the suggested attitude -- it becomes almost immediately clear that you're not only trying to be someone else, but that you don't really understand where that someone else is coming from at all.

Even worse is that because in many cases you've wired into a false identity, it becomes hard to sustain. We all like to put on masks now and again, but eventually it has to give way to your own style -- which is possibly why many so-called rap metal acts now claim to be something else, not only in an effort to shed that negative connotation, but because there's really only so far most bands can actually go with that style without becoming a flat-out imitation of someone else.

I know it sounds like I'm talking about racial heritage here, like I'm alluding without really saying that white kids should stay on their side of the fence, but honestly -- that's not it at all. Music isn't about what you look like or where you come from, it's about how deeply you feel it. How much you're able to connect the emotional side of your creativity with the mechanical process needed to create sounds from an instrument or a voice.

It takes a lot more than a knowledge of pentatonic scales to play the blues.

Industry writer (and good friend) Adam Bernard recently posted a fantastic article about the decline of actual rap in the era of hip-hop, discussing at length the danger that comes when one genre attempts to assimilate and commercialize another. At the way the negative image that is associated with rap has been in many smoothed over and homogenized by the watered-down rap style that's emerged, leaving actual rappers with something real to say out in the cold.

I will forever contend that there were a few bands out there who got it right, who melded the aggression of metal with the street poetics of rap in such a way that you could bounce your neck to something just as often as you could bang your head to it -- most notably Rage Against the Machine and personal faves Hed(PE), whose first three albums were actually produced and released on Jive records -- but the simple fact is that so many of the other bands who tried on the jacket of Rap Metal in the name of commercial success (as it appears One Minute Silence might have) couldn't do so without in many ways watering down their metal side first.

Which is not to say that I think One Minute Silence is a failure as a band, or that they weren't being true to themselves when they decided to take one direction over another -- but that like a lot of other groups at the time they weren't able to find a path to a sound that authentically represented the contact points of their varying interests, and wounded their own growth when they decided instead to rob the energy of their heavy side in an attempt to try to feed what they felt was their funky one.

It's a shame too, because these guys could flat-out bring it when they wanted to.

[Listening to:  Living Colour - "Burned Bridges" ]