8 ms·

Symphonic Metal Bands: Nerdiness vs. Kickassery – A Statistical Analysis

77 points by wolframhempel 4y ago

dale_glass 4y ago
That's missing Theatre of Tragedy. Can you get nerdier than writing songs about mythology half in Latin and half in early modern English? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOQS--sF9xY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOQS--sF9xY
- xtracto 4y ago
  Ohh, I am delighted at seeing one of my all time favorite bands mentioned here in HN. Their combination of gutural voices and sweet Liv Kristine voice were amazing. It is one of the bands that I am really sad I wans't able to see live, then again they didn't come to Mexico very often back when they were active. You made my day :)
gpderetta 4y ago
Hum both Manowar and Dragonforce mentioned in the intro are in the chart, but Blind Guardian are conspicuously absent. Surely they would rank very highly on both nerdiness and kickassery. edit: oh, they are in the sheet. Somehow they scored 8 for kickassery, but only scored 3 for nerdiness. What one has to do to get an higher score in addition to writing whole albums about LotR and Silmarillion?!?!?! edit: they are in the chart as well, just overlapping with other bands.
- thinkingemote 4y ago
  Perhaps LOTR is mainstream now? Rather much like comic books are billon dollar franchises for normal people not nerds.
  - gpderetta 4y ago
    True, although Blind Guardian sang about LotR well before it went mainstream.
    - Schnitz 4y ago
      LOTR was already a mainstream novel when they wrote about it. Sure it wasn’t on TV but people that read novels surely knew about it and had read it by then.
      - gpderetta 4y ago
        Well, it was one of the most well known fantasy novels, but I'm not sure I would consider it mainstream as the genre itself was (and is) fairly niche. The Silmarillion is still very niche today, even among fans of LotR.
        KineticLensman 4y ago
        > Well, it was one of the most well known fantasy novels, but I'm not sure I would consider it mainstream as the genre itself was (and is) fairly niche. In the UK at least, a 2003 BBC poll with almost three quarters of a million votes [0] put LoTR first, as the nation's best loved novel > The Silmarillion is still very niche today, even among fans of LotR. Agree. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Read
        sigstoat 4y ago
        > In the UK at least, a 2003 BBC poll with almost three quarters of a million votes [0] put LoTR first that would be after two years of the movie trilogy being in theaters, and coincident with the release of the third movie? i think the release of the films marks a rather critical point in how the books were viewed.
        KineticLensman 4y ago
        > i think the release of the films marks a rather critical point in how the books were viewed. Two years before the films (same source) in a 1999 poll of Amazon.com customers, The Lord of the Rings was judged to be their favourite "book of the millennium".
  - wolframhempel 4y ago
    Haha, this was exactly our discussion: a) But, they made a whole album based on the The Silmarillion. b) Did your mom watch the Hobbit?. Your Grandma? Yes. exactly :-D
    - bartread 4y ago
      Indeed but, honest question, was it mainstream when they created those albums? (I'm too unfamiliar with Blind Guardian's back catalogue to know.)
      - gpderetta 4y ago
        "Nightfall in Middle-Earth" is from '98. Up to you to decide if it was mainstream by then. They do have plenty of Tolkien references in previous albums as well and generally their songs take inspirations from a lot of fantasy sources. "The bard's Song" is allegedly inspired by "the Bard's Tale" video game; that's pretty nerdy!
        bartread 4y ago
        1998 was still very thoroughly the era when sysadmins were naming servers after characters and regions in Middle Earth. It was also the last time I read LOTR and The Hobbit (obviously read both multiple times - starting in 1988). LOTR has always fallen into this odd middle place though, where lots of people had read it, or at least started reading it, but it was still considered pretty fringey. Only real spods like me got completely obsessed by it at school. Same with D&D: lots of people dabbled (including me), not many stuck. And D&D is still, I think, considered pretty nerdy, unlike perhaps LOTR. The films - and the whole media and merchandising franchise that developed around them - really wrecked it all though: they weren't bad (in fact I enjoyed them) but LOTR and, later, The Hobbit was just everywhere for far too many years. Beyond that, they basically destroyed the imagery I had in my own mind of what Middle Earth was like. I can't say I'm particularly grateful. I haven't read the books since. Partly that's because my tastes have changed and broadened, but it's also that the films somehow removed the appeal and motivation. So I'd say the mainstreaming of LOTR really occurred with Peter Jackson's films meaning that, yes, Blind Guardian score high on nerdiness for creating albums around the books before this.
losvedir 4y ago
Oh wow, what a great resource. I was surprised to learn recently that I actually really like power metal. Will have to check out these bands! I'm still a bit confused how this counts as "metal", though. I think I mostly associated metal with, er, death metal I guess it's called? What exactly counts as metal then?
- 6581 4y ago
  > What exactly counts as metal then? https://mapofmetal.com/ https://mapofmetal.com/
  - the_only_law 4y ago
    A bit odd to see punk genre's included, and for sludge to be so far away from hardcore punk. Also seem disconnected, which wouldn't be right since sludge is often described as doom metal + hardcore punk (although their have been plenty of bands with other influences as well)
    - MisterTea 4y ago
      Black metal is shown as a branch of hardcore punk when the description clearly states that it is a branch of thrash (And is obvious to fans of BM and metal in general.) Though many black metal bands have incorporated punk elements into their work, e.g. Darkthrone's F.O.A.D.
- MisterTea 4y ago
  > I'm still a bit confused how this counts as "metal", though. I think I mostly associated metal with, er, death metal I guess it's called? What exactly counts as metal then? It's quite a large genre that likes to borrow from other genres and infuse local influences. Death metal is just one sub genre of metal and itself has multiple styles.
- emddudley 4y ago
  Power metal? Check out Unleash the Archers. Excellent band.
robin_reala 4y ago
I’m not hugely up on power metal, but I do like a Galneryus session. Wonder where they’d fit in? The song themes are appropriately nerdy, but the band style is more visual kei.
mikro2nd 4y ago
Was expecting to see Brymir, Crimfall and Wintersun. Was disappointed. Maybe in v2?
dash2 4y ago
I am shocked at the weak level of statistical nerdery here. What, not even a p value? I was expecting at least a Bayesian analysis, and preferably something complex involving permutation tests and the Poisson bootstrap. Then, call in the data visualization nerds and use ggplot2 with the viridis magma theme, plus a recherché extension available only on github.
- SargeZT 4y ago
  They didn't even include an accordian coefficient!
- wolframhempel 4y ago
  A fair and fine criticism if I may say so myself :-)
rossdavidh 4y ago
Methodological error: if the same people are rating both nerdiness and kickassery, they could be subtly influenced to make their ratings correlate (negative or positive). Better would be to randomly assign judges to rate either nerdiness or kickassery, not both. Also, it would be good to ask, rather than "how nerdy is this band", instead "which of these two bands is nerdier?" This is usually an easier answer (or, if it's really difficult, that tells you their values are close). It would also give you a hint on whether or not one's subjective measure of nerdiness (or kickassery) is even internally self-consistent. If you often get A > B, B > C, but C > A, then the whole rating exercise is based on a flawed premise. Clearly worth spending some hours making a web page to ask people these questions, then come back to HN and do a "Show HN" and ask for more data from the symphonic metal fans here.
SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
I think you're missing a perfect example of nerdery and kickassery - Helion Prime. They have songs like The Drake Equation. Also I think you'd reconsider the kickassery of 4 for Visions of Atlantis with their new album.
SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
Are "Feuerschwanz" technically a symphonic metal band? I saw them once, they seems more like a German Medieval metal, comedy act. It's niche, but it's a large enough scene that there's room for at least one band in that comedy niche.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  The article discusses symphonic, power, and "adjacent genres". I would say they are definitely not symphonic, but cousins to power metal.
hedora 4y ago
Someone forgot to turn the spreadsheet up to eleven: - Diablo Swing Orchestra - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2mZVOd0jWY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2mZVOd0jWY - Igorrr - http://igorrr.com http://igorrr.com - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZzYxGZ7Hmc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZzYxGZ7Hmc - Note: Pre-pandemic. - Sumo Cyco - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW2fWXQHzz4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW2fWXQHzz4 Someone watched "They Live". - The Hu - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJZfEh3EciU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJZfEh3EciU "That’s not Mongolian you’re hearing though, it’s a language created with the band that’s unique to Star Wars"
elisharobinson 4y ago
little salty as to the lack of japanese bands on this list ... personally i want to nominate galneryus
RhysU 4y ago
Berkson's paradox, I believe. Selecting for high nerdiness and high kickassery will tend to show a negative relationship in the resulting set if those two traits are (waves hands) independent. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox
gs17 4y ago
My only issue is that I'm a fan of two of these bands and their history means one can't be nailed down well on this. Beast in Black split off of Battle Beast and the original group got significantly less nerdy (their earlier songs were mostly either about Berserk or some sort of cyberpunk, a song about Neuromancer is distinctly more nerdy than the less referential work later) because the lead songwriter is who left. I'm sure other groups have had similar rapid changes in nerdiness/kickassery too.
MikeDelta 4y ago
If I understand correctly, nerdiness is related to the theme of the band (characters) and the topic of their songs? How is kickassery determined?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
guardienaveugle 4y ago
I wrote about something similar: is power metal really about dragons? [0] All the analysis is backed by stats and NLP :) [0] https://notes.atomutek.org/power-metal-and-dragons.html https://notes.atomutek.org/power-metal-and-dragons.html
- camtarn 4y ago
  This is excellent. I love the classification of bands by the words most important to them, and the subsequent clustering by subject.

77 points by wolframhempel 4y ago

That's missing Theatre of Tragedy. Can you get nerdier than writing songs about mythology half in Latin and half in early modern English? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOQS--sF9xY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOQS--sF9xY

xtracto 4y ago
Ohh, I am delighted at seeing one of my all time favorite bands mentioned here in HN. Their combination of gutural voices and sweet Liv Kristine voice were amazing. It is one of the bands that I am really sad I wans't able to see live, then again they didn't come to Mexico very often back when they were active. You made my day :)

gpderetta 4y ago

Hum both Manowar and Dragonforce mentioned in the intro are in the chart, but Blind Guardian are conspicuously absent. Surely they would rank very highly on both nerdiness and kickassery. edit: oh, they are in the sheet. Somehow they scored 8 for kickassery, but only scored 3 for nerdiness. What one has to do to get an higher score in addition to writing whole albums about LotR and Silmarillion?!?!?! edit: they are in the chart as well, just overlapping with other bands.

thinkingemote 4y ago
Perhaps LOTR is mainstream now? Rather much like comic books are billon dollar franchises for normal people not nerds.
- gpderetta 4y ago
  True, although Blind Guardian sang about LotR well before it went mainstream.
  - Schnitz 4y ago
    LOTR was already a mainstream novel when they wrote about it. Sure it wasn’t on TV but people that read novels surely knew about it and had read it by then.
    - gpderetta 4y ago
      Well, it was one of the most well known fantasy novels, but I'm not sure I would consider it mainstream as the genre itself was (and is) fairly niche. The Silmarillion is still very niche today, even among fans of LotR.
      - KineticLensman 4y ago
        > Well, it was one of the most well known fantasy novels, but I'm not sure I would consider it mainstream as the genre itself was (and is) fairly niche. In the UK at least, a 2003 BBC poll with almost three quarters of a million votes [0] put LoTR first, as the nation's best loved novel > The Silmarillion is still very niche today, even among fans of LotR. Agree. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Read
        sigstoat 4y ago
        > In the UK at least, a 2003 BBC poll with almost three quarters of a million votes [0] put LoTR first that would be after two years of the movie trilogy being in theaters, and coincident with the release of the third movie? i think the release of the films marks a rather critical point in how the books were viewed.
        KineticLensman 4y ago
        > i think the release of the films marks a rather critical point in how the books were viewed. Two years before the films (same source) in a 1999 poll of Amazon.com customers, The Lord of the Rings was judged to be their favourite "book of the millennium".
- wolframhempel 4y ago
  Haha, this was exactly our discussion: a) But, they made a whole album based on the The Silmarillion. b) Did your mom watch the Hobbit?. Your Grandma? Yes. exactly :-D
  - bartread 4y ago
    Indeed but, honest question, was it mainstream when they created those albums? (I'm too unfamiliar with Blind Guardian's back catalogue to know.)
    - gpderetta 4y ago
      "Nightfall in Middle-Earth" is from '98. Up to you to decide if it was mainstream by then. They do have plenty of Tolkien references in previous albums as well and generally their songs take inspirations from a lot of fantasy sources. "The bard's Song" is allegedly inspired by "the Bard's Tale" video game; that's pretty nerdy!
      - bartread 4y ago
        1998 was still very thoroughly the era when sysadmins were naming servers after characters and regions in Middle Earth. It was also the last time I read LOTR and The Hobbit (obviously read both multiple times - starting in 1988). LOTR has always fallen into this odd middle place though, where lots of people had read it, or at least started reading it, but it was still considered pretty fringey. Only real spods like me got completely obsessed by it at school. Same with D&D: lots of people dabbled (including me), not many stuck. And D&D is still, I think, considered pretty nerdy, unlike perhaps LOTR. The films - and the whole media and merchandising franchise that developed around them - really wrecked it all though: they weren't bad (in fact I enjoyed them) but LOTR and, later, The Hobbit was just everywhere for far too many years. Beyond that, they basically destroyed the imagery I had in my own mind of what Middle Earth was like. I can't say I'm particularly grateful. I haven't read the books since. Partly that's because my tastes have changed and broadened, but it's also that the films somehow removed the appeal and motivation. So I'd say the mainstreaming of LOTR really occurred with Peter Jackson's films meaning that, yes, Blind Guardian score high on nerdiness for creating albums around the books before this.

losvedir 4y ago

Oh wow, what a great resource. I was surprised to learn recently that I actually really like power metal. Will have to check out these bands! I'm still a bit confused how this counts as "metal", though. I think I mostly associated metal with, er, death metal I guess it's called? What exactly counts as metal then?

6581 4y ago
> What exactly counts as metal then? https://mapofmetal.com/ https://mapofmetal.com/
- the_only_law 4y ago
  A bit odd to see punk genre's included, and for sludge to be so far away from hardcore punk. Also seem disconnected, which wouldn't be right since sludge is often described as doom metal + hardcore punk (although their have been plenty of bands with other influences as well)
  - MisterTea 4y ago
    Black metal is shown as a branch of hardcore punk when the description clearly states that it is a branch of thrash (And is obvious to fans of BM and metal in general.) Though many black metal bands have incorporated punk elements into their work, e.g. Darkthrone's F.O.A.D.
MisterTea 4y ago
> I'm still a bit confused how this counts as "metal", though. I think I mostly associated metal with, er, death metal I guess it's called? What exactly counts as metal then? It's quite a large genre that likes to borrow from other genres and infuse local influences. Death metal is just one sub genre of metal and itself has multiple styles.
emddudley 4y ago
Power metal? Check out Unleash the Archers. Excellent band.

robin_reala 4y ago

I’m not hugely up on power metal, but I do like a Galneryus session. Wonder where they’d fit in? The song themes are appropriately nerdy, but the band style is more visual kei.

mikro2nd 4y ago

Was expecting to see Brymir, Crimfall and Wintersun. Was disappointed. Maybe in v2?

dash2 4y ago

I am shocked at the weak level of statistical nerdery here. What, not even a p value? I was expecting at least a Bayesian analysis, and preferably something complex involving permutation tests and the Poisson bootstrap. Then, call in the data visualization nerds and use ggplot2 with the viridis magma theme, plus a recherché extension available only on github.

SargeZT 4y ago
They didn't even include an accordian coefficient!
wolframhempel 4y ago
A fair and fine criticism if I may say so myself :-)

rossdavidh 4y ago

Methodological error: if the same people are rating both nerdiness and kickassery, they could be subtly influenced to make their ratings correlate (negative or positive). Better would be to randomly assign judges to rate either nerdiness or kickassery, not both. Also, it would be good to ask, rather than "how nerdy is this band", instead "which of these two bands is nerdier?" This is usually an easier answer (or, if it's really difficult, that tells you their values are close). It would also give you a hint on whether or not one's subjective measure of nerdiness (or kickassery) is even internally self-consistent. If you often get A > B, B > C, but C > A, then the whole rating exercise is based on a flawed premise. Clearly worth spending some hours making a web page to ask people these questions, then come back to HN and do a "Show HN" and ask for more data from the symphonic metal fans here.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago

I think you're missing a perfect example of nerdery and kickassery - Helion Prime. They have songs like The Drake Equation. Also I think you'd reconsider the kickassery of 4 for Visions of Atlantis with their new album.

SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago

Are "Feuerschwanz" technically a symphonic metal band? I saw them once, they seems more like a German Medieval metal, comedy act. It's niche, but it's a large enough scene that there's room for at least one band in that comedy niche.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
The article discusses symphonic, power, and "adjacent genres". I would say they are definitely not symphonic, but cousins to power metal.

hedora 4y ago

Someone forgot to turn the spreadsheet up to eleven: - Diablo Swing Orchestra - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2mZVOd0jWY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2mZVOd0jWY - Igorrr - http://igorrr.com http://igorrr.com - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZzYxGZ7Hmc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZzYxGZ7Hmc - Note: Pre-pandemic. - Sumo Cyco - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW2fWXQHzz4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MW2fWXQHzz4 Someone watched "They Live". - The Hu - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJZfEh3EciU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJZfEh3EciU "That’s not Mongolian you’re hearing though, it’s a language created with the band that’s unique to Star Wars"

elisharobinson 4y ago

little salty as to the lack of japanese bands on this list ... personally i want to nominate galneryus

RhysU 4y ago

Berkson's paradox, I believe. Selecting for high nerdiness and high kickassery will tend to show a negative relationship in the resulting set if those two traits are (waves hands) independent. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox

gs17 4y ago

My only issue is that I'm a fan of two of these bands and their history means one can't be nailed down well on this. Beast in Black split off of Battle Beast and the original group got significantly less nerdy (their earlier songs were mostly either about Berserk or some sort of cyberpunk, a song about Neuromancer is distinctly more nerdy than the less referential work later) because the lead songwriter is who left. I'm sure other groups have had similar rapid changes in nerdiness/kickassery too.

MikeDelta 4y ago

If I understand correctly, nerdiness is related to the theme of the band (characters) and the topic of their songs? How is kickassery determined?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

guardienaveugle 4y ago

I wrote about something similar: is power metal really about dragons? [0] All the analysis is backed by stats and NLP :) [0] https://notes.atomutek.org/power-metal-and-dragons.html https://notes.atomutek.org/power-metal-and-dragons.html

camtarn 4y ago
This is excellent. I love the classification of bands by the words most important to them, and the subsequent clustering by subject.