First of all, I have to say I don't consider myself a "metalist" (or whatever). I don't listen to strictly of-that-kind-of-genre bands and my favourite colour is NOT black ( xD ), to be precise, it's white. I don't wear only black clothes to pretend something or to tell everybody WHO I AM ACTING LIKE. I like (almost) all colours and funny T-shirts with crazy pictures. xD I DON'T dye my hair black to be black from head to heels. I actually DO dye my hair black, but only because I like it and I begane with it before listening to any "metal" (* see the note below) anyway... I don't say people who are wearing only black are bad / strange / odd / idiots. I only say I don't do it because myself, I find it odd and I would die withou colours (and I really mean it. If you saw my school books or things I study, you would understand... I need colours really everywhere!)
The first "metal" song I've ever heard (let's say it like this...) was
Ice Queen by
Within Temptation, which is, imo, the best known (and most overplayed) song by WT. To be honest, I didn't like it at all. But it wasn't because of the music and / or Sharon, it was because of the song itself. I actually remember myself having problems with Ice Queen until the concert on 17th January 2008 in Prague where IQ was the last song and I was totally blown away. Maybe a "concert euphory", who knows. Since then I like IQ, BUT I almost stopped listening to WT. Anyway, back to the beginning...
I heard IQ, don't really know when, but it was at least a year before I fell in love with WT. I believe I remember the exact date as it was on 12th or 13th February 2007 and it was
Jillian. It's quite long ago but I still do consider this song one of the most beautiful WT've ever done. It's very fascinating and very... high *can't resist and has to play Jillian right now* It was on Youtube and (I really don't understand why) it was together with the
Bring Me To Life video by
Evanescence. I liked EV very much that time, but I don't say EV is (some kind of) metal, because you people here might want to kill me. BUT I have to say I came to "metal" from pop THROUGH Evanescence and you can say whatever crap you want...
Jillian was totally awesome. Then I tried some other stuff from
The Silent Force. I believe it was
See Who I Am,
Pale,
Stand My Ground,
It's the Fear and maybe some others I'm not sure about. WT were my most favourite band since then which ended with the concert in January 2008.
My WT-loving period overlaps the beginning of my NW-loving times. The first song I've heard by
Nightwish was
Amaranth. It was "recommended" to me by my friend,
midrose. I was blown away again. You can tell me Amaranth is poppy song. I can ask you to kiss my... DRUM! xD I loved Amaranth and then
Nemo if I remember right but this was only autumn 2007. I was listening to many other songs. I remember loving
She Is My Sin that winter and also
Planet Hell and
End Of All Hope (for unknown reason).
(One evening I was bored and as I am a member of NW official forum, I made a small research in discussion about "the songs you don't like by NW". The most POPULAR ones - means the ones almost nobody mentioned - were End of All Hope and Planet Hell - unknown reason again.)
I couldn't bear e.g.
The Pharaoh Sails to Orion or
The Poet and the Pendulum (and even
Dead Boy's Poem or
Two for Tragedy that happen to be my favourities now). I have to say that my ears weren't used to such vocals that are in The Pharaoh. I honestly HATED it.
The real "ice breaking" (as I would call it speaking Czech) came very early after the WT concert. It was 21st January 2008. (Yeah, I always remember the dates as I love to celebrate things like: "OMG, look, I have Nightwish anniversary today!") and the song of my destiny was
Creek Mary’s Blood, to be precise the End of an Era performance. I only thank to Tarja that I didn’t understand something she sings in the lyric! I went somewhere to find about about the lyric and whether I’m mad or just deaf and I saw the EoaE video. Guess what happend – I WAS BLOWN AWAY! xD The live version somehow kicked me into loving Nightwish. It was the first time I told myself Tuomas Holopainen IS a damn genious! (And also the first time I realized he’s handsome xD and somehow totally adorable!) Till today, I’m not really sure if I LIKE CMB. I don’t really know. It’s just the song that made me to love all of Nightwishes and Tuomases but – Do I really LOVE it that much?! The answer is surprisingly NO. I don’t really know what I feel, but CMB IS a very special song and not only for me. It has the spirit of Indians and John Two-Hawkes and the beautiful poem in the end. I wasn’t able to realize WHY this particular Indian language until I saw „Dances with Wolves“ this summer. I found the language kinda fascinating but yet sounding a bit „all-the-same“.
So I had WT and NW that time but – is this enough?! The answer is again NO, but it was really hard for me to find other female fronted metal bands, which I was searching for. If I remember right, the others were
Lacuna Coil and the album
Karmacode and
Leaves‘ Eyes with all their albums that we know so far, but mainly with
Elegy, because this song is (again) awesome and high :P Then there were guys from
After Forever. I didn’t like AF that much. I didn’t know their
After Forever which made me to love them later.
In summer of 2008 I came on Last.fm for the first time. It helped me a lot with searching for another bands like those five. I believe I got to know with
Angtoria,
Delain,
Krypteria,
Imperia (that I didn’t like that time),
Sirenia and maybe some others I can’t realize. Most of the other bands I „met“ in summer/autumn 2008 on various blogs and forums. I remember I was blown away by
Katra and
HB.
Here the metal history ends, because as I have more and more bands (almost every day or what) I’m losing in it...
BUT! if you look at my charts, you really CANNOT even THINK of me as of a metalist. Who’s on the overall artists 2nd place?
Kelly Clarkson! And what about the others?
Sugababes,
The Bird and the Bee and
The Ditty Bops. I’m not ashamed for this and I have a simple explanation: it’s summer. Summer’s really NOT a time for listening to very much metal, I don’t exactly know why, but I feel more comfortable with happy songs by The Bird and the Bee when it’s hot outside. Of course that sometimes I listen to NW or something but definitely not so often as during the other seasons. Also it might be because I have so much free time. I’m online all day long and I listen to something for about 14 hours per day (if I’m not reading, watching something...). If I was listening to the (more or less) same genre all day, I’d surely go mad! I really know what to do with my free time on holiday. xD I can finally WRITE which is my most beloved hobby of all. I got used to listening more to pop like Kelly or The Bird and the Bee and I get much more inspiration from it (though I consider „metal“ and Tuomas‘ lyrics that nobody undersnads VERY INSPIRATIVE). I bet this is fault of „Grey’s Anatomy“. I used to like it very much and I met e.g. The Bird and the Bee on its soundtrack. I stopped watching it due the lack of time during school-year and also it got kinda „stramge and overplayed“ as every series sooner or later gets. Series and sitcoms, oh yes, I love to watch this xD. Absurd and really odd stuff like „The Nanny“ will always make me laugh even when I saw the whole thing for about 4 times. I simply love this kind of fun. To me it’s „pop fun“. As I love to write this „pop fun“ the best, it’s hard not to listen to the music doing it... I also mustn’t forget FROM WHERE I came to listening to metal – from listening the radio! From listening pop and r&b ALL DAY LONG.
I really think I have done a long journey so far. xD But still Kelly stays in my charts (because she has a wonderful voice and say whatever you want, the new CD totally kicks my summer-mooded ass!) The journey hasn’t ended yet. Still I mostly do listen only to female fronted bands. I like to sing along with them and with male vocals it is not so easy. Maybe I just like the „girlie“ sound, who knows. The true is that I’ve been recetly „slowly starting“ with exploring also male fronted bands. I simply cannot resist
Lovex because whatever my waiting-for-soprano ears say, songs like
Take a Shot or
Ordinary Day do – What with me? Yeah, blow me away xD.
I’m sure that (if you really made it and read through all this) you are blown away as well (and probably not very positively). Always, when I start writing something short, it ends up like being three-Word-pages long (because my internet suddenly died and I necessarily HAD TO finish writing this). I’m glad you cannot hear me speaking. It’s impossible to stop me xD but still I prefer writing (and writing in English). I hate when people write most of their journals in their language, I can’t read them then :( (But of course, when they don’t wanna write them in English – or possibly can’t, I cannot be angry with them) I can go through some French (with difficulties) and Spanish (which is really surprising since I study it for only one year, but maybe it’s thanks to seven years of French before...). I love to practise – writing and speaking about the things you like is the best way though I understand I can’t be perfect after (only) seven years of studying it (only) at school.
Anyway, now I really wanna thank you for (maybe) reading (maybe) whole my musical history. I’m really ashamed for the lenght xD and for the mistakes I’ve made (as I suppose).
* I write metal like "metal", because many people don't consider this metal a METAL and "female fronted metal" - as I heard - is no genre. So how the f... shall I talk about the music I like, then? I don't really know...
Angtoria
