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.
Back when they first got really insanely famous due to Guitar Hero III, a lot of people thought their music was fake.
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
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.
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.
a lot of people thought their music was fake
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?
I suppose that when you go to see “traditional” musicians, you expect their performances are real (no backing tracks… you know).
(Disclaimer: I just don’t care about them, even dit not knew they were hated)
Dragonforce is hated? Never heard this, but even as a life long metal head I at shy away from any online metal community because most of them are full of the worst people.
It seems it’s always snobs or Nazis online, whereas actual metal shows are where I’ve met some of the nicest people.
I’m pretty sure it’s for the same reason that people love them, i.e. they’re cheesy and self-indulgent - which, I mean, are pretty much prerequisites of the power metal genre.
That and the whole “they recorded their parts slower and sped them up” thing, but they pull it off well enough live and as long as they’re not lying about it I don’t think it really matters
If that’s a problem then no one should listen to any studio albums tbh
Drum and bass artists use computers to make fast drums and just play back recordings at concerts. They can’t even play drums! Or bass!! Their fans are so dumb for liking fake music… /s
As someone who has been listening to most electronic music since the mid 90s, you have NO idea how many times the “they’re not talented, they just push buttons” argument has been spewn at me
Best example of this is John Bonham, who would playback from his iPod
That and the whole “they recorded their parts slower and sped them up” thing
Your comment reads like this is a fact about them and something they’ve owned up to. It isn’t true and they’ve consistently said as much. They record at the speed the song plays at.
Good to hear. That was a rumor that spread around quite a bit when I was a teenager, the last time they were relevant for discussion, and I never checked it because it didn’t really matter to me if they did or not, I still liked the music. Next time they’re relevant for discussion I won’t spread it again
I love cheesy bombastic bands like Rhapsody of Fire. They’re just fun to listen to.
Rhapsody (I refuse to recognize the addition of “of fire”) isn’t bombastic, for them their music is absolutely serious 😄
Not all power metal is cheesy. Symphonic metal is all about showing off ridiculous vocal abilities.
Well it depends. Read some Tarja-era Nightwish lyrics
Power Metal in general has a bad rep because of the over the top cheesyness. DF was popular within the genre because they were much faster and had more solos than most other bands in that genre at the time. A lot of people did find them boring after a while since a good amount of their songs sounded pretty similar. But they were considered a solid band, they can for sure play what they wrote.
They blew up during Guitar Hero 3. Now mainstream audiences are exposed to the cheesy lyrics and over the topness of power metal. Gatekeepers gate keeping and now you’re a posers for liking them.
Their band members started living like rock stars in the 80s with their new found fame, showed up to a lot of shows drunk, didn’t perform well. Now people doubt they can actually play their songs.
Fast forward a few years, and they got their professionalism back on track. They investing into better live setups to play even better live than before, things such as in ear setup, timecoded midi changes, etc. They’re solid now and better than their pre-GH3 era, but a lot of damage already done to their name.
Herman Li actually streams on twitch. Turns out when he does that holding the guitar horizontal by the tremolo thing he slams it into his knee afterwards. I have no idea why and it sounds painful as hell.
Theatrics.
I upvoted already but I just wanted to add that this is an awesome reply and I appreciate the information. I grew up in the guitar hero days so I heard a lot of both good and bad about dragonforce but I never bothered to follow up after the hype died down.
Thanks!
Also, their mixes and compositions have improved. TtFatF was an assault on the ears where some instruments might as well not have been recorded. Mixes from more recent tracks are more balanced. Unlike TtFatF, on their most recent albums you can actually hear the bass.
Ha, admittedly am one of the people who discovered them through GH3. One year, they were one of the bands on some metal festival like Ozzfest or Mayhem Festival and my buddies and I made it a point to see their set even though they were one of the earlier bands. They were… Not great. Glad to see they have improved. Haven’t bothered thinking about them since.
Because people suck? Also you a word.
Missing a word when you already understood…I don’t think it was doing the damage.
I don’t think Dragonforce is universally hated. Are you mixing them up with Imagine Dragons?
God imagine dragons are awful
Dragonforce rule!
They were hated in the old days mostly because of one live concert that was a disaster on every level. And a lot of their songs sounded very similar to other of their songs.
These days the haters have moved on I’m think. Maybe. Or I just don’t pay attention.
They were hated in the old days mostly because of one live concert that was a disaster on every level.
Which live concert? I saw them at an open air festival and it wasn’t a disaster by any stretch, but they fumbled TTFAF and I haven’t been into them nearly as much since.
I loved the live show I saw with them and In Flames.
Only thing I didn’t like was the singer calling me out from the stage for sitting down because I have medical problems.
IDK if hated is the right word. This seems like an AI generated meme to get a rise out of a community.
That being said, allegedly dragonforce was annoying to see live because they used to get too drunk to play their own songs. They seem to be more sober now, and they play pretty well.
What makes you think this is AI? I’d love to keep an eye out for similar ones.
I’m definitely not an expert so don’t take my point of view too seriously. However, I’m guessing so because it’s a meme directed at a community that should understand it, but nobody seems to understand it at all. A lot of AI is just crowd sourced language models, so it’ll just put commonly used words together that may or may not make sense, depending on the prompt. In this case, it looks like a prompt of something like make a meme about a niche metal band using the I’m too afraid to ask template.
I also question any poster who makes a post like this but then doesn’t engage anyone. Just drop it and move on. This person seems active on other subs, so i wouldn’t guess bot account, but that would leave AI. He or she has no idea how to respond to the comments because they don’t understand their own post is my guess.
Eh, on the serious side, despite metal culture being typically open and friendly (outside of the pit, in the pit you are hamburger to be chewed), every group has assholes.
There are people that just like feeling superior, so anything they aren’t into sucks, and they’ll make up the criteria start determines what does and doesn’t suck so that their opinion is validated.
That’s all it is. You see it with bookheads, with hip-hop heads, pop freaks, whatever.
My experience is that the metal culture is PARTICULARLY friendly in the pit. Everyone typically looks out for each other, and people who mosh too violently are usually pulled out of the pit. Also: with metal becoming more and more popular over the last two decades, Ifeel like the ratio of assholes in the community has grown.
Oh, pits are absolutely done with respect and care on average, but it’s still violent by nature, which is what I meant.
The opinions of individuals are not necessarily reflective of the opinions of the collective.
Now, who’s claiming to hate Dragonforce? Because it’s the first I’ve heard of it recently.
Yeah this is news to me, I love dragonforce
My friends can’t take them seriously because of the lyrics, but they’re all missing the point: What the fuck else are you gonna listen to when you’re escaping a collapsing hellfortress with the armies of the damned slavering at your heels?
I don’t why either, but to be fair I also accidentally the whole thing.
As other people have stated, their live shows sucked for a while because they were so trashed playing really complicated stuff and it sounded awful, that’s why I really don’t like them for the most part. Secondly, I love metal, but their stuff is way over produced imo. Really talented musicians when they want to be tho so I respect that.
