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
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?
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.
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.
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
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
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.
Not all power metal is cheesy. Symphonic metal is all about showing off ridiculous vocal abilities.
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.
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.
