Comments on: If Prokofiev wrote death metal

By: Brendan

Brendan — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 00:32:08 +0000

It’s funny, I keep waiting for Freddie Mercury to belt out something triumphantly with this one. I also have a friend whose favorite composer is Prokofiev, which is funny because this would probably torture his ears.

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 00:19:53 +0000

I would call this “progressive metal”, not “death metal”, for two reasons: 1. instrumentation (prog metal would use keyboards as in this recording; death metal would replace the keys with more guitars); and 2. death metal would not retain the harmonic complexity — death metal is almost exclusively modal (and usually uses more “evil” modes and scales like Locrian, various diminished scales, whole tone scale, and so on).

Not to pick nits or anything — I like the performance a lot. :)

By: Bassman

Bassman — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 19:42:10 +0000

Interesting. Not bad. I still prefer the original.
In the early ’90s I had a tape with an electronica version of Carmina Burana. The made it without permission and because the company I worked for owned the rights we had a bunch of these confiscated tapes. Again, I’ll take the orignal.
BUT, the ELP stuff is exceptional! Don’t forget Pictures at an Exhibition.

By: Ian

Ian — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 17:33:42 +0000

You can’t forget Anthrax’s version of “Flight of The Bumblebee”!

By: David

David — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 14:13:19 +0000

pretty funny Randy! reminds me of that scene in Spinal Tap where the boys are playing “Heavy Duty”—when suddenly, in the middle of the song, they launch into Luigi Boccherini’s String Quintet in E major. I hope your friends aren’t upset by the comparison…

One of my favorite reinterpretations is emerson, lake and palmer doing copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man. D/L it if you’re not familiar. Pretty cool.