The Beauty of Over-The-Top Musicians and the Sad Case of One

We all like to think we have taste in music, that we don't listen to artists that others deem as gaudy or tacky (hatin' other rappers like I'm Helga Pataki). No rap fan wants to say they love Eminem's Revival (here's why) just like no rock fan wants to say they love Nickelback (here's why). I feel this is why over-the-top musicians get unnecessary hate. If you've read my previous articles you'll know that I love judging hated music on it's own merits and huge bombastic music is no exception here. I will neither put down these artists nor raise them on a pedestal. More than just putting showy talent in the spotlight and giving it some much deserved attention, I took some time to delve deep into the huge diverse world of ridiculous music. The more I learnt the more I appreciated the art of unabashed music so indulge me if you will as I bring you on a long and ridiculous journey which ends on a sad case of one artist I had the misfortune to blow the dust off of.

A little footnote before we begin, it's difficult to define what is over-the-top more than just a measure of taste and many of the things I mention here might not fit your definition of over-the-top. I was watching 2 guys who run Lost In Vegas, a Youtube channel where 2 hip-hop heads react to music mainly not from their genre. React channels are usually trashy but these guys are an exception because they have a lot to say and are generally very welcoming of new art. The point is, I saw their reaction to Dream Theater's Fall Into The Light (you can watch that here). In the video they described the song and the band as a whole as theatrical and I thought that's an apt way to sum up the musicians on this list. The artists I chose to include are the one's that are unapologetic about their tastelessness and fully embrace their style. There are crazier acts out there that I didn't include because craziness is an unintended side effect of their music and not the main appeal or goal. Also I have full control over this list so I'll put whoever the hell I want here so deal with my schmeil. In spirit of over-the-topitude, I too shall unabashedly embrace my idiosyncrasies and go crazy with my writing style. So prepare for a metric assload (which is much more than your inferior imperial assload) of irrelevant hyperlinks, off-tangent brackets and contrived analogies . See I've already begun. This is also the only article I won't bother to keep PG, so be warned.

Let's start with some history kids so whip out your textbooks and turn to page Paganini. Over-the-Top music really began as a form of showmanship to display virtuosity. Paganini wrote his 24 caprices back in his hey-day filled with the most advanced techniques on the violin you can think of and can't think of. It was so hard that literally nobody on earth, at the time of writing it, could play it except him. Adam Neely does a great explanation on the topic of virtuosity in this video (and a terrible explanation in this video because it's not an explanation at all it's actually a song by his jazz duo). As we go through this list, many of the artists mentioned really care about virtuosity in one form of another. The point is that this approach to music is nothing new and though most of what I'm mentioning will be within the last penta-decade (that's 50 years), it is because of my experience with music and not because boastful musicians didn't exist in the before time. It would also make for a really boring article if I wrote mostly about Rachmaninov's large hands. But unapologetic indulgence does not necessarily equate to tastelessness. Joe Satriani is an accomplished electric guitarist who has been criticised for being overly technical, but that does not mean his hardest songs lack emotion (check this out). Also consider the fact that many of the artists I mention aim to elicit emotions that many of us cannot relate to or just won't feel. It's not tastelessness, it's a different taste.

I really begin our journey with instrumental bombasticity (I'm running out of synonyms for over-the-top). I talked about good old Joe Linguini, but he pails in comparison to the neo-classical legend Yngwie Malmsteen. A man with a difficult name and an even difficulter discography of songs. Take Far Beyond the Sun for example. I challenge you to find any point past the first minute where he isn't shredding. He's so concerned with speed that his guitar is scalloped on all frets. For the non guitar-literate, scalloping your entire fretboard is the guitar equivalent of putting quadruple exhaust pipes on your e-scooter. Despite the ridiculousness he is in the guitarist hall of fame for putting classical melodies back into the e-guitar world. The modern equivalent would be Jason Richardson, the dissonant descendant of Yngwie. What he lacks in complexity of name he makes up for in his abundance of insane playing. One song to sum him up would be Hos Down. In it he randomly transitions to country and jazz where he still does not hold back on technicality, and neither does the drummer. Jason lovingly vomits all over this song like one would lovingly crash a fighter jet into a nuclear bomb. He did a collaboration with Polyphia, another highly technical band, called Aviator and yet still finds a way to be noticeably flashier by far. I'll give Jason Richardson the over-the-top shreddy daddy award. I could go on all day about shreddy guitarists or blast-beat drummers but since I'll also be talking about bands, it seems fitting that I cut short on instrument mastery here.

Moving away from virtuosity, we have over-the-top heaviness. In metal, the term heavy is used to describe the weight of your mom. I'm kidding. It's used to describe the brutal-ness of a band's music based on things like how low is their tuning, how distorted are their vocals and how dark are their lyrics. By far the most famous and debatably heaviest band is Cannibal Corpse. Their name says it all. The band prides itself in disgusting the listener through the subject matter, that is if one can even discern what the singer is trying to growl out. Try the succinctly-named Entrails Ripped From a Virgin's Cunt and see if it fits you, you never know. If you look up the lyrics, you can see that beyond the disgusting source material, there is beauty in the way they use imagery to portray the killing of the virgin...I think. I give Cannibal Corpse the over-the-top heaviness trophy, which I'm sure they will use to shove down a zombie's throat and write a whole album on.

The album cover "art" of "The Wretched Spawn". Subtle.

The popular belief that metal-heads are actually the warmest soft-hearted people is unfortunately not true in this case. It seems Cannibal Corpse does not put on a persona when it comes to their music.

Up next, the adorable world of Kawaii metal. Kawaii metal refers to a sub-genre of metal that combines elements of heavy metal and J-pop. In my opinion, that isn't a sufficient explanation. Combining elements of each genre implies some elements of each are sacrificed in order to create a cohesive whole. Rather, what Kawaii metal bands try to do is combine the entire emotional and pop-culture spectrum surrounding both genres and smash them together like hulk wearing a dress. There is no compromise by either genre. Take BABYMETAL (officially spelled in all caps) for example, a band that for some reason decided to name itself by describing itself. It's like naming The Pussycat Dolls "Sex Appeal with a Drum Machine". BABYMETAL is a trio of young girls backed up by a talented band. They've written (summoned is a better word) catchy boppers like Megitsune. I love BABYMETAL's refusal to choose. Instead of choosing between idols who dance or a band that plays, they front both. Instead of choosing between techno synths or chunky guitar, they have both. In essence that is the beauty of Kawaii metal.

BABYMETAL holding up their masks

I know what you're dying to ask. What if I want cute Japanese girls but also cute growling Caucasian men? Well then do I have the perfect band for you! Introducing LADYBABY (yes also in all caps, they seem to want to scream their name at you), a Kawaii metal band made up of 2 run-of-the-mill Japanese idols and 1 aggressively manly white male. Their songs balance beautifully the energetic youthfulness of their girl leads with the I-want-to-stab-you-in-your-sleep-ness of their male lead. What a trio! Kawaii metal isn't over-the-top in either aspects of metal or J-pop but it is over-the-top in it's unflinching attitude towards juxtaposition and strangeness. Aiming to capture fans of both genres, Kawaii metal has unwittingly found a third target audience of people who love novelty. You might argue that all comedy bands are over-the-top novelty but the difference here is that Kawaii metal is absolutely serious. So I'm sorry BABYMETAL, but because of their frilly male lead, I'm giving LADYBABY the over-the-top juxtaposition trophy. I hope they drip it in blood and dress it up with a maid outfit. Unfortunately this award must be given post-humously due to the fact that the band has since broken up. Why must the good die young?

LADYBABY in their heyday. Rest in peace growly ones

The keener among you may realise that the band wasn't awarded a novelty trophy. That award has to go to GWAR (yes again in all caps). Gwhat you ask? GWAR, besides being the war cry of someone with a speech impediment, is a heavy metal band known for their grotesque costumes and oddly specific theme. They have an official canon narrative in which the band members are barbaric interplanetary warriors and all their music is linked up to this narrative. It's a genius move honestly to deck every member out with alien costumes, the band still lives on without any of it's original members and if you didn't take the time to Google it, you would never have known. It's almost as if the costumes are more important than the members inside. It makes you wonder whether the alien warrior story is a work of fiction or these costumes secretly possessed these members and the only way they know to communicate their story to the masses is through the divine power of rock (technically metal but who's keeping track)! A great side effect is that no poser teenage girl is gonna wear your band shirt, it's just gonna make them look like they play Dungeons and Dragons (and diners and drive-ins and dives).

What I show people when they ask "why is GWAR the undisputed sex symbol of metal?"

For a bunch of alien warriors, their hands appear freakishly human. It seems the left guitar player is married and follows human customs of wearing a wedding ring on their ring finger. Is this cultural appropriation on a planetary scale? Suppressing my inner social justice warrior, I'm awarding GWAR the over-the-top novelty award plus a special ribbon for best space-themed band. I hope they understand the cultural significance of trophies lest they get offended and I inadvertently start a space war.

Instead of a band, the next nominee is a whole sub-genre: power metal. Power metal is basically metal played in the tune of epic. This genre is known for its fast tempos, grand subject matter, blazing solos and melodic vocals. There is no band that epitomises this sub-genre better and is more successful than DragonForce (no caps lock this time but even though it's one word the F is officially capitalised as well). You may know them for their meme-fied one hit wonder Through the Fire and Flames (if you want the MV: here, but it's shortened). Without exception all their songs contain vague imagery of glory and triumph and it's all so good. But DragonForce is just the well-shampooed tip of the power metal iceberg. They are really the frontrunners of dozens of band that unabashedly play too fast, too much and for too long. Other bands like NIGHTWISH (guess what, all caps again) fall into its sibling category: symphonic metal. If you squint really hard NIGHTWISH kind of resembles Evanescence. I'm giving the hair-whipping maestros of DragonForce the over-the-top epic trophy and an extra metal for being one of the only bands that appreciate the art of keyboard solos.

The members of DragonForce. Brings a tear to my eye to see a keytar player considered a "member" of the band.

But what if you want all the speed of power metal but none of the fantasy, uplifting feel and talent and instead want it all replaced with what is essentially speed construction noise? Well surprise, surprise there's a whole untapped market that want just that and they listen to grindcore. Have a listen to this, notice how it says TECHNICAL grindcore, implying other grindcore songs are typically less musical and melodious than that and you get a good picture of what grindcore is all about. You can tour the diverse array of songs in this video which takes you through 60 of the shortest songs in the genre in just 7 minutes. The songs are even better live. Why the drummer needed to give a 4 beat count in to the song will forever be a mystery. I don't have much to say about this sub-genre just as the vocalists in these bands don't have much to sing besides imitating the sound of a grizzly bear being sucked into a wood chipper made of grizzly bears. Just like power metal, grindcore also has a sister sub-genre known affectionately as industrial metal. I think the title leaves no need for explanation. All the bands here are over-the-top because they've pushed the envelope of heaviness so far that they've managed to stop making music out of their instruments. Their approach to music is to barrage their listeners with a wall of sound. They couldn't care less what tempo, tuning and key their songs are in, in fact the moment they can discern any of those I'm sure their fans would be sorely disappointed. Since Napalm Death's song managed to get covered by Opeth twice, I'm giving them the over-the-top "GRRRRRRRR" award. I'm sure the sound of the trophy smashing will wind up being the snare in a blast beat in their new album.

The members of napalm death caught moments before smashing the camera and jamming to the sound

Let's take it a step further. What if I told you there's an audience of people who don't even want anything resembling music. Screw instruments, shrieky vocals and our general conception of music. What these guys really want is drone music. Yes finally a genre without "metal" in it and for good reason, to say this genre resembles or takes inspiration from any other genre would be straight up wrong. This genre is categorised by it's lack of rhythm or pacing or melody or sense. Rather their songs are just prolonged sounds that sound someone hitting a church bell with their own crying 5-year-old child in slow-mo. This whole genre is over-the-top for defying the very notion of music as a whole and takes out-of-the-box thinking to a whole new level. Instead of picking up a guitar and thinking "how do I make a new sound with this?" they threw all that out the window and found that they liked the sound of the window smashing. They even challenge the very notion of band names with my favourite example Sun 0))) (pronounced Sun "o"). To be fair, these guys do play the guitar but only in the technical sense. They play the guitar like a warm summer's breeze might accidentally doot a trumpet. The whole genre is an paradox. The term "drone music" is oxymoronic like "Scottish sobriety" or "Swiss bias" or "airpod poverty". I'm digging the refusal to be chained to conventions and so I'm requesting Sun 0))) give me the over-the-top unorthodox trophy, defying society's perception of award giving.

A Sun 0))) member hunched over as if to defy conventions on good body posture

Time to recenter ourselves back to conventional music. We wanna explore but we don't wanna get lost just yet. Just as metal has sped up versions of itself, so does rap and the speed-rappers of today aren't joking around. We all may know of Busta Rhymes in 60 second assassins or Eminem in the second verse of Speedom (yes it's faster than Rap God) but these guys pale in comparison to someone like Don Xperto. Where Joyner or JID might want to add speed as an extra topping on top of wordplay and all that good rapper stuff, the real speed rappers couldn't care less what they're saying. The speed is the wordplay and just like many of the people on this list, it's more a showcase of skill than a song. Even the term skill is debatable here. Listen to Crucified's creatively named That Music and you be the judge of whether or not he's rapping those words properly. This niche area of music is unique in that I really can't see the appeal to the die-hard fans. Even noise music had a certain philosophical appeal and grindcore has it's art style, but speed rappers invite fans of people who say words and remove any semblance of word-saying altogether. I'm completely missing something here. Regardless, I'm giving Don Xperto the over-the-top hatata-batata award. Credits to Eminem for coining the perfect term to describe the Migos vein of rappers. In the end I have to commend Don and Cruce (if I may call him that) for sacrificing everything for the sake of speed. As the wise Dr. Ian Malcolm said, "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should."

An expert in what? Not in spelling that's for sure

In this next genre we ramp up the speed. The crazy minds behind this genre were dissatisfied with the limits of the human body. Using tech know-how and waveform wizardry (actually it's just the speed tool in Garageband), they gave birth to Extratone. Extratone is the drugged up version of speedcore which I'm skipping because you can fully understand what that is from the name. Extratone has a surprisingly precise definition as referring to any electronic music above 1,000 bpm. That's stupid fast. Just like speed rappers who sacrifice everything for syllables per second, extratone musicians sacrifice all music for speed. The ridiculousness of this genre is never better displayed than through this video of a man trying to play an extratone song on Guitar Hero. To prove my point further, let's do some quick math. The human hearing range typically goes down to 20 Hz. Doing some quick calculation, you will find that comes to 1,200 oscillations per minute. That means that if an extratone song had a 20 Hz frequency (E0) every quarter note and it was played at 1,200 bpm, the sound literally could not complete one single cycle before the next note had to be played. Some Extratone songs go up to 10,000 bpm making it impossible to play notes below E3. Songs literally go so fast that they cut off an entire range of frequencies. For making music reach a physical limit, I'm giving Diabarha the over-the-top spastic clubber's choice trophy. I'd like to see someone bob their heads to this.

Without the limits of the human physique comes many possibilities and I'm very glad one of those possibilities is the world of black MIDI. Black MIDI refers to computer-made songs that contain so many notes that the sheet music itself looks black. This is by far my favourite kind of overdone music because in no way does it remove from artistic endeavour. Pretty much all Black MIDI songs use the piano as their only instrument and yet their music is full and rich. Perhaps Orson Welles was right when he said "the enemy of art is the absence of limitations". With no drums, many black MIDI songs use a mess of hard bass notes as the driver of the beat. Though the aim of the game here is to create the song with the most notes (the current record is 93,823,560,428,205. That's 93 trillion). The black MIDI community is not a group of people hashing away and making 10 hour of songs of non-stop 88 key presses at 1000bpm, black MIDI is about the art of putting notes into a song. The key here is that a note played at zero intensity still counts to the total notes, so that opens up a whole world of MIDI art. Theoretically speaking, you could make a 15 hour song with trillions of notes and have only one note ring out and call it a day. In this sense black MIDI composers are true artists. They have a plethora of ways to cheap out but choose not to, in the same way that any musician could write a trashy pop hit but decide not to and put in effort into their craft. Out of all the ridiculous genres, black MIDI is the one that surprises me most in diversity, love and just plain beauty. Black MIDI has turned a tool for audio into a visual art and an exercise in creativity, dedication and bravado. I'm giving Gingeas, the creator of the current largest black MIDI song by note count, the over-the-top constrained artist trophy.

none of that subtlety stuff, more is the new more!

Okay enough with stretching the limits of musical form, we now turn the spotlight to progressive music. Not to be confused with melodies about women's rights, progressive music refers to music that is basically complex. In the sense that it uses complex melodies and rhythms, are often longer and are difficult to play. Because of this, progressive music is really music made for the musician. Often times prog musicians are less concerned with how good the music is and more concerned with whether it gives musicians something interesting to dissect. Dream Theater which I've mentioned before is a part of this wave but it's just the polyrhythmic tip of the iceberg. The band has a history of altering music to make it accessible to the layman, whereas many bands do not. Thus births math rock, the extreme cousin. Math rock is for the hardcore nerd who also loves music. More than just a demonstration of skill, it's a demonstration of its precise beauty. Take a look at Lateralus by Tool which uses the Fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio to create their music which on top of that is extremely difficult to perform (here's an expertly done drum cover). Here's another example drawing every possible connection to pi. You can rest assured, both prog rock and math rock have their more brutal cousins as prog metal and mathcore. Nobody would ever let a genre remain non-brutal, those heavy distortion guitarists play everything they can (even dubstep). I'm giving Tool the over-the-top nerdy technicality award. Bonus ribbon for Dream Thearer who doesn't treat their keyboardist like he doesn't exist.

Dream theater looking like they belong in a pirate-viking cabaret

Let's tone down the heaviness and crank up the jazz with one of my favourite and special cases in music. The fact that I've mostly talked about genres points to the fact that rarely do musicians stand heads higher than their peers. If someone wants to play highly technical metal than likely a few bands would equal them in complexity and start a whole new genre. Jazz is no exception when it comes to the race for skill. Back in 1960 John Coltrane was already pushing the limits with his release of Giant Steps, which has so many chord changes and key changes at such an insanely fast tempo that it became a rite of passage for any jazz musician worth their title. But despite decades of pushing the envelope and many savant musicians, I still cannot talk about technical jazz as a genre because I can't ignore that there is but one man on a level so far unmatched by any musician currently: Jacob Collier. As Adam Neely put it "that guy is like really obnoxiously good at music." Let's list his skills down shall we? First of all he's a multi-instrumentalist and not in the I play the kazoo and cajon kind of way. Jacob plays the acoustic and electric guitar, bass, drums, double bass, ukulele, keyboard and melodica all to a degree far above your average kanoodler (that's right I said it, kanoodler). Here's a song he wrote where he plays everything himself. On top of that he's an accomplished vocalist. He began his music career when his Youtube covers went viral which were basically jazzy Acapellas so his voice is more than satisfactory. Check out the vocal run at 2:32 of his live cover of Close to You (also note the improv of bass and vocals at the same time) or this video where he accidentally hits a low C#. He also has perfect pitch which is the ability to discern a note without needing another relative note. Here's an interview of him where he rapidly ascends keys with perfect accuracy. It's insane to see how blindingly fast he relates notes and keys and chords and theories. He talks about music the way one might talk about food. He also has in inhuman perception of rhythm. Here's a video of him effortlessly playing and switching between polyrhythms of 2,3,4,5 and 7 counts. What can't this man do? The answer is have subtlety. Armed with a knack for music like no other, Jacob truly goes wild with his songwriting. In his cover of Michael Jackson's P.Y.T., what is a pretty straightforward song, I get lost by the final chorus which is an indecipherable hotchpotch (hodgepodge if you're American) of polyrhythms and strange bass melodies. He turned the crowd-pleaser of a song, the Flinstones theme, into this. I'm not saying his songs are bad but they're definitely not subtle when it comes to musicality. Pigs will fly the day Jacob writes a four chord bop. Despite being an earful and a mindful, that hasn't stopped him from winning 2 Grammys. I think it doesn't take away from the prestige of being awarded my over-the-top musicality trophy. Keep ba-da-baping my musical dude. Did I mention he's only 24 years old?

Jacob trying to play an Am chord but accidentally playing an B6b5b9 chord

Throw out the musicality, it's time for noisy stuff again! The genre up next is literally called noise music A.K.A. Japanoise for those who are adamant on recognising the genre's origins. Noise music is, like every other genre, exactly what it's called. It's music that revolves around noise. Not distortion-heavy guitars or screaming vocals, literal noise. A cool example is Topping and Core by Grimalkin555 (apparently Grimalkin1 thru 554 was taken), the loudest song on record today. A typical noise music performance involves playing with peaking audio and compressed signals to create artistic "noise" making their performances akin to the world's worst ASMR creator. In fact, ASMR could fall under noise music. The boundaries aren't clear here. This genre isn't just filled with single artists, there are bands as well like The Boredoms who's concerts involve a panoply of noise-creating apparatus (yes the plural of apparatus is apparatus) and also yelling. By definition this could also be noise music. The factor that would turn a pipe falling from the 4th floor and banging on the ground into noise music is a screaming lunatic with a recording device dropping that pipe. As this list has shown however, these guys aren't that loony at all. Mad respects to them for turning a mess into money. Art is art if you convince an audience it is and that's what these guys have done. I'm giving the Boredoms the over-the-top lunacy award.

A member of The Boredoms about to ingest a microphone and create sounds with his alimentary canal

Every Yin has it's Yang and with noise music comes, far on the other end of the spectrum, a little known genre known as microhouse. You may have heard of John Cage's famous 4 33, a song that is written as exactly 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence. Where that was a statement piece of classical music focusing on the nature of music and art, microhouse is literally just about the lack of music. Not as extreme as 4 33, microhouse focuses on minimalism with a lack of outstanding songwriting or loud volume. Instead most microhouse songs have a minimal beat and low, hidden bass lines. The point of microhouse artists is to not compose a song or to compose as little as possible to pay attention to. If you're wondering, yes, such a minimalist form of music does have live performances. This is by far the least over-the-top form of over-the-top on this list but I argue that it is such an extreme lack of music that makes it so over-the-top. This is a far cry from your slow lounge jazz, this is a lack of much more than just that. I'm giving Reinhard Voigt the over-the-top under-the-bottom-ness trophy which is symbolised by the lack of a trophy at all.

A prime example of a microhouse

One thing we haven't touched on much was the length of songs. Napalm Death has many 3-4 second songs while Dream Theater has a 42 minute behemoth (here's a list of genres by song length). There isn't a genre for the long song hungry listener, if there were it'd be populated by 10 hour sin waves and bell tolls. Rather long songs are spread out across different areas of music. The current longest song available in recording is P C III's Rise and Fall of Bossanova clocking in at 13 hours 23 minutes and 32 seconds. I just wish it was an old man dryly expounding on the history and evolution of Brazilian music but alas it's an actual song, how disappointing. John Cage comes up again in this field with his song As Slow As Possible, another experimental piece. It was written without a specific tempo and thus the name was taken literally when they decided to perform the piece in Halberstadt. The piece is planned to last 639 years, it began in 2001 and will end in 2640. Here's one of the chord changes back on the 5th of August, such a momentous occasion. By my calculations, if your average 3 minute song was played to last over 639 years, you could play a beat about 25 days off and still be as accurate as a well-trained drummer. Again, this isn't a musical piece per say but rather a demonstrative art piece stretching the concepts of music and rhythm as well as a great publicity stunt for a small town in Germany.

the alternative title of the song is organ to the second power, which is a great slogan for an organ rights movement.

Behold Behold the Arctopus. Our final category on this list is the ugly world of atonal music. Atonal music is essentially music that refuses to follow the conventions of music structure and language. It is musicians refusing to be beholden to musical theory and writing whatever notes and rhythms they want (here's a nice bluegrass song explaining the gist of it). iths likgh ignoragn spayling and writhing daun vvatavar y00 fiell like and labelng it an art fom. And I totally buy into it. Whomst've has been dubbed the worst band in the world, Behold The Arctopus (an arctopus I can only assume is a gelatinous eight legged invertebrate who only appear in the shape of parts of curves) are the frontrunners of this type of music. Their performances are like a ballet of misplayed notes and looks like 2 garage band kids who have absolutely no idea what they're doing. However, if you can withstand the ear bleeding dissonance and all around ugliness, you can start to appreciate how skilled the members actually are at their respective instruments namely the drums, electric guitar and Godzilla-killa, the 24 and a half string monstrosity that the half-headed haired tall guy taps like he's trying to find its G-spot. Though their music sounds more like the glitched out disc scratch of improvised deathcore chiptune music, there must be some appeal to it because they aren't the only ones making atonal music and are far from being the first. If you listened to the bluegrass tutorial, you'll know that composers like Schoenberg really pioneered this style of music yet if you listen to his works you'll realise that Behold the Arctopus (or BtA as the cool atonal kids say in tritone harmonies) takes it to a completely ridiculous level. Today's atonal music takes away taste completely and doesn't coast the wave of tonality giving you dissonant sprinklings to keep your ears interested, instead it stabs you constantly with tritones and semitonal harmonies and once in a blue mean gives you sweet relief with some sane melodies. I'm giving BtA the over-the-top ear stabbing trophy.

Now I've come to the sad story of one that I mentioned earlier and there's no better segue to it than atonal music. The unfortunate case of Richard Benson, the worst guitar shredder ever. Guitarists on Youtube love to flex with their "betcha can't play this" type videos and nobody's is more infamous than Richard Benson's. Raping his guitar for all to see and hear, the video looks like it was filmed on a diced potato, lit by a torchlight in someone's sex dungeon filled with guitars awaiting their turn. Richard himself looks worse for wear. It would surprise you to know that he began as virtuoso of guitar in prog rock bands, you can here his considerable skill here. He even released some guitar tutorials which weren't half bad. Then at some point he was diagnosed with arthritis, he reportedly even attempted suicide because of this but failed. Then, most surprising of all, he decided to hell with it and decided to continue making music anyway with songs like the, if anything, odd I Nani. Even more shockingly, he continued to perform live despite his severe onset arthritis rendering his hands essentially useless. As expected, the people who did not know Richard did not suffer him lightly, here you can see a sick Richard being pelted with tomatoes, flour, cheese dip and pasta. His vocalist accompanying him had to constantly wipe off his face whilst performing. Clearly there's something Richard can't let go of and the more videos I watch of him, the more I pity him. His deterioration from his prime to the washed up has-been he is today is sad enough, but to see him unapologetically and irrationally clinging on to the vision of his former self is absolutely heartbreaking. It's like waiting at the grave of your late wife everyday, illogically hoping that one day she'll rise up looking like the day you got married and then having thousands of people say you're an idiot right to your face. His decision to keep performing is more than just that, it's a decision to showcase his deterioration to the world for all to pity, laugh, bully and empathise with. Despite his refusal to step away from the spotlight, he has never talked about it in interviews or offered explanations. I can't make heads of tails of Richard Benson, but I can admire his bravery to be himself, no matter how far that might be from what he wants to be. That is why I'm giving Richard Benson the over-the-top trophy. Not over-the-top anything, just over-the-top. Richard Benson, if anyone, deserves some recognition for the artist he is. I hope someone out there tells his fully story and does it more justice than just a special mention at the end of some list on some unseen teen's self-indulgent blog.

Richard Benson today, still clinging on for dear life to his neon-pink Ibanez guitar turned to 11

On that somber note, I've come to the end of the list. If anything I hope we appreciate how diverse music really is and that those on the fringes of conventional music deserve some appreciation. They may not withstand the court of public opinion but hopefully they can be judged in favour of the court of artists and musicians who understand what they're trying to achieve. At the very least we can appreciate the unrelenting way in which they choose to achieve it. Deathcore or extratone is very few people's cup of tea but we can all appreciate the effort that goes into making a cup of tea that's like no other.