I keep running into people (both musicians and non,) who are obsessed with ST. I listen to a very wide range of music, so its odd for me that I wouldn’t like it, but the best way I can describe it is it sounds exactly how id describe AI music. Just gives me a gross feeling.

Not hating. I guess im wondering why people like it so much compared to other groups and why the hype is so big. Is it the whole secretive thing? Ghost and a thousand other groups already did that, its nothing new.

It seems like their live productions are pretty cool. But again, it really looks to be rehashed Ghost but with worse songwriting.

I think he’s a talented vocalist in his style but I personally hate his voice. I am averse to the whole getting up real close on the mic and using vocal fry and grunts to convey that you have sooo much emotion.

Again, just a Lil rant, but also wanted to spur actual discussion

  • GrayBackgroundMusic@lemmy.zipEnglish
    13·
    6 days ago

    I think they’re a bit overhyped but good… Also, I always love a good Sci fi reference in main stream media. Being a nerd kid in the 90’s leaves you with a chip on your shoulder.

    Everyone has a band that makes their brain go “ooooooohhhhhhhhh”. For me, it’s daft punk (except random access memories) or dance with the dead. Gimme loops, distorted samples, and repetition. My wife can’t stand it.

    Sleep Token is just not your flavor of ice cream.

  • ji88aja88a@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    6 days ago

    i just like the music and the arrangements. i think sonically they sound amazing and the genre mix appeals to me. The music feels good to me and helps me escape. I’m not into the lore and that shit.

    then again, i cant stand pink floyd and fleetwood mac and don’t understand why their albums are constantly lauded.

    • bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      4·
      6 days ago

      Thats funny, I really love pink Floyd but its weird music and strange it got so big. Fleetwood mac is fine but overplayed for me.

      I dont mind genre mixing. You may like Stop Drop Rewind if youre into that.

      • foodandart@lemmy.zipEnglish
        2·
        6 days ago

        Pink Floyd is stoner music.

        That’s why it got so big.

        When I was in high school ('78 - '82), everyone that smoked pot also listened to Floyd. (drugs were kind of the by-line for the entire “progressive” rock genre, if I’m gonna be honest about it…)

        Me going to see the movie The Wall with a few friends. Yeah. at a 70 millimeter cineplex in East Hartford, Ct., and we all dropped acid right before we went in to see it.

        It was absolutely over the top. …and amazing.

    • foodandart@lemmy.zipEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      …i cant stand pink floyd and fleetwood mac and don’t understand why their albums are constantly lauded…

      I can answer part of that. For Pink Floyd, it was as their musicianship was unparalleled and at the time, given the recording technology, they had phenomenal sound engineers that really did make near perfect recordings. Moreso that it was done on analog tape, decades before digital. The audio fidelity and sonic qualities of Pink Floyd’s recordings were ahead of their time.

      Get a proper stereo system with a turntable and listen to the LP of Animals, by Pink Floyd. You will hear what is basically a representative of the apex of the art of analog recording.

      As to Fleetwood Mac - they started out as a blues band and then went pop in the mid-70’s and were just wildly popular.

      From a 2025 perspective, it’s solid pop music, they wrote songs with the right hook that could catch listeners. The best pop songs have easy melodies and can be sung along to. That’s the basic formula of the genre. It’s never changed in almost 100 years. Which when you start to see how the recording industry works - there’s a reason the 70’s pop resonates today. It’s aimed at demographics of age, and everyone is in the target demographic at one point in their life.

      The industry rolls on 25-30 year cycles. Now the heavy metal/pop sound made by bands like Sleep Token is swinging back around. Last time the loud and angry sound hit big was with the 90’s grunge that supplanted the heavy rock hair bands of the late 80’s.

  • redhorsejacket@lemmy.worldEnglish
    61·
    6 days ago

    Sleep Token seems to be Tool for a younger audience. Not exclusively, of course (I’m positive there is a lot of crossover appeal), but they tick a lot of the same boxes that Tool did/does, without the baggage of looking like it was made by the hypothetical listener’s dad and his friends.

    Now, I’m sure that this argument is reductive, and that mega fans of both bands could easily come in and explain how their music is worlds apart and yadda yadda yadda. I get it. In truth, I’ve not explored much of ST’s catalog (just focused on exploring other sounds at the moment) but The Summoning absolutely slaps ass, and I don’t believe anyone who suggests that they knew where that song was going when they listened to it the first time.

    Mostly I’m invoking Tool because I feel like there are more parallels in their fandom than in their music. Alternative metal acts with progressive instincts who thread the needle between metal, rock, pop, and art to greater or lesser critical and popular acclaim. Both groups have a contingent of fans who won’t shut up about how much they love the band, which leads to a certain counter-argument coalescing around people who are more sick of hearing about the band than they are actually upset by the band’s music.

    • glimse@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      6 days ago

      Hmmm I definitely agree with where you went at the end but I think there’s a better comparison. Tool is one of those bands that musicians are really into. The way they write is deliberately technical in a way that non-musicians can enjoy but musicians geek out over. They really like “the process”

      Sleep Token fans, from what I’ve seen, just really like the music. The fandom seems like a combination of any rock band and a pop star where there isn’t a big percentage of self-proclaimed music experts. They’re a lot less self-important, they just think their favorite band fuckin ROCKS.

      I admit that’s all anecdotal. And full disclosure, I dislike Sleep Token and used to really like Tool

      • redhorsejacket@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        6 days ago

        Yeah I could very well be mischaracterizing ST’s fandom. Like I said, I barely know anything about the group beyond one song, their aesthetic, and some of the drumming highlights (thanks Drumeo). However, OP’s post smacked so very neatly of older complaints that Tool is over hyped and Bad, Actually™️, that I felt secure in conflating the two.

        Totally agreed that there is an element of musician snobbery in Tool’s fandom, but I’d be shocked if that’s not also present in Sleep Token’s world. Like I’ve said, I’ve got a very limited pallette to draw from, and maybe The Summoning is nonreprestentative of their usual sound, but I don’t see how a band which produces that track doesn’t attract the same type of fan that can’t make it through a Tool song without mentioning the Fibonacci sequence (I say that with love, I’m often that fan despite my best efforts).

        • jimmux@programming.devEnglish
          2·
          6 days ago

          All the Sleep Token fans I know are pretty old, but that might just be because all the younger music fans I know are more in the rave scene.

          Since OP made a comparison to Ghost, I did notice at the last show of theirs I attended, the crowd was very diverse. I saw kids and seniors alike.

          Maybe part of the popularity of these bands is that they operate outside the traditional boundaries, so they’re more likely to have cross-generational appeal. That helps boost popularity overall. We’re in an era now where music is less defined by generations than in the past. As a kid I was mostly exposed to what my peers were listening to, but now I can access everything. It’s getting much harder to pigeon-hole fandoms.

  • BroBot9000@lemmy.worldEnglish
    61·
    6 days ago

    Thanks. Now I know what to avoid.

    Sounds like they are just well marketed and probably got some big corporate deal that is pushing them in the TikTok brainrot algorithm.

    • glimse@lemmy.worldEnglish
      9·
      6 days ago

      You are doing yourself a disservice to not give it a shot. I’ve disregarded tons of artists only to come back years later and find I actually really liked it.

      So now, unless it’s absolutely grating, I will listen to a song from a new artist in it’s entirety. If it’s “meh” or better, I’ll listen to a second song in its entirety. Repeat until I decide if I like it.

      My goal is usually to listen to an entire album, though I don’t expect others to be that masochistic.

      I highly recommend it. I actually did this for Sleep Token last year and decided that I did indeed I hate it but I still think it was worthwhile.

      • BroBot9000@lemmy.worldEnglish
        31·
        6 days ago

        With the absolute wave of sludge content out there you have to have some sort of filter. Especially now with the onslaught of Ai slop being spammed onto the internet.

        I give new music a shot if it comes from one of my trusted sources. TikTok and social media hype is not a trustworthy source for quality media.

        People deserve an adblocker for the stuff they consume. You don’t have to watch a show or play a game that you don’t enjoy. Same with music.

      • BroBot9000@lemmy.worldEnglish
        51·
        6 days ago

        If you describe it as sounding like “Ai music”, I don’t think I will.

        I’m also immediately turned off by hype trains nowadays. No product getting released deserves the kind of hype that corporate slop gets these days. Labubu, sneakers, NFTs, battle passes, celebrity de jure, it’s all scams to get you to consume more.

        Consume!!! More!!! CONSUME!!!

          • BroBot9000@lemmy.worldEnglish
            3·
            6 days ago

            I trust personal recommendations from actual people in real life that might be excited for something good.

            In no way do I believe anything getting hyped from mainstream social media isn’t just a paid marketing campaign at this point. With the amount of paid for bots on basically every platform and now Ai slop accelerating that mess, it’s only going to get worse.

  • scrollo@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    6 days ago

    1. I’d bucket them as “A Deftones backbone with metal flourishes and pop sensibilities”. That’s a big mix of people, and so they can attract more fans.

    2. Their band aesthetic / look makes them easily identifiable. It’s a successful marketing tool shrug

    I think your points are valid, though.

    Note: I’m not a huge fan of them, but have enjoyed a few of their songs.

  • Chronographs@lemmy.zipEnglish
    3·
    6 days ago

    They sound like someone using a woman using a voice changer to pitch her voice down imo, the music is just kind bland otherwise

  • Console_Modder@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2·
    6 days ago

    Fair enough. I’ve started listening to Sleep Token quite a bit in the last two years and I really like a lot of their songs. However, their latest album is… a little too weird though. I dunno, to each their own. ¯\(ツ)/¯

  • DearMoogle@lemmy.todayEnglish
    1·
    6 days ago

    Yeah I tried listening to them in an effort to find some interesting current bands and I didn’t like what I heard either. Actually I can’t even describe them lol it was that unmemorable…

    To be fair, I’ve been a bit bored with music lately. I can’t help this sense like everything’s too rehashed, repetitive, I heard it before, I can predict the next few bars, the “original” was better, etc. etc. Idk if there’s something wrong with me lol. Maybe I’ve become old and out of touch😅

    • bravesirrbn ☑️@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      6 days ago

      If you like some (melodic) death metal, give Orbit Culture a listen.

      Some of my favs:

      … I should probably stop here, but basically all of their songs resonate with me in some way or another. Hardly a day goes by where I don’t put on at least one of their albums

      • DearMoogle@lemmy.todayEnglish
        2·
        5 days ago

        Thank you for taking the time to link these suggestions! I love melodeath and will certainly give these a try😊

    • Sunforged@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      6 days ago
      • Castle Rat
      • Blackwater Holylight
      • Sons of Arrakis
      • Elder

      My metal tastes lean decisively doom these days, but these are all modern artists who are heavy on my rotation the last year.

    • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
      1·
      6 days ago

      Have you tried the Black Country, New Road –related scene like Squid, English Teacher, Fontaines D.C. (it stands for Dublín City)? Or maybe Divorce, which is “normal” indie rock? And King Gizzard is usually a safe option

      • DearMoogle@lemmy.todayEnglish
        1·
        6 days ago

        I’ll give those suggestions a try:)

        I only know King Gizzard from that list and from what’ve I’ve heard -mainly I gave Infest the Rats’ Nest a fair listen- I do think they’re decent.

        Edit: I’m liking Black Country, New Road so far! Scratches my sad girl DeathCab itch. Put on Ants From Up Here. The crescendo on the song Concorde is so gorgeous.