Re: HIM?

Just made my first-ever visit to a Hard Rock Cafe (San Jose, Costa Rica) last night. They were screening music videos and showed something called "Wings of a Butterfly" by a band called HIM.

I'd never heard of HIM (although I may have seen their inverted-pentagram-heart emblem on a few bumpers tickers before). The video was downright laughable, and the music was total shit rather not at all to my liking.

The only reason to bring it up is that I'm hoping someone will be able to help me figure out which hoary old 80s metal band they nicked the guitar hook from. I'm almost certain they copped it verbatim.

...

I know what you're saying: Who gives a rat's ass?

It's difficult to care when the crap bands of today rip off the crap bands of yesteryear.

...

On the plus side, they did show two videos that I managed to enjoy. Iron Maiden's "Two Minutes to Midnight" provided a stale rush of freshman-year-of-high-school nostalgia and "Lonely Boy" by The Black Keys was good, dopey fun.

Meanwhile, my fiancé declared that Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" gave her the creeps.

That guitar riff bears a very slight resemblance to PIL's "The Body." That's the only thing that comes to mind.

Aw man, you made me check it out...

You may have been catching the vapors from Atlanta's own Drivin 'n Cryin ("The Whisper Tames the Lion"):

[www.youtube.com]

BTW, I was one of the few tall, white guys in the audience on this video...

I had a brief infatuation with HIM a few years ago, back when I was desperately searching for the follow-up to Sisters of Mercy's Vision Thing Andrew Eldritch refused to make. HIM (which allegedly stands for His Infernal Majesty) made a record called Razorblade Romance that was full of gloriously overblown, campy goth metal "love songs" (a la "Join Me in Death," "Your Sweet Six Six Six," "Poison Girl") and a hard rock cover of Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game." For a while I really enjoyed it, as silly as it all was. I also bought another record of theirs (title forgotten at this point) that overall was pretty blah, but had a great song called "Salt in My Wounds."

Unsurprisingly, though, I tired of it all eventually. The nail in the coffin, though, was the album Dark Light, from which "Wings of a Butterfly" comes. It was the band's first album released simultaneously on the major label in the States and in the band's home country of Finland. It's a classic example of major label sell-out, with the metal edges dulled, the gothic atmosphere dissipated and nothing left but bad 80s power balladry. It's not even good cheese. I think it went gold here, though, so mission accomplished, I guess.

I abandoned HIM after that. I moved on to their countrymen the 69 Eyes, hoping they'd provide me with the gothic hard rock thrills the Sisters still won't provide. But the Eyes are even worse than HIM - flaccid hard rock hooks, vampire lyrics beyond camp, sung in a voice so stereotypically gothic it should come in a white package adorned with nothing but a barcode.

HIM and the 69 Eyes are both major stars in their own country. (Given the huge success of the gothic prog metal of their fellow Finns Nightwish, I guess goth metal is the Finnish's thing.) HIM is big in Germany as well.

I've resigned myself to just listening to Vision Thing over and over when I want hooky goth hard rock - clearly only the Sisters knew how to get it right.

Michael Toland wrote:

I guess goth metal is the Finnish's thing.


I read an article years ago about how the Finns are the most depressive population in the world. It's the godawful weather, apparently. I guess the popularity of goth makes a certain sense in that context. Maybe they should put on some Katrina and the Waves though.

> I read an article years ago about how the Finns are the most depressive population in
> the world.

I once read an article that the average Finn consumes about four times as much alcohol each year as the average American. Yet the number of arrests per capita for driving under the influence in Finland, AND the percentage of man-hours in the Finnish economy reported as lost due to alcohol-related issues, both are about one-fourth the comparable figures in the U.S.

The explanation for this, offered by one Finn quoted in the article?

"Work and driving would interfere with drunkenness."

I like the quote "It's not even good cheese."

Rammstein doesn't fit those requirements? SoM were way more mainstream than Finnish goth metal...

I went through the Motorhead catalog and was surprised how much I liked. There were several that I missed or didn't know (even having seen them) and turned out Ace of Spades (the one friends used to drop needle) was not the best.