Did you ever read what I wrote you?

Current obsession: Finnish heavy metal music.

In less than 2 weeks, I'm going to see Nightwish. One of the cool things about this band is that they have a female lead singer. I've been listening to their newest album "Dark Passion Play" nonstop for about a week and it's incredible.

It's familiar like 80s heavy metal, but also incorporates some elements of nu-metal (I hate that term) and the newer goth metal-pop stuff. Kinda sounds like there's some Evanescence in there, and Lacuna Coil-ish sounds. Oh, and for whatever reason both HIM and Nightwish seem to be obsessed with late 80s/early 90s Metallica. You know, before they got all soft and started to suck.

So back to Nightwish. Their current singer, Anette Olson, is actually new (and Swedish, unlike the rest of the band, who are Finnish). Her voice is totally different from the previous singer Tarja, who was classically trained and sang in a very "operatic" sounding voice. She was amazing, but I could only take so much of that type of singing, even if it did have awesome angry metal backing it up. Anette has more of a typical badass girl rock voice. And I can't think of anyone to compare her to now, unfortunately, except Pat Benatar.

Anyway, the thing that totally cracks me up is that Nightwish fired Tarja, their previous singer, via an open letter which is still posted on their website. Talk about airing your dirty laundry in public. I guess that's the difference between a corporate environment and a band, huh? This letter is so personal that it's almost painful to read - like it's something you found accidentally left on a train and weren't supposed to see. I guess no one told these boys to keep their private business, well, private.

So first there's the open letter. But that wasn't enough. There are at least two songs on their current album purported to be about Tarja's firing. One of them, "Master Passion Greed" (nice title, huh?) is about her husband, who is apparently the root of all evil. It's also one of my least favorite songs on the CD - it's too angry for me and if I wanted to listen to speed metal, I would. Rumor has it that Nightwish won't play this one live because they no longer feel that anger. I'll report back if they do. Because that's the point in the show I will go get a drink.

The other song is one of my absolute favorites - "Bye Bye Beautiful" is so catchy and so transparently angry with her. Take a look.



So what is it about Scandinavia (and specifically Finland) and awesome metal music? Is it the cold and darkness? Does the culture somehow encourage angry music vs the random emo crap that's all over the radio these days? Whatever it is, I love it.