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Opinion of the 1995 White Zombie song: "More Human than Human"


Carrie Mathison
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  1. 1. Opinion?

    • Hero Song
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    • Villain Song
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A staple of mid '90s metal. Love em or hate em- White Zombie was at the forefront of the 90s metal shift towards industrial metal, groove metal, etc (right up there with, e.g., Pantera, etc.)

 

"More Human than Human" from their album Astro-Creep: 2000, was probably their most successful single.

 

Vote in the poll- hero song or villain song??

 

 

 

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Guest El Chalupacabra

Astrocreep 2000 is a badass album. Back in the day, I liked La Sexercisto better, but I think I like Astrocreep as a whole, better, now.

Whoa crazy-- for some odd reason I was zombie kick this last week. I maintain White Zombie is hero, while solo Rob Zombie means well, but is villain.

Wait a minute. Superbeast. Dragula. Living Deadgirl. Phantom Stranger. Hellbilly Deluxe 1 was awesome. So was the followup remix album American Music to strip by, which was basically doing the NIN thing, and remixing existing songs. Maybe everything else that followed wasn't as good or was sub par, but HD1 was a damn good album.

 

But even bad Rob Zombie is still good enough to get you psyched and pissed for a good workout!

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Hellbilly Deluxe was a pretty good album, you're right about that.

 

But following that album... Tank's kinda right about solo Zombie. It ranges from average to outright bad. Decidedly a "meh" solo career IMO.

 

Astro-Creep: 2000 was arguably the peak of that particular style of metal.

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I loved Hellbilly Deluxe. So many good songs. I never owned Astrocreep: 2000, so I'm not super familiar with the other songs on it. I have no idea what came after Hellbilly Deluxe, and it's probaby better that way.

 

It's like the rise and fall of Metallica in a way.

 

Astrocreep = Black Album. The peak of their music career, and the last album before something in their sound changes. It can be argued Metallica's sound started to change right before the black album, but they still had grit and it was still the peak of their success.

 

Hellbilly Deluxe = Load. Good albums...but lost their edge somewhere along the line. Definitely a lot less grit. They are glammed out versions of themselves. The load album featured a picture of Metallica sitting around smoking cigars dressed in nice black clothes and with short, clean haircuts. What, not smashing guitars and snorting coke? Hellbilly Deluxe also looks and sounds more Happy Halloweeny to me.

 

After that...meh

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It just seemed to me that White Zombie was a metal band that, when the 90s hit, knew how to elevate their sound and style to adapt to the times so is not to become irrelevant as grunge started to take over. The use of keyboards and sampling and a strong visual flair made them stand out.

The truth is though, their schtick was pretty much a 100% rip off of The Misfits, with every song being based off a b-movie, comic book, or monster.

As a band this seemed to still work and I enjoyed it despite that. When Zombie fired the band and replaced them with computers it lost a little life. And at the time I was a huge 90s industrial music fan, so in theory I should have loved it. Chalup is right, the new sound resembled all the great industrial producer remixes of earlier songs. but that too seemed to not hit its potential.

Rob Zombie started to seem less like a unique vision and more like the cartoon version of Marilyn Manson (who also lost a lot as he got rid of band members).

In theory I should love Rob Zombie as a musician and as a filmmaker. I love and share his influences, I love his ideas and concepts, I'm literally into pretty much all the same stuff. He should be my hero-- but outside of a few moments of nailing it, his product always seems just sort of "meh."

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Guest El Chalupacabra

I guess I am in agreement with you all more or less, in varying degrees and on varying points. Sexercisto-Astrocreep-Hellbilly are the trifecta of White Zombe-Rob Zombie. You won't get any argument out of me that anything before or after those three are pretty mediocre. Interesting comparisons, though.

 

I don't know that I would say WZ ripped off Misfits. Lots of (mostly punk or goth) bands, also got into the b-movie shtick, or at least dabbled in it in the 1980s and 1990s. Two that immediately come to mind are the Cramps, and Bauhaus (I'm sure I can think of more, but just got in from 6 hours of driving). Might as well say the Misfits (or Manson for that matter) ripped off Alice Cooper. Nor would I necessarily compare Zombie to Manson, though they are contemporaries. I don't know I would compare Astrocreep or Hellbilly to Metallica's Black album or Load, either. But it is interesting you guys collectively hit upon some points, and bands that I have thought over the years.

 

For example, I have long thought musical style and vocals (Rob Zombie at times sounds like James Hetfield, at least to me) of White Zombie (especially Sexercisto and older) remind me of an edgier version of Metallica. When Rob Zombie got more into the techno sound, I thought it paralleled that of Manson. And while not quite the same way Driver stated, I think a comparison to Misfits is valid, when it comes to the career of Glenn Danzig. Like Danzig, Rob Zombie was at the top of his game with White Zombie. Also like Danzig, Zombie's early solo work was some of his best music, in part because it sounded a lot like the music from their original bands. Glenn Danzig's best solo work was with Samhain, and early Danzig (IE Danzig 1), and when it comes to Zombie, you can see a LOT of Astrocreep in Hellbilly, where you start to see Zombie experimenting with fusing metal and industrial music.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

I think you're the only person I've ever seen call Load a "good" album.

 

Not necessarily disagreeing with you- just doesn't seem to be a popular opinion.

Depends on age I am guessing. If someone got into Metallica at about the time Load was released,or after, I can see someone thinking of it as one of their better albums.

 

Of course, dinosaurs like me who remember when Puppets was released, and listened to their older stuff all through the 1980s, wouldn't agree with that.

 

But I think Dana-Kin's comparison is pretty legit.

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There's some DNA shared between Alice Cooper, The Cramps, Kiss, Manson, Zombie and the Misfits without doubt. Horror-punk became an entire subgenre.

 

But Zombie and the Misfits are the only ones that stuck to it pretty much song to song, down to naming songs after b-movies. I'm also biased because Danzig-era Misfits is a major thing for me.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

There's some DNA shared between Alice Cooper, The Cramps, Kiss, Manson, Zombie and the Misfits without doubt. Horror-punk became an entire subgenre.

 

But Zombie and the Misfits are the only ones that stuck to it pretty much song to song, down to naming songs after b-movies. I'm also biased because Danzig-era Misfits is a major thing for me.

There's definitely a case to be made that White Zombie/Rob Zombie sort of copied Misfits in that way, especially starting with La Sexercisto (or even before with Make them Die slowly, but who really listens to that one!). But I think, for me at least, it does't "feel" like White Zombie was ripping off Misfits because their music styles are so far apart. Plus I think the intent and delivery is different, too. Misfits' pioneered Horror-Punk, which in part, was a tribute to classic horror as much as it was to rockabilly, and garage punk. It was practically the whole point of that genre. With White Zombie, I don't know, it seems more like that era in the 1990s, metal music in general was trying to escape the hair band era, and be "not-grunge" at the same time. I think White Zombie adopted the shtick because of Rob Zombie's obsession with old schlocky grind house 1970s B movie/obscure/foreign horror. And then he went on to make movies like that. SO, while he also did songs named after B-movie horror, I don't think it was his intent to copy the Misfits. It was more like that was his interest, and it found its way into White Zombie's music. Misfits just happened to do it first, but in a much different context.

 

Oh, Danzig-Era Misfits was (and is) one of my all time favorite bands. I'd have to say I like them over White Zombie/Rob Zombie, for sure.

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Hellbilly Deluxe was a pretty good album, you're right about that.

 

But following that album... Tank's kinda right about solo Zombie. It ranges from average to outright bad. Decidedly a "meh" solo career IMO.

 

Astro-Creep: 2000 was arguably the peak of that particular style of metal.

I thought Sinister Urge was pretty good, too! How can you not get revved up to tunes like Demon Speeding, Scum of the Earth, and Feel So Numb?

I agree that everything since has been pretty meh, but he still puts out a good track here and there, like White Trash Freaks and Rock and Roll in a Black Hole.

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