Memes
Meme
"Creative differences"
PR for: we threw fruit / smashed a guitar / cannot share a van.
Bands almost never announce "we hate each other and the publishing split." They say creative differences. At Oasis it meant Noel and Liam fighting again—over a plum, a guitar, a mic, or who got to be the bigger Beatle. Pink Floyd stretched the same phrase across decades of Waters vs Gilmour warfare. When you see it in a press release, open the Person pages: who left first, and what did they record next?
- Examples
- Oasis — Gallagher brothers: the meme that ate Britpop PR.
- Pink Floyd — Waters writes the thesis; Gilmour plays the bend that ends the argument.
Meme
"Name three deep cuts or get out"
Gatekeeping with a discography. Hits are still how most people arrive.
Real version of the joke: someone online grades your taste because you like the single. Deep cuts come after obsession—not before entry. Metal forums, shoegaze Discords, and Britpop group chats all run a version of this quiz. Steal the homework if you want; do not treat it as a visa stamp. Start with the landmark track. Anyone who mocks that is insecure with a spreadsheet.
Half-true
"Ringo isn't even the best drummer in the Beatles"
Internet classic (often misattributed to Lennon). Serves feel, not flash.
The quote floats around as "John said Ringo isn't the best drummer in the world—he isn't even the best drummer in the Beatles." Historians keep killing the attribution; memes keep it alive. What the joke actually points at: Ringo's parts are song-first—fills that stick, time that sits—while drum-nerd culture ranks speed and complexity. Different scoreboards.
- Examples
- The Beatles — Feel vs flash: the endless drum-forum thread.
Meme
Dave Mustaine never forgets 1983
Life goals: write faster riffs than Metallica, hate Metallica, mention getting fired by Metallica.
Mustaine gets kicked from early Metallica, builds Megadeth, and turns the grudge into a career-long running gag—except he is not fully joking. Every thrash comment section eventually returns to 1983. The music is fast enough to settle the argument; the interviews refuse to.
Meme
If it isn't in 13/8, is it even a song?
Odd meters, 18-minute keyboard solos, space-philosophy lyrics—prog gatekeeping as sport.
Prog fans joke (half-serious) that a track without weird time signatures, a thesis-length solo, and lyrics about cosmic systems does not count as music—only as "a song." King Crimson and Rush built the stereotype with actual craft. Use the joke to spot the flex; then listen for arrangement, not just the math.
- Examples
- King Crimson — 21st Century Schizoid Man as the starter pack.
- Rush — Geddy / Alex / Neil: virtuosity as public brand.
Meme
If it sounds like a 90s tape in a Norwegian basement…
…then it is "true" black metal. Fidelity is suspicious; frostbite is authenticity.
Second-wave black metal lore treats bedroom/necro production as a purity test. Clean modern mixes get accused of selling out before anyone argues about riffs. The joke is real in forums; the music still ranges from intentional lo-fi to later bands that can actually record. Listen past the ideology when you want songs, not visas.
- Examples
- Slayer — Not BM—but thrash fans run a parallel "raw vs polished" fight.
- Second-wave BM forums — Where "kvlt" production grades the tape hiss.
Meme
Side project becomes the main band
"Just jamming with friends" ships a better album than the day job.
Dave Grohl starts Foo Fighters as a one-man tape project after Nirvana. Josh Homme stacks Queens, Eagles of Death Metal, and Them Crooked Vultures like side hustles with chart teeth. Rule of thumb: if the "side" band has its own Wikipedia drama and merch table, it is not a side project anymore.
- Examples
- Foo Fighters — Started as Grohl’s solo demos; became the day job.
- Them Crooked Vultures — Homme / Jones / Grohl: side project with a stadium résumé.
Half-true
Stadium sellout vs club purity
Both sides are half right. Volume is not a moral category.
Club kids call arena acts sellouts. Arena acts call club kids romantic about bad PAs. Punk arrives as a cut against stadium excess; Britpop and later indie reclaim big rooms under different clothes. Useful test: do the songs still work when the room scales? Useless test: "real fans only saw them in a basement in 1992."
- Examples
- Oasis — Knebworth: Britpop as stadium sport.
- The Strokes — NYC clubs → festival headliners in one album cycle.
Lore
The classic lineup
The poster faces from the peak albums. Later members remain "the other drummer" forever.
Fans remember a T-shirt more than a chronology. Four faces locked to one album cycle—Zeppelin around IV, Sabbath with Ozzy—and that cast becomes "the real band." It is unfair and commercially inevitable. Peak chemistry sells merch; Wikipedia arguments freeze it. We name lineup versions so you can use the myth without erasing every other cast.
- Examples
- Led Zeppelin — Page / Plant / Jones / Bonham—one public image.
- Black Sabbath — Ozzy era vs Dio era: two "classic" wars in one logo.
Meme
The manufactured rivalry
Blur vs Oasis sold papers. The music was already different; the feud was the product.
NME and tabloids need a title fight. Two bands from the same decade get cast as enemies even when the catalogs barely overlap. Sometimes the artists lean into it for charts. Sometimes they hate the script and still get quoted into it. Read the records first; treat the "war" as marketing with better lighting.
Lore
The producer as fifth member
If you mute the producer’s choices, the "band sound" disappears.
George Martin with the Beatles. Butch Vig on Nevermind. Flood / Alan Moulder on half the 90s alternative map. Fans argue guitars; engineers argue compression, mic placement, and which take survives. When a band switches producers and "loses the magic," check the credits before you blame the new bassist.
- Examples
- The Beatles — Martin as arranging / studio co-author in the public myth.
- Nirvana — Nevermind polish vs In Utero raw—producer choice as identity fight.
Half-true
The reunion tour
Same hits, higher ticket prices, optional new album nobody asked for.
The honest pitch: we need the money / we miss the volume / the kids never saw us. The dishonest pitch: "we have unfinished artistic business." Sometimes the chemistry returns. Sometimes it is a karaoke franchise with original faces. Check whether they play the deep cuts they gatekept you for—or just the singles that paid for the private jet.
- Examples
- Black Sabbath — Multiple "final" runs; Ozzy-era nostalgia as product.
- The Stone Roses — Long wait, big rooms, same two albums in the bloodstream.
Lore
The riff that ate the band
One hook pays the mortgage and freezes the setlist. Income stream and trap.
Satisfaction. Smoke on the Water. Teen Spirit. The crowd waits for that shape; everything else becomes "the other songs." Bands cope differently: lean into greatest-hits mode, joke about it onstage, or do the Radiohead move—mutate until the hit feels like a previous life. Once a riff is that big, culture owns it more than the band does.
- Examples
- Deep Purple — Smoke on the Water: guitar-shop national anthem.
- Nirvana — Teen Spirit still owns the public image.
- Radiohead — Deliberately left the early hit behind.
Half-true
The singer leaves (band keeps the logo)
Half the comments say "not the real band." The other half buys the ticket anyway.
Ozzy gets fired; Sabbath keeps touring with Dio and later singers. Fans treat the logo like a sports franchise and the singer like a coach swap. Sometimes the new voice is better for that album cycle. Sometimes it is karaoke with a famous riff library. Check the year on the shirt before you start the fight.
- Examples
- Black Sabbath — Ozzy out → Dio in: two peak catalogs, one argument forever.
- Van Halen — Roth vs Hagar camps never signed a peace treaty.
Meme
Tuning is optional (stomp the DS-1)
Mustang + BOSS DS-1: once the distortion is on, pitch is a suggestion.
Kurt Cobain's public guitar myth is not boutique tuning discipline—it is drop the pedal, hit power chords, let the song carry the mess. Grunge jokes about "out of tune" miss the point: the record still locks because the riffs and dynamics are the architecture. Noise with a chorus is still a chorus.
- Examples
- Nirvana — DS-1 lore as gear meme and soft-loud grammar.
Meme
Waters writes the thesis, Gilmour plays one bend
Forty minutes on war, systems, and Dad—then one guitar phrase ends the debate.
Roger Waters builds concept-album architecture and spoken-word rage. David Gilmour answers with tone, sustain, and a bend that makes stadiums go quiet. Floyd fans pick a side the way football fans pick a club. The joke works because both halves are on the same records.
- Examples
- Pink Floyd — The split is the lore; the solos are the receipt.
Meme
Where is the bass in the mix?
Engineer muted the bass track. The bassist finished the gig without noticing.
Oldest band joke after drummer jokes: turn down the bass until it is a rumor. Early Beatles stereo oddities, metal walls of guitar, and indie "midrange forever" mixes all feed the meme. Sometimes it is a bad mix. Sometimes the bass is felt more than heard. Either way, the bassist still has to carry the amp.
- Examples
- The Beatles — Hard-panned early stereo: bass jokes write themselves.
- Metallica — …And Justice / later loudness wars: bass as casualty in fan lore.
Meme
Why "shoegaze"? Look down.
The pedalboard is bigger than the living room. Fuzz and delay get stomped for an hour.
The name stuck because guitarists stare at the floor—at racks of pedals—while walls of reverb and fuzz bury the vocal. My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive made the joke true: gaze at shoes, flood the room, leave the stage banter to other genres.
- Examples
- My Bloody Valentine — Loveless: guitar ocean as identity.
- Slowdive — Delay/reverb stacks, whispered vocals, shoes optional but on-brand.