What Is 'Avant-Garde?'

In the endless search for definitions and microlabels, the modern age internet age has propelled the term 'Avant-Garde' to the forefront of our brains, to describe that which cannot be described, or is more experimental than meets the eye. Does this term have meaning, or is it just fluff for those who don't wish to think harder on the things they enjoy?

What are your thoughts of this subgenre and why?

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[TheMetalTempestYT]

What are your opinions of the term avant-garde and experimental metal/art in general?! Be sure to let me know down Cheers, rock on, stay heavy and have yourselves a fantastic rest of your day or night, depending on when you see

[pablo-arteaga]

I always thought that "avant-garde" in rock and metal meant making weird genre combinations and making very unexpected tonal shifts within songs, but not in a way that's necessarily prog or post rock/metal, which shares some similarites. Personally I see it as more of a descriptor/stylistic choice, like "melodic" or "brutal", since there's not really a definitive sound for it and you can tack it onto existing genres.

[Matthew-xbzn]

1) Re "avant-garde" vs "experimental": so my buddy from high school, who turned me on to David Bowie and later earned a PhD in Music from Princeton, has declared that *within Metal* (which is not really where he hangs out anymore), the difference is positively perceptible and negotiable, less so within other fields, like sculpture per se. The original French term literally means "before keeping" and signifies the importance of experimentation. 2) *Love* your channel MT!

[anothersettlementneedsyour]

Yeah, the overusage of the term completely defeats the purpose of labels. I’d say avant-garde is a transition term at this point, something that is used until you find the right name.

For example all the Free Death bands - Chloroma, Effluence, Encenathrakh, Paroxysm Unit, etc. Most people, including me would call those avant-garde if they didn’t know about free jazz or just the fact that Encenathrakh is not the only band that does this.

[straightfiremetalstraightfirem]

The term's a good short-hand navigational tool to find weird shit, so nah it's good

[Hazzymane]

I read this and I swore it was something from bleach or sum in 😭

[shredderstv]

You're really mad man
Really mad
You're questioning the dictionary
Man
Just understand when and how to use it
Avantgarde means something that is (in fact) avantgarde, a method of writing, a new way of experimenting something, a revolution in a form of art
Not just "something you can't categorize"
Come on if all the world agrees about define sergej eisenstein an avantgardist that means something
Come on.
Avantgarde is the approach of the artist and his impact on the form of art
Experimenting is the approach of the artist on his art
They mean 2 different things