Ending not-so-nice behaviour that permeates discourse surrounding issues like politics, religion, and even fandom stuff.
I Apologize, Everyone!
I apologize for trying to bring race in to the “Avenged Sevenfold versus Led Zeppelin” and plagiarism argument. I still firmly believe that people who like Led Zeppelin who shouldn’t turn around and slam newer bands for copying others.
Constructive criticism is one thing, and it’s fine to criticize Avenged Sevenfold for instances where you believe they plagiarized - as long as you do the same with Led Zeppelin and/or other bands that you like.
However, my beef is with the underlying implication often belying such criticism as “therefore Avenged Sevenfold is a terrible band and nobody should just them”. It’s the unjust double standard of slamming bands that you don’t like whilst ignoring and/or overlooking the same behaviour in bands that you do like.
Even leaving race out of the equation, though - one can hardly argue against the fact that Led Zeppelin stole from artists who were relatively poor, whereas Avenged Sevenfold have been accused of stealing from bands who were already successful in their right. So that’s what my beef is.



I'm anti-copyright.
I don't really have any strong opinion on plagiarism, one way or the other.
However, my point is that there really is no moral justification for being more angry at Avenged Sevenfold for plagiarism than to be angry at Led Zeppelin for such, since Led Zeppelin was the one to cause more financial harm to others.
I think any argument made as far as the origin of rock kind of has to include race. A bunch of black people made something and a bunch other people, many, of whom, were white, capitalized off of it. No way around it.
I honestly don't know what Avenged Sevenfold sounds like and watching this conversation from afar puts a gigantic strain on my willingness to even find out. In any case, I think there is hypocrisy in many of our music choices. Like how some people claim to like Katy Perry (whose music is not just laced with hip-hop structure, it essential copy-pastes it), but who don't like hip hop or rap. Or how there's a YouTube culture that supports people who do uninspiring acoustic covers of rap songs.
This whole idea of validity as an artist being derived or not derived from originality is so convoluted that I think in order to avoid toxic discourse about the matter would mean finding another point to argue all together to quell the situation because both sides seem to fall flat, no?
Basically, I seriously question your posts about Avenged Sevenfold as examples of ending toxic discourse even without the mention of race. They seem to be displays of an aggrieved fan with an axe to grind as opposed to someone trying turn around how we approach music tastes especially if they involve newer bands.
Or maybe I'm just not understanding what "Ending Toxic Discourse" means.
I guess I have a problem with people unfairly being harshly critical of Avenged Sevenfold for plagiarism when they like bands who have done worse.
If people dislike bands, that's fine. However, don't try to make other people who like bands you don't like feel bad about it. I don't care if others like Led Zeppelin. Just don't hypocritically berate other bands (and people who like said bands) for engaging in certain types of behaviour that bands you like are also guilty of.
The bottom line is, just don't shame other people for their musical preferences. That's all.