History Music / Death

** "The Philosopher" is about someone who acts like a fundamentalist. [[MisaimedFandom At least that's what people thought it was about]] until [[TakeThat a rumour about the song's actual meaning was proven right...]]

* TokenMinority: Original vocalist Kam Lee, who is one of the few death metal musicians of Asian descent. Though he's technically of mixed race, as his mother is Caucasian (Irish).

Not to be confused with the '70s punk band of the same name or TheGrimReaper.

Death were the first true DeathMetal band. While Music/{{Possessed}} may have been the first to release an album in the death metal idiom, Death were the first to play the "classic" style of death metal, separating it from ThrashMetal altogether, and their debut album ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Scream Bloody Gore]]'' has been described as death metal's first definitive article.

Initially, Chuck Schuldiner formed the band Mantas at the age of 16; after about a year, he dissolved the band and formed Death. After a lot of members were fired and hired by Schuldiner, the band's first album, ''Scream Bloody Gore'' (1987) was released. It is considered a landmark album of the genre, pretty much starting the trend for gory lyrics and brutality. Eventually, though, more "brutal" bands such as Music/CannibalCorpse, Music/{{Deicide}} and Music/MorbidAngel came along and out-brutalised Death. So, rather than up the heaviness, Schuldiner continued to grow musically, eventually heading in a more [[ProgressiveMetal progressive]] direction starting with the album ''Human''. Their transformation into a [[ProgressiveDeathMetal progressive/technical death metal]] band was one of the things that kickstarted that subgenre, along with the bands Music/{{Atheist}} and Music/{{Cynic}}.

The group, with its ever-changing lineup of members, disbanded in 2001 when Schuldiner died of complications from brain cancer at 34. The band remains one of the most influential death metal bands of all time, and Schuldiner is recognised as the "father of death metal", though he often downplayed the name "death metal" later in his career and regarded Death as a straightforward metal band towards the end of the band's lifetime.

** "Misanthrope" is directed towards, well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin guess]]. The essential message is that yes, some people are assholes, but despising all of humanity just because there are some horrible people out there is short-sighted, childish, and ignorant.

* ''The Fragile Art of Existence'', 1999
* ''When Man and Machine Collide'', cancelled (has been stuck in DevelopmentHell ever since [[DiedDuringProduction Chuck's death]] and has more or less been confirmed to be a dead project)

Initially, Chuck Schuldiner formed the band Mantas at the age of 16; after about a year, he dissolved the band and formed Death. After a lot of members were fired and hired by Schuldiner, the band's first album, ''Scream Bloody Gore'' (1987) was released. It is considered a landmark album of the genre, pretty much starting the trend for gory lyrics and brutality. Eventually, though, more "brutal" bands such as Music/{{Deicide}} and Music/MorbidAngel came along and out-brutalised Death. So, rather than up the heaviness, Schuldiner continued to grow musically, eventually heading in a more [[ProgressiveMetal progressive]] direction starting with the album ''Human''. Their transformation into a [[ProgressiveDeathMetal progressive/technical death metal]] band was one of the things that kickstarted that subgenre, along with the bands Music/{{Atheist}} and Music/{{Cynic}}.

Schuldiner was also one of two guitarists for Control Denied, a progressive metal band, which is considered the continuation of Death. In fact, many of the tracks on Death's final album ''The Sound of Perseverance'' were originally intended to be Control Denied songs, but Schuldiner caved to [[ExecutiveMeddling studio pressure]] and used them for a final Death album instead. He intended to disband Death, at least temporarily, to focus on Control Denied, but his death ended that plan.

Their albums are:
* ''Scream Bloody Gore'', 1987
* ''Leprosy'', 1988
* ''Spiritual Healing'', 1990
* ''Human'', 1991
* ''Individual Thought Patterns'', 1993
* ''Symbolic'', 1995
* ''The Sound of Perseverance'', 1998

Control Denied's albums are:
* ''The Fragile Art of Existence'', 1999
* ''When Man and Machine Collide'', cancelled (has been stuck in DevelopmentHell ever since [[DiedDuringProduction Chuck's death]] and has more or less been confirmed to be a dead project)

Not to be confused with Death, the '70s punk band, or [[TheGrimReaper Death]].

!! Tropes of Comprehension:

** ''Spiritual Healing'''s title track is directed against televangelists, criticizing the idea of closed-mindedness.

* TropeMakers: While Possessed's album ''Seven Churches'' is the first full-length death metal album, Death are considered to be co-trope makers along with Possessed, turning death metal into an actual subgenre instead of just an extreme thrash metal variant.
* TitleTrack: All albums minus ''Human'' and ''The Sound of Perseverance''.
** Also applies to ''The Fragile Art of Existence'' by '''Control Denied'''.

* VocalEvolution: Chuck's voice on ''Symbolic'' and especially ''The Sound of Perseverance'' was considerably higher.

---> ''"When the link they breathe becomes missing."''

[[caption-width-right:326: [[IAmTheBand Chuck Schuldiner]], Gene Hoglan, and a bunch of other guys.]]

* RevolvingDoorBand: Hand-in-hand with IAmTheBand. Wiki/ThatOtherWiki identifies twenty-five people as having been full members of Death at some point, along with three additional live members.

* CarefulWithThatAxe: ''The Sound of Perseverance'' has Chuck doing insanely inhuman screams throughout the whole album.

* ContrivedCoincidence: A tragic example, as Schuldiner was the only constant member and leader of a band that constituted a bonafide multitude of people; of those members of '''Death''', only Schuldiner has died (though guitarist James Murphy also had a cancer-related scare himself).
** In March 2015, Death's last bassist Scott Clendenin passed away at age 47. ''Human'' drummer Sean Reinert passed away in January 2020 at age 48.

* DeadArtistsAreBetter: Chuck Schuldiner gets this treatment somewhat. While Death's music has always been well-respected, the bad reputation he had (see InsufferableGenius below) for a long period in his career is rarely brought up anymore.

* InsufferableGenius: Depending on who you ask, Chuck had a bit of a problem with this, stemming mostly from his desire to keep things as professional as possible and a complete lack of tolerance for infighting. When someone wasn't working out, Chuck seldom gave them a second chance and usually just threw them out and burned all associated bridges; as logic would dictate, this didn't exactly give him the best of reputations. This was more than likely due to the incredibly dysfunctional nature of the band around the time of ''Spiritual Healing'', which left such a bad taste in Chuck's mouth that he vowed to never allow himself to be placed in that position again.
* {{Irony}}: Gene Hoglan was blown away by Sean Reinert's drumming on ''Human'' and remembered expressing relief that he would never be tasked with having to learn such difficult parts. That relief obviously didn't last.

* MrFanservice: Chuck performed shirtless on plenty of occasions.

* NiceGuy: Chuck. Despite having InsufferableGenius syndrome, he was a rather nice and open minded individual. He was pretty modest with of his musical career, feeling Death was just a 'metal band', didn't want to talk credit for the genre and even felt the title he was given, "''The Father of Death Metal''", was a bit too much.

* MohsScaleOfRockAndMetalHardness: Originally at 10, later moved down to 9 as they progressed as a band.
** The mostly-acoustic song "Voice of the Soul" is about a 5 or maybe even a low 6.
** Control Denied is probably mostly in the 6-7 range, maybe occasionally reaching 8.

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'''Death''' were the first true DeathMetal band. While Music/{{Possessed}} may have been the first to release an album in the death metal idiom, Death were the first to play the "classic" style of death metal, separating it from ThrashMetal altogether, and their debut album ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Scream Bloody Gore]]'' has been described as death metal's first definitive article.

* BigBrotherIsWatching: Discussed in "1,000 Eyes".

Schuldiner was also one of two guitarists for Control Denied, a progressive metal band, which is considered the continuation of Death. In fact, many of the tracks on Death's final album ''The Sound of Perseverance'' were originally intended to be Control Denied songs, but Schuldiner caved to [[ExecutiveMeddling studio pressure]] and used them for a final Death album instead. He intended to disband Death, at least temporarily, to focus on Control Denied, but [[AuthorExistenceFailure his long illness]] ended that plan.

* ''When Man and Machine Collide'', cancelled (has been stuck in DevelopmentHell ever since Chuck's AuthorExistenceFailure and has more or less been confirmed to be a dead project)

* TokenMinority: Original vocalist Kam Lee, who is one of the few death metal musicians of Asian descent.

** ''Scream Bloody Gore'' is a case of "Tie for Longest Song Goes Last" in its original release, as the TitleTrack, at 4:35, is the last song on the album, and it is the same length as "Zombie Ritual"; together, they exceed the third-longest song on the album, "Baptized in Blood", by some four seconds. Later releases add bonus tracks; the live version of "Choke on It", at 5:56, closes out the 1999 version and well outstrips any other songs on that particular release. This is, however, an AvertedTrope on other reissues, unless one simply disregards bonus material.